Anybody know a good classical or new music video blogger? I may have a pretty neat gig for them. Send me a note or leave a note below. sequenza21@gmail.com
Would be in record stores on March 3 if there were such a thing as record stores. Available here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxKqg0Fwsro[/youtube]
Some enterprising folks have put together an updatable master list of artists, musicians and bands on Twitter. (Yes, now you too can tell Jimmy Eat World what you had for breakfast). Why don’t one of you geeky types with some time on your hands rush over to Google Docs and create a spread sheet where Composers, Real Musicians (like the ones who read S21) and fellow travelers can add their Twitter addresses. We’ll do a link
Our always adventuresome friends at Starkland have outdone themselves this time with an ambitious 65-minute studio composition by Phil Kline commissioned specifically for high-resolution surround sound and DVD. Around the World in a Daze offers Kline’s trademark boombox choirs, as well as (it says here) “an ethereal Ethel string quartet, a weird madrigal, hyper-dense bells (hundreds of thousands at one point), richly mournful multi-tracked vocals, soaring violinistics from Todd Reynolds, and an immersive environment of 15,000 African gray parrots.”
I’m a big fan of innovative packaging (this is one of my all-time favorite books) and Daze is an amazing example of cool presentation. The custom‑designed double digipak includes an Extras disc with a composer-produced music video, a 30-minute interview with Kline and John Schaefer, as well as a 24-page booklet. Release date is March 24. (Yes, I know I had 4 before.)
Ok, let’s have a contest. The first person who can correctly guess the two-part 20th century piano sonata that I would like someone like Blair or Jenny or Sarah to play at my memorial service (not currently on the calendar, as far as I know) gets a copy of Around the World in a Daze. One small catch–you have to write a little review that we’ll publish here on the frontpage so the rest of us will know what you thought.
The ‘reenvisioned’ Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center opens Sunday. I hope they haven’t moved the chairs closer together. It was the only concert hall in New York where you could walk across a row without stepping on a fellow patron’s feet.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaWYSvlCZH4[/youtube]
Big Up to our familiar Lawrence Dillon whose Ravinia Festival winning composition The Better Angels of Our Nature will be performed on tour by the Lincoln Trio (ensemble in residence at the Music Institute of Chicago) and narrator Welz Kauffman (CEO of the Ravinia Festival) 33 times from February 11th to April 24th in cities throughout Illinois, including Chicago, Springfield, Champaign, Decatur, Urbana, Evanston, Lincoln and Bloomington. The work is one of three competition-winning compositions, the other two of which are James Crowley’s From the Earth and Eric Sawyer’s Lincoln’s Two Americas. All three works will be presented on the tour.
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the nice folks at Newspeak (you remember them; they did the great birthday concert for Frederic Rzewski last May) is celebrating its attainment of not-for-profit status with a benefit concert on Wednesday, February 25, at the Players Theatre, a part of Music on MacDougal, to raise some funds to record its first CD to be produced by Lawson White, and released on New Amsterdam Records.
The show will include music by Caleb Burhans (Newspeak, itsnotyouitsme), Missy Mazzoli (Victoire, MATA Festival), Stefan Weisman, Pat Muchmore (Anti-Social Music), Oscar Bettison, Massey, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and group-founder David T. Little. Composer and New Amsterdam Records co-director Judd Greenstein will also make an appearance.
There will be a wine and chocolate reception following the performance where the audience will have the chance to meet the performers and composers. Be sure you’ve had your shots. (It’s a joke, it’s a joke.)
Best Classical Contemporary Composition
Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems Of Bob Dylan
John Corigliano (JoAnn Falletta)
Track from: Corigliano: Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems Of Bob Dylan
[Naxos]
Best Classical Album
Weill: Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny
James Conlon, conductor; Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone & Audra McDonald; Fred Vogler, producer (Donnie Ray Albert, John Easterlin, Steven Humes, Mel Ulrich & Robert Wörle; Los Angeles Opera Chorus; Los Angeles Opera Orchestra)
[EuroArts]
Best Orchestral Performance
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4
Bernard Haitink, conductor (Chicago Symphony Orchestra)
[CSO Resound]
Best Opera Recording
Weill: Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny
James Conlon, conductor; Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone & Audra McDonald; Fred Vogler, producer (Donnie Ray Albert, John Easterlin, Steven Humes, Mel Ulrich & Robert Wörle; Los Angeles Opera Orchestra; Los Angeles Opera Chorus)
[EuroArts]
Best Choral Performance
Symphony Of Psalms
Sir Simon Rattle, conductor; Simon Halsey, chorus master (Berliner Philharmoniker; Rundfunkchor Berlin)
Track from: Stravinsky: Symphonies
[EMI Classics]
Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with Orchestra)
Schoenberg/Sibelius: Violin Concertos
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Hilary Hahn (Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra)
[Deutsche Grammophon]
Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without Orchestra)
Piano Music Of Salonen, Stucky, And Lutoslawski
Gloria Cheng
[Telarc]
Best Chamber Music Performance
Carter, Elliott: String Quartets Nos. 1 And 5
Pacifica Quartet
[Naxos]
From Sarah Baird:
Aurora Natola-Ginastera, internationally renowned cello virtuoso and wife of the late composer, Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), passed away on Sunday, January 25, in Geneva. She was 85 years old. (Alberto wrote his second Cello Concerto for her, at least. What would our repertoire look like if not for composers in love?! ) The funeral information follows. All best. ~ Sarah
Ceremony, followed by burial:
Tuesday, Feb 3, 10 a.m. / Eglise St-Joseph / Rue Petit-Senn / 1207 Geneva
Burial:
Cimetière de Plainpalais / Rue des Rois 10 / 1204 Geneva
JB Note: Valentine’s Day is not that far away. Good time to discuss great music inspired by love.
So Yo-Yo, Itzhak and gang were string synching and what we heard on TV was Memorex. Misleading? Unethical? Biggest scandal since we found out that those adorable little Chinese kids were lip synching the opening ceremony of the Olympics? Or, no biggie. Give the nice folks a break, nobody could actually play under those frigid conditions.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDUTM3NViHc[/youtube]
Both György Kurtág and Peter Eötvös will be in New York this month as part of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture’s Hungarian Culture Year (“Extremely Hungary”). Carnegie Hall presents two weeks of folk, symphonic, and new music, as well as educational programs performed by today’s most noted Hungarian musicians. Featured highlights of the festival will be three concerts of music by two of Hungary’s greatest living composers.
On January 29 Peter Eötvös will lead Ensemble ACJW in a portrait concert of his music. On the program will be the U.S. premiere performance of Octet Plus (2008) for soprano and wind instruments, featuring a rare U.S. performance by soprano Barbara Hannigan.
The music of György Kurtág will be at the center of the Hungary Festival performances. His Songs to Poems by Anna Akhmatova, Op. 41 will receive its world premiere on January 31 by the UMZE ensemble under the baton of Peter Eötvös. On February 1, in an unprecedented event for New York City, Kurtág and his wife, Márta Kurtág, will perform a full recital of transcriptions and selections from Játékok, Kurtág’s remarkable series of teaching pieces for piano.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQgyyqs4iMQ[/youtube]