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…
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…
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…
Music for Multiple Basses and The President of the United States
Florent Ghys has a new CD coming out on Cantaloupe on Tuesday. To mark the occasion and the upcoming The Union is in a State address by President Obama, we…
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.…
A little Friday music
Champ pianist Sarah Cahill performing Henry Cowell’s Tiger and Lou Harrison’s Largo Ostinato, from the December 2008 Other Minds “New Music Seance”: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Qm6rEwT54[/youtube]
Unwrapping Small Packages on a Saturday Night
I like to plan ahead. But does that just mean I’m too old to decide where I’m going at the last minute, like the Generation Y and Z impulsives we…
Dr. Atomic as Opera or Symphony?
Many people are still talking about the New York production of John Adams’ latest opera, Dr. Atomic. But Adams wasn’t through with the material after its stage presentation. Nonesuch recently…