Intimate epics: Michael Hersch’s “Last Autumn”
There was a fair amount of buzz a couple years ago (including here at s21), when composer Michael Hersch‘s enormous piano canvas The Vanishing Pavilions was released on CD. What…
Better than expected?
Alex Ross gives a rundown of upcoming seasons at both the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras. There’s a fair amount of contemporary work on the bills from both…
Around the block
In case you’ve been getting in the habit of just clicking on the main page, taking a quick stare and then waltzing off hither and yon… Judith Lang Zaimont tells…
Calling all Ludwig lovers
My guitarist friend in Mexico, Alexandra Cárdenas, passes along a request received from a German accordionist Eva Zöllner: Dear friends, I need your help for a project I will present…
Blängen the Schlingen with Charlemagne Palestine
Pwyll ap Siôn is a composer and Senior Lecturer in music at Bangor University in Wales (UK). His strong interest in Minimalism (he’s written a book on Michael Nyman) led…
Pick a tone, any tone
The American Music Center’s NewMusicBox-meister Frank J. Oteri dropped by, with word of an upcoming gig of his own this Saturday: “Just wanted to alert you folks that Tonally Perplexed,…
Seeing what was coming right from the start
Composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900, of Gilbert & Sullivan fame) happened to be one of the earliest voices captured, in 1888, by Thomas Edison’s then-new wax-cylinder recording machine. Invited to…
Concordance later, but first a saxy song
New and specialized ensembles, groups of composers and performers banding together, DIY concerts and record labels… All the stuff of now. But let’s pay a little respect to New York’s…
Talking with composers, Canada and beyond
Each generation of composers coming up through college is always a little dismayed to find their music history survey books fizzling out in their descriptions current composers. Maybe one compressed…
Incoming
Head’s up on a couple things this coming week that caught my eye: WPRB’s Marvin Rosen is doing a special edition of his Classical Discoveries radio show this Wednesday, Jan.…