Category: Uncategorized

Benjamin Britten, composer, pianist, conductor, pacifist, humanitarian, and visionary, died on December 4th 1976. The thirtieth anniversary of his death is being celebrated with the remarkable story of how he…

Our weekly listen and look at (mostly) living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, since…

In Ohio over Thanksgiving, I was happy to discover a small pile of mail from Manhattan School of Music: it’s about time they decided to keep in touch with their…

As part of his residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Thomas Ades was given a Green Umbrella concert, his choice of music, and his choice of role.  Ades chose to conduct,…

It’s awfully quiet out there.  What are you folks up to?  I’m off to lunch at a nice bistro called Le Singe Vert.  Why don’t you talk amonst yourselves for…

Name all the people in this photo and win a turkey.  (Thanks to Steve Layton for the Last Supper treatment.)

There are three anniversaries today of important events connected by a fascinating thread. November 22nd is remembered by many for the assassination of John F Kennedy in Dallas in 1963, while…

Thomas Ades is back in town, and this season he will have five different programs showing Los Angeles his range of talents as composer, pianist, and conductor.  We saw the…

‘If you’re talking about “relevance to the wider culture” and “speaking to our times“, and all that Greg Sandowian stuff, I couldn’t possibly care less … People seem to forget that…

All too often today, appealing menus of new music turn out to be measly meals relying heavily on technical gimmickry, self-serving cliques, bitchiness and cynicism. By contrast the Britten Sinfonia…