The Original New Music Community
I have a vague recollection of an article in the Sunday Times sometime in July of one of the last ten or so years which compared the decline of twelve-tone music (or maybe atonality or maybe modernism in general, but I think it was twelve-tone music) to the fall of the Soviet Union. I wonder if anybody remembers it and can possible cite its date and author.
Thanks
Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to keep up with the spam attacks our little wiki have suffered and have been forced, because of bandwidth charges, to take it temporarily down. I don’t mind spending a few bucks for the new music world; I’m just not that interested in spending bucks for creepy botboys.
I’ll be looking for some plugins or other solutions in the meantime. Sorry for any inconvenience. All of the data is fine – including a zillion links to sex toys, viagra, ciallis in our articles and then there’s the spam stuff too! Just kidding… and stay tuned.
P.S. It’s back up. I upgraded to the latest version and installed two new spam-blocking systems. One, unfortunately, requires that you verify you’re not a bot by typing in 2 words. Any help, removing all of the krrrrrap those jerks put into our wiki would be appreciated.
All the ooh-ahh flutter over Golijov’s Ayre, or even the recent Dudamel & Co., and then you spot something like this:
Loredana: Marioara de la Gorj (2001)
Loredana is a Romanian Madonna pop-diva clone (here’s a more typical example from her new CD, where Roma kinda meets the Black Eyed Peas), but here shows that underneath her roots are second nature. All props to the Dude & kids, Ms. Upshaw, O.G. (and especially Gustavo Santaolalla, the real mastermind behind the sound of Ayre), but even this MTV-style context should show that the lessons of this kind of approach and energy are already all around.
Here’s some great news for the Sequenza21 community. The super-hot Philadelphia-based chamber ensemble Relâche is presenting a concert of new works, including the premiere of our own Galen H. Brown’s Waiting in the Tall Grass, at the Greenwich House Music School in downtown Manhattan on November 30, followed by a repeat performance the following night at the International House in Philadelphia. The concert will also include new pieces by Duncan Neilson, Brooke Joyce and, Paul Epstein.
Says here in the press release (Galen is much too modest to make a call or send me a heads-up e-mail himself) that
…Brown’s music has been described as “bright, passionate music for a brighter, more passionate new day” by Kyle Gann, former critic for the Village Voice. With roots in both Minimalism and electronic rock, he writes rhythmically driven music where melodic riffs and fragments shift against each other, evolving an intricate counterpoint beneath a surface which is sometimes propulsive, sometimes placid.
Describing his new piece, Brown says “While this piece isn’t at all programmatic, the title Waiting in the Tall Grass is intended to evoke the sense of a sort of purposeful stasis, with perhaps a hint of foreboding. The ‘tall grass’ is, of course, where the predator lies in wait for its prey.”
Brown lives in New York City. He holds a Masters degree from New England Conservatory, where he studied with Lee Hyla; his other primary teachers were David Rakowski and Jon Appleton. A contributing editor at Sequenza21.com, he regularly reviews concerts and CDs, and writes on issues ranging from compositional techniques and history to aesthetic philosophy to the structure of the music industry. Sequenza21 won an ASCAP Deems Taylor award in 2005.
Founded in 1977, Relâche has been a significant force in new classical music for 30 years, from co-presenting the landmark New Music America festival in 1987 to annual performances of Phil Kine’s classic Unsilent Night. The new works on this concert are the latest in a rich history of commissions from composers such as John Cage, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and Pauline Oliveros.
Well done, Galen. As we say down in Appalachia where I grew up: “We’re right proud of you.”
There’s a sample of the piece here. The rather strange picture was taken by me in the Sequenza21 office at Starbucks on 57th between Eighth and Ninth.
The Boston Symphony premiered Elliot Carter’s Horn Concerto over the weekend and will debut a piano concerto (already completed) next year. And, there’s a five-day festival planned for Tanglewood this summer. At 98, Carter is proving that the key to a glorious career is to live a very long time, hold onto to your chops, and be friends with James Levine.
Which is not to imply that Carter is not very good; he’s just very good in a way that I find a bit too abstract and cold to love.
My favorite old dude these days is Ned Rorem, who is often overshadowed by more famous contemporaries and dismissed as a writer of charming art songs. Naxos has been churning out a stream of wonderful Rorem recordings over the past couple of years that have convinced me, at least, that he is terribly underrated. Listen to the recordings of Symphonies 1-3; the violin and flute concertos, and the just released Piano Concerto No. 2 and Cello Concerto and tell me he isn’t a major talent.
UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Miller Theater is doing the New York premiere of What Next?, Carter’s only opera, on December 7, 8, 9 and 11–which happens to be Carter’s 99th birthday.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) has just become the latest classical music organization to launch its own CD label. BMOP Sound will debut in January 2008 and will be devoted exclusively to new music recordings, many of them pieces commissioned by BMOP.
BMOP Sound is scheduled to release five world premiere CDs at the start of 2008: John Harbison’s Ulysses; Michael Gandolfi’s Y2K Compliant; Gunther Schuller’s Journey Into Jazz featuring Gunther Schuller (narrator); Lee Hyla’s Lives of the Saints, featuring Mary Nessinger (mezzo-soprano); and Charles Fussell’s Wilde, featuring Sanford Sylvan (baritone). With 28 more recording projects in the works, the company plans to issue four to six CDs each year. Albany Music Distributors will handle the real world distribution and BMOP is planning an interactive website with digital download capabilities for later in 2008. BMOP has an existing catalog of 13 commercially released CDs (from Albany, Arsis, Cantaloupe, Chandos, Naxos, New World, and Oxingale labels).
I’m one of those people who believe that the DIY model is the salvation of new music recording and distribution, a boon to both the people who composer and perform music and those of us who listen, and the ultimate final nail in the coffee of traditional record labels that fail to adapt. Good riddance.
I’d read about the dastardly act a while back, but Ethelbert Nevin over at La Folia has some amusing speculation in his “Top 12 Reasons Why Somebody Broke into a Warehouse and Stole Hundreds of Luigi Nono CDs“. You’ll have to go there to read them all, but I do like “Featured orchestral musicians afraid col legno will adopt Radiohead’s business model”, “col legno’s sets of Rihm string quartets were too heavy”, and “Joyce Hatto discovered playing trautonium on Isola 3“.
Looks like Washington Post music critic Tim Page got himself into a heap of trouble for referring to crack addict Marion Berry as a “crack addict” in an e-mail message.
If you’ve been wondering who is responsible for dumbing down American musical culture, it’s people like Ronen Givony and me. Givony, as many of you know, is the mini-Sol Hurok who is responsible for New York’s priceless Wordless Music series. Like me, Givony is not a composer or musician or even someone who reads music. But, also like me, he loves new music and wants to help nurture and promote the talented people who do. The web has given us both platforms to indulge our desire to do so.
According to Andrew Keen, that makes us the worst kind of well-meaning but dangerous and misinformed schmos. We are”amateurs,” in the most perjorative sense. Keen’s new book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture blames the equalitarian nature of web publishing and self-promotion for everything from Britney to global warming.
I dunno. Seems to me that influential “amateurs” have always been with us. Weren’t a lot of the explorers and scientists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries people who simply pursued their discoveries, quite often using their own resources?
I’m sure this august group can think of many examples of amateurs who have had some influence on the advancement of new music. Share some of them with us, please.
p.s. By the way, I am no longer an amateur web site builder and manager. My first paid-for site called MyVenturepad opened for business yesterday. Nice article today on the front page about the changing of the guard at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe.
