"There are no two points so distant from one another that they cannot be connected by a single straight line -- and an infinite number of curves."
Composer Lawrence Dillon has produced an extensive body of work, from brief solo pieces to a full-length opera. Three disks of his music are due out in 2010 on the Bridge, Albany and Naxos labels. In the past year, he has had commissions from the Emerson String Quartet, the Cassatt String Quartet, the Mansfield Symphony, the Boise Philharmonic, the Salt Lake City Symphony, the Ravinia Festival, the Daedalus String Quartet, the Kenan Institute for the Arts, the University of Utah and the Idyllwild Symphony Orchestra.
Although he lost 50% of his hearing in a childhood illness, Dillon began composing as soon as he started piano lessons at the age of seven. In 1985, he became the youngest composer to earn a doctorate at The Juilliard School, and was shortly thereafter appointed to the Juilliard faculty. Dillon is now Composer in Residence at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he has served as Music Director of the Contemporary Ensemble, Assistant Dean of Performance, and Interim Dean of the School of Music. He was the Featured American Composer in the February 2006 issue of Chamber Music magazine.
I had a dream last night I was contacting ICM, one of the top artist management firms, and the logo on their website said, “Less Entertainment -- More Fun.” And I thought, Yes, that’s what I need.
Unfortunately, when I clicked on the link in the website, I woke up -- and the world was as it is.
But the idea of seeking Fun as opposed to Entertainment stayed with me.
A lot of what I’m told is entertaining – Hollywood blockbusters, elimination games, red-carpet interviews – I find terribly dull. But the slow movement of the Debussy quartet that Miró Quartet played the other night as an encore? Sheer Fun.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a diatribe about Art vs. Entertainment. Those are two overlapping regions on the same continuum; it’s often difficult – and pointless – to distinguish between them.
But just as there is much Art that doesn’t live up to its lofty billing, there is a ton of Entertainment that only makes the world a more disspiriting place to live in.
And neither Art nor Entertainment has a monopoly on Fun.
