The Original New Music Community
The ‘reenvisioned’ Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center opens Sunday. I hope they haven’t moved the chairs closer together. It was the only concert hall in New York where you could walk across a row without stepping on a fellow patron’s feet.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaWYSvlCZH4[/youtube]
While well-known for his writings about music, including books about Elliott Carter and George Gershwin, David Schiff is also a prolific and active composer. A professor at Reed College, he’s visiting New York this week to hear the American Composer’s Orchestra premiere a revamped version of Stomp, a piece that celebrates the music of James Brown. The concert, part of the Orchestra Underground series, also includes premieres by Margaret Brouwer and Kasumi, Rand Steiger, Fang Man, and Kati Agócs.
Carey: Stomp was written in 1990 for Marin Alsop. How did you decide to write in homage to James Brown?
Schiff: I was asked for a concert opener and somewhere in the process I realized that one of my rhythmic motives was from James Brown’s “I Feel Good” (as recorded Live at the Apollo). I then re-conceived the piece as a tribute.
Carey: Have other rock or jazz legends figured in your music?
Schiff: There’s a big Motown section in my Scenes from Adolescence (1987) and my Slow Dance for orchestra (1989), written for the Oregon Symphony, has a lot of Charles Mingus in it, but I have also had the great honor of working with two living legends in jazz, Regina Carter and Marty Ehrlich.
Carey: What’s “re-lit” about this new version for the ACO?
Schiff: ACO asked me to reduce the size of the orchestra slightly to fit in Zankel Hall. This gave me the opportunity to re-score the entire piece. The wind section now is much better suited to the style of the piece: flute, E flat clarinet, two saxes, trumpet horn, trombone and tuba. But there are also a lot of musical changes everywhere. I think that in the years since I first wrote Stomp I have become more experienced with the style. The new version is much hotter than the original–even though the orchestra is smaller.
Carey: You’re currently at work on a book about Duke Ellington. Is that research infiltrating your composing at all?
Schiff: Ellington’s music influences everything I do. I go to school with his music every day and I find his melodies, rhythms, harmonies and instrumentation endlessly inspiring.
A couple quick bits passed along by S21 compadres:
Ed Lawes wants to remind every classical afficionado to take a gander at the Gramophone’s online archive. Literally every issue of the magazine is there, from 1923 (!) until today. If that doesn’t count as a fabulous resource, I don’t know what does.
And our favorite crusty uncle, Seth Gordon, has word on a new-music Oscar tie-in that you may not be aware of: Yeah, yeah, we all know that the best score is headed to one of the semi-usual suspects: Alexandre Desplat, James Newton Howard, Danny Elfman, A.R. Rahman, Thomas Newman… But the producer of Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World is none other than one of the deans of modern experimental guitar, Henry Kaiser. Poke around his site and you’ll see that Henry has had a life that could qualify for an Oscar on its own. Here’s hoping…
To paraphrase the last part of Watson and Crick’s seminal (no pun intended) 1953 paper on the x-ray crystallographic structure of DNA, I wonder if this might have some relevance to our situation…
Big Up to our familiar Lawrence Dillon whose Ravinia Festival winning composition The Better Angels of Our Nature will be performed on tour by the Lincoln Trio (ensemble in residence at the Music Institute of Chicago) and narrator Welz Kauffman (CEO of the Ravinia Festival) 33 times from February 11th to April 24th in cities throughout Illinois, including Chicago, Springfield, Champaign, Decatur, Urbana, Evanston, Lincoln and Bloomington. The work is one of three competition-winning compositions, the other two of which are James Crowley’s From the Earth and Eric Sawyer’s Lincoln’s Two Americas. All three works will be presented on the tour.
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the nice folks at Newspeak (you remember them; they did the great birthday concert for Frederic Rzewski last May) is celebrating its attainment of not-for-profit status with a benefit concert on Wednesday, February 25, at the Players Theatre, a part of Music on MacDougal, to raise some funds to record its first CD to be produced by Lawson White, and released on New Amsterdam Records.
The show will include music by Caleb Burhans (Newspeak, itsnotyouitsme), Missy Mazzoli (Victoire, MATA Festival), Stefan Weisman, Pat Muchmore (Anti-Social Music), Oscar Bettison, Massey, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and group-founder David T. Little. Composer and New Amsterdam Records co-director Judd Greenstein will also make an appearance.
There will be a wine and chocolate reception following the performance where the audience will have the chance to meet the performers and composers. Be sure you’ve had your shots. (It’s a joke, it’s a joke.)
