Already mentioned at Bruce Hodges’ Monotonous Forest, and soon should be buzzing all over the new-music web, but this is so absolutely inspired and well-executed that I just have to help spread it around even more: Virgil Moorefield (who was one of my click picks here not so long ago) recently directed the Digital Music Ensemble at the University of Michigan in a miniature version of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s already-audacious Helikopter-Streichquartett. To me this version is every bit as audacious as the original, subversive and absolutely respectful at the same moment… And both visually and aurally stunning, to boot. There are two Quicktime
Read more(OK, OK I know, the puns don’t come any worse than that…) No F.Z. music, but rather a reminder that The excellent U.K. ensemble Psappha (with help from Lancaster University and the BBC Singers) is in the middle of a great webcast series. You can watch and listen already to any of the pieces from the first two concerts, the third concert available March 31st. Webcast #1 includes Larry Goves’ Four Letter Words, Gyorgy Kurtag’s Signs, Games and Messages and Scenes from a Novel, and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Aventures & Nouvelles Aventures. Webcast #2 is all Claude Vivier: his Et je reverrai
Read moreNew Yawkers could do worse at 8 p.m. on March 1st, than drop by Roulette, plunk down a $10 and slurp-munch free refreshments, all while checking out this great little posse of 80’s-born composers’ music: Timothy Andres will present two recent works: Play it By Ear (2007), for a mixed chamber group of nine players, and Strider (2006), “ambient music” for vibraphone and piano. Both pieces will feature the best young musicians from the Yale School of Music, with the composer on piano. Lainie Fefferman has a new electric guitar quartet called Tounge of Thorns (2007), which she describes as
Read more…The Seattle Times‘ forever-esconced-but-barely-there music crtic, Melinda Bargreen (reviewing Thursday’s Seattle Symphony concert): When a conductor picks up a microphone to address the audience about the music they’re going to hear, the audience can be pretty sure of one thing: They aren’t expected to like the piece. By the time guest conductor Michael Stern had finished telling Thursday’s Seattle Symphony audience about Varèse’s “Intégrales,” it’s a wonder they weren’t fleeing the hall en masse. With Stern’s every phrase (“A certain weird clarity,” “An assault on the senses”), the impending work loomed more ominously. When the downbeat finally came, and the
Read moreLast year, many of us saw a posting regarding the VIM:Tribeca concert series. The organizers, Judd Greenstein and Kimball Gallagher, wanted to put on concert series of mostly new works; the composers were responsible for providing performers. The concerts were to be put on in the Gallerie Icosahedron (I’m deliberately not linking to them, for reasons that will be apparent soon!). The first indication of trouble to us should have been the delays, imposed by the gallery, regarding scheduling and, we found out later, the renting of a piano. The first public sign of trouble was the sudden announcement that
Read moreSteve Peters quietly came to Seattle in 2004, after running the non-profit performance organization Nonsequitur out of Albuquerque for 15 years. After a stint at Jackstraw he was finally ready to get back to what he does best (besides making his own wonderful music/sound-art): creating an inviting and flexible space and then filling it up with vital performances. Very soon after its inaugaration this year, the Chapel became probably the premiere initmate space in Seattle for catching new music. An actual chapel in the beautiful, old Good Shepherd Center (a former home for young girls), tucked into a great park
Read moreOur regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, with so much good listening online: sound. from SASSAS (Los Angeles) In 1998, L.A. artist Cindy Bernard and friends started a series of concerts and installations that became the non-profit organisation SASSAS, the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound. Their goal is “to serve as a catalyst for the creation, presentation, and recognition of experimental art and sound practices in the Greater Los Angeles area”. Most of
Read more“Music should either touch your soul or make you dance,” Michael Abels says, and though he admits there is a lot of music out there that doesn’t do either, those should be the goals. “I always ask my students ‘what is the purpose of your music?’ You can’t create it unless you know what you want it to do.” Abels, 45, is a Los Angeles-based composer and educator who heads the Music Program at the progressive New Roads School in Santa Monica, a private K-12 school that–upscale zip code, notwithstanding–has a very diverse student population, with nearly half of the students on scholarship. For Abels, that’s one of the
Read moreThe season is underway in New York and, as usual, there are a number of promising looking performances coming up. Here are a few things to look for: Margaret Garner, Richard Danielpour’s operatic collaboration with Toni Morrison, is in mid-run at City Opera and, judging from the ads, there are plenty of seats to be had. I can’t quite stir myself enough to drag up there and sit through an evening of misery about a runaway slave who murders her daughter rather than have her captured. Doesn’t stop me from having an opinion, though. Morrison is too sanctimonious and self-important by half and
Read moreFabulous review of Corey Dargel’s “darkly enchanting” theater piece about voluntary amputation, Removable Parts, in today’s New York Times. A few years from now when Corey is permanently ensconsed in the old Bobby Short room at the Carlyle, we’ll all say we knew him when. Matthew Cmeil has a new website. Steve Layton has a hot new piece for your dining and dancing pleasure: Spin It (2002; 2007 performance) Alesis QSR & my FreeSound posse (sandyrb, oniwe) Minimalist multi sax and keyboard barrage, to be played as loudly as you or your neighbors can stand… The technique is all Rzewski &
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