Sequenza21

On the shelf next to the photograph of Tibetan lama Galen Rinpoche, next to the framed Dalai Lama picture, next to the family photographs and statuettes of violins and goddesses, is a bevy of ceramic frog figurines, suspending a jet-black shirt with purple lettering. It reads:

Well, while I’m here I’ll
do the work-
and what’s the work?
to ease the pain of living.
Everything else, drunken
dumbshow.

(from “Memory Gardens” –Allen Ginsberg)

The makeshift shrine appears twice in Scott Hicks’s 119 minute-long documentary, “Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts,” and gives as apt a snapshot of Philip Glass as any that can be distilled from the film. For hovering within the musician, the family man, the philosopher and the spiritual-seeker, is an artist who has devoted his life to his work. An artist who, at 71, has produced 21 operas, 9 ballets, 8 symphonies, 37 film scores and numerous other works in the following categories: theater, “world music,” songs, solo instrumental, keyboard, concerto, choral, chamber and non-symphonic orchestral. By the time this article is read, the compositional number will likely have increased. (more…)

In this age of Dobbsian-fueled immigration hysteria, what could be more timely than an opera about a beautiful Mexican drug smuggler who kills her lover after he betrays her and, in the process, becomes a folk heroine.

¡Unicamente la Verdad! ,  a “videoopera” with music by Gabriela Ortiz and libretto by Rubén Ortiz-Torres, is the story of the contemporary feminist heroine Camelia “la Tejana,” who has come to symbolize the idea of the strong woman in Mexican folklore and the subject of numerous   “corridos” — a form of Mexican ballad — popularized by Los Tigres del Norte?.

” (more…)

George Benjamin, at age 48, is one of the grand old men of British music.  Considering a succession starting with Britten, and continuing with Oliver Knussen and Thomas Ades, and including Benjamin, one might consider that the tradition of rather young grand old men, all of them very fine performers as well as seriously talented and accomplished composers is a grand old British one.  Benjamin is a really good conductor, and the BBC Symphony orchestra clearly respected him and worked hard for and with him.  On Wednesday night the main event was one of his first big attention-getting pieces, and his first work for orchestra, written when he was 19, Ringed by the Flat Horizon, which was being played for the third time at the Proms.  (more…)

I had a great time playing disc jockey on WBGO this afternoon.  The folks there were incredibly hospitable and it was fun to meet Michael Bourne (the other guy in the picture) and Rhonda Hamilton who have been fixtures around the station for many years, as well as Dorthaan Kirk, the station’s Special Events and Programs Coordinator, who has been there since 1979 when WBGO became a full-time jazz station, my “cousin” Cephus Bowles, the station’s General Manager, and Vince Bochis, who is the man to talk to talk to if you want to donate money to the best public radio jazz station in the world.   Many thanks to my friends the Hammonds for making it possible.

Thanks very much to everyone who submitted scores. All of us were very impressed by the overall quality of the submissions. The selected compositions in alphabetical order by composer are:

Samuel Andreyev Passages

Rusty Banks Taxonomy

Galen Brown And Carthage Must Be Destroyed

Alex Kotch Reduce, Ruse, Recycle

Rodney Lister “The Mockingbird” from Songs from “The Bat Poet”

Jeremy Podgursky Nonsense or Sorcery?#%*!

David Salvage Violin Routine

Samuel Vriezen 2 Suites

The concerts will take place December 1st at Waltz Café, Astoria, NY, and at the Good Shepherd Church, New York, NY on December 5^th. Doing the honors is the Lost Dog Ensemble of the Astoria Music Society.