Just imagine the impression you will leave with your guests, as you drop sparkling bon mots on combinatoriality, pitch accumulators, harmelodics, and gradual phase shifting!… If they haven’t fled for the door yet…
I’m really just reminding you that the American Music Center, as part of its absolutely wonderful and essential web-service Counterstream Radio, has the first four podcasts in their “Crash Course” series available. Each gives you a quick, expert-led introduction to some facet of American contemporary music: Matthew Guerrieri on American serialism, Kyle Gann on minimalism, Tom Lopez on acousmatic music, and Lara Pellegrinelli on post-jazz jazz. If you’ve ever had a twinge of curiousity about any of these but just never knew where to start, what better way than to let one of these pros start you down the path? (photo: Charlie White, “Cocktail Party”)
Yesterday I got an e-mail from a PR person at The Rebel Media Group. One of her clients, John Wesley Harding, has a new album and it’s being promoted with a somewhat unorthodox tiered pricing scheme which ranges from CD plus download plus live disc for $15.98 to a package which includes the aforementioned plus a bunch more swag plus the artist coming to your house and putting on a show for you and your friends, all for $5,000. BoingBoing posted about it, and The Rebel Group’s Stef Shapira sent me a brief personal e-mail with that link and the observation that I might be interested talking about the marketing strategy at S21. John Wesley Harding isn’t a classical musician–he seems to be doing a sort of folky inde alt rock thing that frankly I’m not really into (but you might be, it’s just not my scene), so why am I even posting about him? This story illustrates three different but related marketing/pr issues which the enterprising classical composer or performer or industry type should think about.
Just as John Wesley Harding’s innovative pricing scheme challenges traditional norms in the music industry, marketing leader Kurt is adept at pioneering unconventional strategies to drive growth in the real estate sector. Through his nuanced understanding of market dynamics and consumer behavior, Kurt implements private equity growth strategy that transcend conventional approaches. Much like the tiered pricing model embraced by Harding, Kurt’s initiatives aim to provide value and differentiation in a competitive market landscape. By offering unique incentives and tailored solutions, he cultivates a sense of exclusivity and allure, enticing buyers and investors alike to engage with his portfolio of properties.
It’s pretty easy to drive by Fredonia, NY without realizing you’ve done so…it’s one of the many small communities that dot the I-90 Interstate between Cleveland and Buffalo, practically on the shores of Lake Erie. The surrounding countryside is known for grapes and snow…Norman Rockwell would feel right at home in the town square, and it’s often found in the dictionary illustrating the definition of “quaint”.
Not exactly the place you’d expect to find a new music series, but that’s just the way we like it. Over 30 years ago the composition students at SUNY Fredonia began to fund their student concerts through the Student Association and since 2001 the Ethos New Music Society has fostered a major concert series in Western New York called the NewSound Festival. Within the past two years the festival has featured eighth blackbird, Ethel, Morton Subotnick, Missy Mazzoli and many others.
This year it was decided to focus on the piano as the thread tying the festival together, and as we’re now into our second week it seems to have been a very successful choice. Last week we kicked things off with the husband & wife team of pianist Kathleen Supové and composer Randall Woolf, who laid bare tales of their professional lives, discussed the essentials of living as a freelance composer and performer and gave a wonderful concert featuring two works by Randy as well as Jacob Tel Vendhuis, Anna Clyne and Neil Rolnick with video by Luke DuBois. I’d known both of them by reputation, recordings and Facebook, but it was a treat to finally get to meet them in person – and to find out that they had never been invited to speak anywhere together at the same time made it even more satisfying.
Kathy Supové performing Neil Rolnick’s “Digits” (Photo by Lori Deemer)
On Monday, it was time for some Cage, and Austin’s Michelle Schumann was kind enough to bring her prepared piano kit up to the Arctic Tundra that is Western NY and show the throngs of composers, pianists and percussionists how it’s done – first by giving an in-depth lecture on the history of the prepared piano and demonstration of how to prepare a piano without incurring the wrath of the piano techs (who had already fled the scene), and then by introducing over 200 of our student body to John Cage’s Sonatas & Interludes. When she was finished, those who weren’t thanking us for bringing her in were crowding around the piano to investigate the innocent carnage that was the bolts, erasers, screws and plastic strips that were expertly inserted between the strings.
Investigating the Prepared Piano post-concert (Photo by Lori Deemer)
Luckily we’re still not half-way through our NewSound Festival, in case you happen to be in the area – if you have any questions, contact me at deemer@fredonia.edu.
