Do the Just Thing
Dear Jerry- Thanks for your kind words earlier this year about the Ben Johnston String Quartet release on New World Records. I am the producer of that disc, and also…
It’s a Blog!
We have a terrific new blog to unveil this morning. It’s called From the Faraway Nearby: An American Composer in Latvia and is written by Charles Griffin, a native New…
Happy Birthday, Steve
Steve Reich turns 70 today. There will be the usual superlatives–greatest living composer, most important musical thinker, and other fun, but largely unreliable, speculations. We won’t burden Reich with any…
Family Bidness
Elodie Lauten is performing and presenting her piano and chamber music on Tuesday, October 3 – 8 PM at Faust Harrison Pianos, 205 West 58th Street in Manhattan. Elodie will…
Letter from Boston: Ghosts, yearning, time, the sea, and the Globe
From H.H. Stuckenschmidt, “Arnold Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work,” translated by Humphrey Searle (New York: Schirmer Books, 1977): ” … in 1934 answered a query from Dr. Walter E.…
An Orchestra Blooms in Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra announced the schedule yesterday for its usual four concerts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and there’s great news for contemporary music lovers, especially those who…
Malcolm Arnold, 84
Malcolm Arnold died over the weekend. He was a deeply troubled man who had a remarkably productive life against the odds. He was, in my view, the most underrated symphonist…
Loose Ends
Alex Ross has a moving tribute to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in this week’s New Yorker. “She was the most remarkable singer I ever heard,” he writes, and it’s hard to…
What to Wear in LA
Michael Gordon’s new post-rock opera What To Wear opens tonight at the Redcat Theater in downtown LA. Richard Foreman wrote the libretto and directs the stage production. According to our…
News Flash: Zorn is a Genius
John Zorn is officially a genuis. The 53-year-old composer, improviser, saxophonist, provocateur, and ardent promoter of experimental music through his Tzadik recording label, was one of 25 new MacArthur Fellows…