Thursday, February 28, 2008
Baby Steps

2008 brought something new to Mississippi Public Broadcasting: HDRadio.

I had no idea HDRadio existed. I know more about it now, but I have yet to see an HDRadio on sale in any store.

The new year brought a change in their normal format. More talk shows, news programming, and less music. With an addition of an HD channel they have created a new station of just music programming.

And get this.....they have a show titled Modern Classical airing on Saturdays which I have managed to listen online a couple times. There is a new classical music director and she really seems to be attempting to change the Muzak feel of MPB.

I did start laughing when I listened to the first show and she said, "Every episode of Modern Classical will feature at least one work of a living composer!" That episode started off with Satie's Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear and I thought "Oh, this is going to be the greatest classical hits of the early 20th century.”

The second episode did surprise me when it included Zippo Songs by Phil Kline. It is a very interesting piece and I was amazed to here it coming from MPB radio.

Here is a list of works I have heard so far on Modern Classical:

Milhaud - La Creation du Monde
Rodrigo - Five Childrens Pieces
Phil Kline - Zippo Songs
Bartok - Violin Rhapsody No. 1
Holst - Mars
Eric Satie – Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear
Morton Feldman – Rothko Chapel mvts 4 & 5
Prokofiev – Classical Symphony
Webern – Six Pieces for Orchestra op. 6
Bret Dietz - I think it was a piece for two marimbas…sorry.


I haven’t heard any Xenakis yet. Perhaps it’s coming?
Slowly acclimating the listeners to the new stuff I guess.
posted by Everette Minchew 8:21 AM


Composer Everette Minchew (born 1977) is consistently active in the creation, performance, and promotion of contemporary music. Moderately prolific, his catalogue includes small chamber pieces for violin, piano, various wind instruments, harpsichord and electronic music. Current commissions include a string trio and an opera based on an 11th-century crusades tale. His earliest musical training came at the age of eleven when he began playing alto saxophone; it wasn?t long until he began his first attempts in composition.

He received a Bachelor?s Degree in Music History from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he studied saxophone under world-renowned soloist, Lawrence Gwozdz.

Fearing that traditional university training would hinder his development as a progressive composer, he abandoned the idea of formal lessons in favor of an intense private study of modern masterworks.

Minchew's works are characterized by their intense timbral explorations and brutal dissonance. That is not to say, however, that the compositions are devoid of beauty. In the first of the Two Brief Pieces, for example, the harpsichord chimes stringent yet haunting chords evoking a sense of loss. Other pieces, like the Figment No. 2 "Juggler's Fancy" play upon the kaleidoscopic interaction between timbres and tones. The rapid alternation of pizzicato, arco bowing, and extreme glissandi remind the listener of Xenakis coupled with a Berio Sequenza. Minchew's Invention "Two-Part Contraption" for piano owes much to Ligeti's etudes and boogie-woogie jazz.

His music has been performed around the United States, and he was the featured composer at the 2005 Intégrales New Music Festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
He currently resides in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with his wife, Cheryl.

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