Our 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. Time to leave our standard classical composers and performers behind for a second, to hear what the writers can do: Liesl Ujvary – Ann Cotten – Hanno Millesi (Austria): “Ghostengine – Speech without Language” (2005) Liesl Ujvary (1939-, Pressburg/Slovakia) moved to Austria in 1945 and spent her childhood in Lower Austria and Tyrol. She studied Slavonic, old-Hebrew literature and art history in Vienna and Zurich.
Read moreThe rabid right has worked itself into a state over Ken Burns’ extraordinarily fair, balanced and altogether pro-American documentary series, The War. Partly it’s the fact that it is on PBS and it it is an article of faith among conservatives that PBS is run by a bunch of commie, pinko surrender monkeys who use taxpayer dollars to grind out streams of anti-American propaganda. Forget the fact that most of money comes from such dubious sources as General Motors, Anheiser-Busch, Bank of America and generous foundations established by thoughtful capitalists of the past. Keep those kids away from PBS; they might see a gay cartoon character. Another part of
Read moreAdam Kirsch, writing in today’s New York Sun: The critic of the serious arts — poetry, painting, music — is addressing readers who are not just indifferent to new work, but feel justified in their indifference. The critic’s first job, then, even before he evaluates individual works, is to make the reader feel uneasy about his ignorance—to convince him that the art in question is vital and serious, deserving of complex attention. A reader who has always heard that classical music is dead must first be convinced that it is alive. No critic at work today does this better
Read moreTwo contemporary African-American composers shared the spotlight with Bach, Turina, Ellington, and Piazzolla at the Sphinx Organization Gala at Carnegie Hall last night. Cellist Tahirah Whittington held a sold-out Stern captive with Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s “Perpetual Motion” from his Lamentations Suite for solo cello. A fierce, prolonged flourish perfect for a charismatic performer, its aggression contrasted nicely with the similarly Bluegrass-inspired Delights and Dances for string quartet and string orchestra by Michael Abels. Performed by the Harlem Quartet, Delights is a pleasant work which Edgar Meyer fans will find plenty congenial. The zippy, high-flying finale had the audience on their feet
Read moreAlas, no composers among the MacArthur geniuses named today but Dawn Upshaw, who probably makes a decent living at this singing and recording business, will be getting a check for $500,000. (I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve it, mind you, just that there are probably equally deserving singers who could use a boost at this point in their career but, then, Ms. Upshaw has had a tough couple of years and could probably use a boost, too, so forget everything I’ve said up to this point. Let’s pretend that you’re a MacArthur judge. Who would you give the award to?
Read moreShould that be Dargel in briefs?
Read moreDuring the summer the music programming stays pretty much with the established and conventional, if not with the outright light and popular. I missed about the only performance of contemporary music at the Bowl, and the programming of the concerts by the lawn of the Huntington Gardens by the Southwest Chamber musicians was much more traditional than usual so that the one real treat was Elissa Johnston singing the Berio “Folk Songs” as part of a delightful program of Debussy supplemented by Lou Harrison and the Berio songs. But now we’re ready to have more music of today. Arranging our calendars
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 moreI’ve been paying some bills for the past couple for the past couple of days and haven’t had a chance to update much. While I’m still catching up, why don’t we do a followup to our great music fiction list–the essential non-fiction books about music. Perhaps, we could have a beginner’s or popular list and an advanced list. Who’s got something?
Read moreLast week I went to Corey Dargel’s new postmodern cabaret show “Removable Parts,” and it was excellent. I call it “postmodern cabaret” because I’m not sure what else to call it—it was a series of songs on the theme of voluntary amputation, and they were performed by Corey and Kathleen Supové who performed in character as a sort of dysfunctional cabaret act. The songs were delightful—intelligently composed and quirky, moving in fits and starts, building up grooves and then taking them apart, stealing from and recontextualizing various pop, rock, and classical idioms. The lyrics and dialogue were witty, treading that
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