I’ve just finished a new piece called Elevator Music, which is intended to be performed by two people in an elevator or a similar enclosed, public space.  It consists of a set of 5 rhythmic cells which are played by slapping or knocking on the walls of the elevator.  The idea here is in the tradition of a sort of guerilla performance practice where music is brought into unexpected places, unannounced. The premiere is up for grabs–let me know if you perform it somewhere.  Obviously, I can’t be held responsible for arrests or other legal action, and the point isn’t

On July 3, the very excellent percussionist, Sam Solomon, presented a Boston University Tangelwood Institute (BUTI) faculty recital at Trinity Church in Lenox (Ma). His program included pieces by Nico Muhly, Eric Hewitt, Michael Early, David T. Little, Marcos Balter, and Judd Greenstein, two of them–Hewitt and Early–first performances. Due to the circumstances, the place was packed with attentive and enthusiatic teenagers, although that doesn’t mean that such a demographic wouldn’t necessarily show up to such a performance somewhere else, given how exciting and entertaining this one was. Every one of the pieces was thoughtfully made and impressively and interestingly

Last Thursday, the NEA funding increases survived three hostile amendments in the House and ultimately made it through to approval unscathed.  The most hostile of the amendments, offered by Doub Lamborn (R-CO), would have eliminated funding for the NEA, and was defeated 97-335.  Of those 97 yes votes, 3 were Democrats: Gene Taylor of Mississippi, Ike Skelton of Missouri, and Jim Matheson of Utah.  The Republicans were split roughly 50/50, with 94 ayes and 104 nays.  The closest vote was for the Bishop amendment to move $31.6 Million from the NEA to the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, National

One of my dearest friends and a neighbor of many years died this afternoon.  He was a lifelong bachelor who had lost most of the hearing in both ears when an anti-tank gun fired while he was crawling under it in France during World War II when he was 19.  He went on to become a respected man of science, a cancer researcher, and a well-known skeptic of alternative medicine.  He had no tolerance for miracle cures and especially hated those who sold hope to the hopeless with their promises of blood transfers and shark skin enemas and other exotic cures.  He was not warm and cuddly and he didn’t have a lot of