Morrison’s film has a soundtrack by the Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson — a brooding ambient creation, recorded in Durham Cathedral, for large brass ensemble, organ, percussion, and electronic sounds.
As far as film music goes, which is usually so predictable it’s ignorable, I find this to be interesting and engaging. Which is a good thing, because as I understand it the film is 52 minutes without any dialogue. Having it recorded in Durham is a nice touch.
Both orchestras and newspapers think people SHOULD care about them, but never really make a good case for why, despite popular indifference.
Nailed it.
I will add that instead of making a better product that more people want, they complain about no one liking their product – guilt-tripping the public like a mother who’s son goes to college and forgets to call home.1
I haven’t thought about it with this analogy though, which makes things a lot more clear for me.2 I don’t care if every newspaper declares bankruptcy tomorrow. There will still be news and it will still be reported. Likewise, I don’t care if every orchestra boards the doors tomorrow. There will still be (great and new) music, and people will still pay to consume it.
The phone works both ways, Mom; Grandma(s), et al. ↩
These are my thoughts. I am not speaking for David here. I’m almost sure he would disagree, at least a little. It’s what he does. ↩
Statistics showing that the arts generate revenues and jobs for communities come from research conducted by Americans for the Arts, which has been studying the issue since the early 1990s.
Someday we will support the arts and arts education because we think that art is awesome. I hope.
My article on teaching with transcriptions for saxophone is in the May/June edition of the Saxophone Journal. Also featured are my friends from the Zzyzx Quartet.
Perhaps the Pulitzer committee caught a bit of flack for Higdon’s prize last year, which doesn’t exactly push the musical envelope. Or perhaps they simply wanted to even the score in the Long/Yi household. Nevertheless, I have given a listen to as much as I can legally find of this year’s prize winner and I must admit, I like it.
Long’s score really highlights the female voice and uses the choruses in interesting ways. The plot is interesting and not superficial, as one might expect when considering an opera based on an ancient legend. Long’s harmonic language is challenging but neither saccharine nor grating, which is good considering it is a feature-length opera.
You can listen to the excerpts I found below:
NPR Classical’s Deceptive Cadence has a different excerpt available for streaming on their site too.
The opening track, “Fifteen Saxophones,” is indeed that, but they are all played by Landry thanks to a delay unit and overdubbing and the sorcerer-like engineering of Kurt Munkacsi, another alumnus of the Philip Glass Ensemble whose ability to mix the inputs of the other members of Glass’s ensemble live during performance Glass considered so significant that he placed him alongside them onstage as a member of the group. Landry’s resulting chorus of saxophones is wonderfully dreamy but not in a lulling way. There is occasionally a slightly assaultive quality to Landry’s timbre that always keeps you a bit on edge and makes for even more exciting listening.
Head over to New Music Box to check out the track. It’s really great.
I’m making a quick plug for my friends. A bunch of musicians in East Lansing have started a video podcast about new music called SoundNotion.
I’m still catching up with the past episodes, but it’s been great so far. David keeps insisting he’ll have me on, but I think he’s just sandbagging me. (CALL ME DAVID! I HAVE SKYPE!)
Anyway, they have been covering the Detroit Symphony strike, our little project on kickstarter, and other long-standing topics from the halls of music conservatories (i.e. was Milton Babbit important or just a jerk? (He’s important AND a jerk.)). You know, music-dork stuff.