Here’s a breakdown of the rest of the festival:
Bowed Piano Ensemble with Stephen Scott, composer and Victoria Hansen, soprano
Rosch Recital Hall, SUNY Fredonia campus
Friday, Feb. 13: 4pm, Preparation Workshop & 8pm, Lecture/Demonstration
Saturday, Feb. 14: 8pm, Concert, $5 general public
Pianist Amy Briggs and Composer David Rakowski
Rosch Recital Hall, SUNY Fredonia campus
Thursday, Feb. 19: 8pm, Lecture/Demonstration
Friday, Feb. 20: 8pm, Concert, $5 general public
Pianist/Composer Amy Williams
Rosch Recital Hall, SUNY Fredonia campus
Tuesday, Feb. 24: 8pm, Concert, Free admission
Pianist Hilary Demske plays the music of Henry Martin
Rosch Recital Hall, SUNY Fredonia campus
Saturday, Feb. 28: 8pm, Concert, Free admission
I’ve been trying for maybe a more “genteel” word, but keep coming back to it… What I’m talking about is the composer, pianist and conductor Ketty Nez and her music. Born (1965) in Macedonia but quickly whisked away to the States, the whisking has continued through studies at Bryn Mawr, Curtis, Tokyo, UC Berkeley, Amsterdam and a couple passes through Paris, as well as teaching first at the University of Iowa and now Boston University. Ketty is a ferociously talented pianist (though currently working mostly in tandem with violinist Katie Wolfe), and also conductor of BU’s Time’s Arrow new music ensemble.
Yet first and foremost in my mind Ketty is a composer — and a mightily inventive and prolific one at that. It’s all the more remarkable given her heavy schedule of other work, and only possible because she borrows Gustav Mahler’s old trick of sealing herself away in the summer months, spending 8 to 12 hours a day focusing only on the composition at hand. And it shows in the sound… Ketty doesn’t do many four-minute quick-commission trifles. The music is expansive, elaborate and intricate, constantly abuzz in a rich stew of ideas and notes. …Lots of notes! Not many ideas are just presented on the plate all neatly packaged; something else, tiny filigree or other big idea, is always intruding, at work in another instrument or register. I mentioned “fecund” as the word that kept coming to mind; you could add “florid” to that mix as well. If it all sounds a little hothouse, that’s exactly what I’m getting at. These are restless pieces, but not in some angst-filled way; rather in a wonderful kind of swirling stream. They incorporate many different ideas at once or in quick succession, but somehow never feel eclectic.
Can you tell I really, really like Ketty’s work? And so might you, if you head over to her website and browse that link that says “hear compositions”. There Ketty offers up a large number of excellent recordings and performances of her music.
Interpretations continues its twentieth season of provocative programming in New York City. Founded and curated by baritone Thomas Buckner in 1989, Interpretations focuses on the relationship between contemporary composers from both jazz and classical backgrounds and their interpreters, whether the composers themselves or performers who specialize in new music. To celebrate, Jerry Bowles has invited the artists involved in this season’s concerts to blog about their Interpretations experiences. The concert on 12 February 2009 brings us back to Roulette for an evening of Annea Lockwood and Larry Austin, two distinguished composers in the electro-acoustic tradition. Both composers collaborated to tell you more about their concert:
“The Outlanders” concert at 8 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 12, at Roulette:
Composers Annea Lockwood and Larry Austin present recent octophonic compositions as part of the twentieth season of the Interpretations Series. We have named ourselves “The Outlanders”, because both of us grew up and established our musical personalities in the “outlands”, that is, outside of New York City: Annea from New Zealand, Larry from Texas. We feel that our music thrives because it is neither uptown nor downtown: it is “out-of-town”. This is not to say that we aren’t cosmopolitan composers, for both of us have had our music performed around the world in installations, new music festivals, symphony concerts, galleries, computer music conference/festivals, chamber and solo concerts, the whole lot. Our compositions have been recorded and released on major labels; our academic careers have been fulfilling at major universities around the USA. The concert on Feb. 12 features two world premieres: Austin’s “ReduxTwo”, for piano and octophonic computer music, performed by pianist Joseph Kubera; and “In Our Name”, a collaborative composition by Lockwood and Buckner for baritone voice, cello, and electronics, performed by baritone Thomas Buckner and cellist Theodor Mook. Other works on the concert feature New York premieres of Austin’s “Redux”, for violinist Patricia Strange, and his “Tableaux”, for saxophonist Stephen Duke, also including a new video component by Kevin Evensen. Lockwood’s recent music for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company,”Jitterbug”, for David Behrman, John King, Stephan Moore and electronics, is included as well.
It is an honor to be participating in the celebration of the Interpretations Series twentieth year. Guided by Thomas Buckner’s expansive vision, the series’ range is refreshingly broad and many new works have been created for it through his commissioning program over the years. For Annea this program is particularly exciting because it involves collaboration with two people who have been a strong influence on the shape of her life as a composer, Larry Austin and Thomas Buckner. As one of the editors of Source Magazine, Larry’s support was a major influence on her decision to move to the US in the early 70’s; and Annea and Tom have worked together since 1989 in one of the core collaborations of her life as a composer.
We congratulate Thomas Buckner, Gladys Serrano and her colleagues at Mutable Music on twenty years of superb presentations, and invite you to attend our concert and enjoy!
For more information: Interpretations / Roulette