My accidental disk jockey gig on WBGO is scheduled for this Thursday at 2 pm. Live and in full color on the Internets at wbgo.org

Here’s my playlist:

Back Water Blues – Dinah Washington (live version, Max Roach et al) 4:42
I’ll Remember April – Concert by the Sea – Erroll Garner 4;14
Strange Meadow Lark – Dave Brubeck Quartet – 7:20
Corcovado – Getz/Gilberto 4:13
Someday My Prince Will Come – Miles 9:02
Dexter Gordon at Carnegie Hall
Dexter Intro: 1:16
Blues Up and Down: 13:03
Reincarnation of a Black Bird – Gil Evans/Steve Lacy Paris Blues 7:09

Bard SummerScape is presenting the New Albion Festival, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Foster Reed’s record label known as the “voice of West Coast new music,” at the Spiegeltent from this Friday until Sunday, August 10.  

The New Albion story is a great one, told well here by Alex Ross and here by Steve Smith.

The nine programs feature works by John Adams, John Cage, Henry Cowell, The Deep Listening Band, Paul Dresher, Morton Feldman, Ellen Fullman, Kyle Gann, Ge Gan-ru, Peter Garland, Erik Griswold, Lou Harrison, Erdem Helvacioglu, Daniel Lentz, Ingram Marshall, Jeffrey Roden, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Somei Satoh, Stefano Scodanibbio, Stephen Scott, Carl Stone, Richard Teitelbaum, Stephen Vitiello, Miguel Frasconi, Virgil Thomson, Slow Six, and Evan Ziporyn.   Details here.

Trendy indie composer/performer Max Richter’s fourth album, 24 Postcards in Full Colour, won’t be released until September 23 on FatCat Records but thanks to enterprising PR person Amanda Ameer, Sequenza21 readers are getting an “exclusive” pre-listen. In Postcards, Richter explores the ringtone as a vehicle for music performance which strikes me as a bit of a mixed metaphor but, hey, the guy studied with Berio so it’s all good.

The 24-brief pieces are all fragmentary by nature; the longest track just under three minutes, while most are around sixty seconds. Here are three mp3s for your dining and downloading pleasure:

Via San Nicolo

Cold Fusion For G

Found Song For P

And there’s more, Richter will perform three concerts next week – including tracks from 24 Postcards in Full Colour – at le poisson rouge in the West Village.

Daniel Wakin at the NY Times reports on the passing of Norman Dello Joio at age 95.

One of the first pieces of 20th Century choral music I sang was Dello Joio’s Jubilant Song. I still find the work, with its frequent time changes, syncopations, and pantonal harmonies to be an excellent exponent of the mid-century Americana style.  

Big Up to our friend and S21 blogger Lawrence Dillon who is one of three winners of  the Ravinia Festival of Highland Park, Illinois’ first composer competition. The competition asked composers to submit works for piano trio and narration inspired by the words of Abraham Lincoln, in honor of Lincoln’s bicentennial in 2009.

Lawrence’s composition, The Better Angels of Our Nature, uses excerpts from two letters and two speeches that focus on three key aspects of Lincoln’s character: his integrity, his sense of humor, and his poetic vision.  The first movement, Integrity, uses a  letter the future president wrote in 1836, chiding a friend for announcing publicly that he was in possession of facts that he would not divulge because they would destroy Lincoln’s prospects for re-election to the Illinois state legislature.

The second movement, Humor, uses an equally remarkable letter, one written by the young Lincoln on April Fools Day, 1838, to his friend Mrs. O. H. Browning. In it, he spins a fantastic and humorous yarn about his failed courtship attempts to a woman he found less than attractive.

The final movement, Vision, uses excerpts from two of Lincoln’s inspiring speeches to show the poetic side of Lincoln’s character.  You can read more about the letters at Lawrence’s S21 blog.

The other two winners of the Ravinia competition are James Crowley’s From the Earth and Eric Sawyer’s Lincoln’s Two Americas.  All three composers will receive monetary awards, and all three works will be premiered by the Lincoln Trio, ensemble in residence at the Music Institute of Chicago. Performances will take place throughout the 2009 Lincoln bicentennial year. One of the three works will then be selected for an East Coast tour with Miriam Fried and musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Institute.