How many university and conservatory classrooms are equipped with adequate sound systems? Here we are in the 21st century in a culture that lives and breathes recorded music every minute of the day, but all university music classrooms inevitably have a malfunctioning audio system.
via John Adams: Hell Mouth: Composition Master Class.
As you may have noticed, this website is having AUDIO PROBLEMS. Google changed three digits in its flash app that plays audio files I post rendering all of my audio posts DISABLED. I am working on a solution as quickly as I can and I apologize for the inconvenience. In the meantime I suggest going over to WQXR and enjoying their streaming music. The Q2 stream is fantastic.
Update: The plugin has been updated and tested. All of the audio should play again. Sorry for the inconvenience.
His piece In a Treeless Place, Only Snow is a powerful yet serene piece. Upon first hearing I definitely thought it was by the the second of the aforementioned Johns Adams. It has an excellent pace that sustains the 15 minute work.
Also, I don’t know who he has designing his album covers, but they are awesome.
Update:NewMusicBox reports that John Luther Adams has won the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition and $100,000.
I mean, wow! As if the stereotype of the elderly, incontinent audience isn’t enough, let just go ahead and bring that uncomfortable situation right onto the stage too! Yeah, that’ll sell. high-five
Macworld has a nice guide for iTunes users who want to amass a high quality music library. Combined with iTunes new feature that allows users to downconvert files to 128kbs for iPods while retaining the original lossless files, this will be a summer project for me.
Jennifer Higdon’s Violin Concerto wins this year’s Pulitzer Prize in music. Other Finalists were Fred Lerdahl’s String Quartet No. 3 and Steel Hammer by Julia Wolfe. This year’s judges were Joseph Schwantner, Delta David Gier, Chuck Owen, John Rockwell, and Maria Schneider.
The one that’s over six hours long? Yeah, that one.
Well it’s only been played in its entirety a few times and this Sunday, beginning at 11:00 am WQXR will be streaming the performance over the internet. When the performance starts, go here to to connect to the stream (via the box on the right).
Don’t have six hours on Sunday? That’s OK because Feldman wanted the audience stay for only as long as they wanted. So tune in and enjoy, because it’s very rare to hear a live performance, even if only on the internet.
The basic timbre is robust, clear and strong, with just enough “buzz” in the sound to ensure good projection and carrying power.
via Forestone Reeds Products Details.
Coming in at an exhausting 7,000 years long, music is weighed down by a few too many mid- tempo tunes, most notably ‘Liebesträume No. 3 in A flat’ by Franz Liszt and ‘Closing Time’ by ’90s alt-rock group Semisonic,” Schreiber wrote. “In the end, though music can be brilliant at times, the whole medium comes off as derivative of Pavement.
(via The Onion)
Featuring pianists Max Canaday, Michael Century, Catherine Chou, André Watson, recorded Nov. 18 2009, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre, Troy, N.Y.
Julius Eastman, an African-American composer, singer and pianist who died in 1990 at age 50, wrote Gay Guerrilla in 1979. For Eastman, the “guerrilla” of the title serves as a mark of political and personal courage – the willingness to sacrifice one’s life for a point of view: “I use Gay Guerrilla in the hopes that I may be one if called upon to be one”. About two thirds of the way through the piece, Eastman quotes the Lutheran hymn Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A mighty fortress is our God), re-interpreting that affirmation of faith as a sonic manifesto, then concludes with the majestic rising modal scale that helps make this work an anthem to liberation unique in contemporary classical music.
Although this information is available everywhere I would like to point out that my friends have been recognized recently.
Takuma Itoh won a 2010 Morton Gould Young Composer Award. I met Takuma at the University of Michigan when I played the early draft of his piece Echo Location which he composed for the H2 Saxophone Quartet. The work is available on H2′s newest CD Times and Spaces. (Contact them or me if you would like a copy.)
Gee, they cater to an audience of wealthy, yet elderly, patrons and all of a sud-EVERYBODY PANIC BECAUSE NATURE IS HAPPENING!
Conductors, soloists and orchestra members want a way to leave a legacy (and earn royalties).
Forget it. If Radiohead can’t earn royalties on their music, the NY Phil, with all of its overhead, shouldn’t even dream about earning royalties. Lucky for them, as opposed to <insert crappy one hit wonder band here>, they can actually make a living playing concerts. Because, you know, they’re good and everything. Even with their (admittedly awesome) distribution method, I can’t imagine they are earning much on the investment.
I’m glad they figured out the Internet. Next, we work on repertoire.
