January 2012
22 posts
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Kickstarter: Recording of Four Symphonic Works by... →
Jerry was the orchestra director at my high school in California and one of the coolest teachers I’ve ever had. Now that he is retired and happily free of the mania we upstart musicians brought upon him he’s getting around to recording several of his symphonic works.
One of the pieces slated for taping, American Journey, was among the first things I ever conducted and offered me a...
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“Prizes are for boys, and I’m all grown up.”
– Real talk from Charles Ives, parting with the Pulitzer Prize money he was awarded for the Third Symphony in 1947; half went to Lou Harrison, who had only recently conducted the premiere of the piece. The fact that Ives could afford the bravado hardly diminishes his trademark badassery.
[via...
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The next SOPA →
I fear Marco Arment may be right about SOPA and its ilk. I know he’s right about the big studios and the MPAA.
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Supreme Court Upholds Law That Pulled Foreign... →
Odds are Prokofiev’s picaresque Peter and the Wolf was one of your memorable early experiences of live ensemble music. Shockingly, your kids may not enjoy that same opportunity after yesterday’s disastrous ruling in a case involving international orchestral music and other foreign works removed from the public domain:
In 1994 Congress changed U.S. copyright law to conform with an...
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“We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases...”
– The White House, responding to a petition on the woefully misguided SOPA bill up for vote in Congress this week.
[via barackobama]
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“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the...”
– For those of us who work in the orchestra business it is neither easy nor popular to share John Cage’s point of view, but doing so is the only way we’ll shape a viable future for our art form.
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WatchWes Anderson meets Benjamin Britten in this just-released trailer for the forthcoming Moonrise Kingdom. Perfect match.
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Aida will gather dust in the archives →
From an 1872 letter sent to Giuseppe Verdi by Prospero Bertani, a patron of early performances of Aida:
The opera contains absolutely nothing thrilling or electrifying, and if it were not for the magnificent scenery, the audience would not sit through it to the end. It will fill the theatre a few more times and then gather dust in the archives. Now, my dear Signor Verdi, you can imagine my...
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Bang on a Can 25th Anniversary download →
The intrepid new music collective is offering its double album Big Beautiful Dark and Scary for download in exchange for a memory of your encounter with BOAC’s work or just a statement of interest.
[via @alexrossmusic]
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Why 2012 will be year of the artist-entrepreneur →
I hope so – it’s certainly about time.
[via claytoncubitt]
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“German pre-Romantic philosopher, Johann Georg Hamman, held that music was given...”
– At the onset of another year of regularly measured time Charles Rosen reminds us of the much more varied and elastic sense of time inherent in music. This is the technical element of conducting I ponder most as I develop interpretations, and an aspect of the art form which fascinates me endlessly.
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December 2011
17 posts
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Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater →
The entertainment biz story of 2011 has to be comedian Louis C.K.’s self-released video special, whose success so clearly demonstrates the validity of a radically open and direct approach to the distribution of artistic content. The simple fact is that the major label-driven profiteering which has contorted and demeaned the culture industry for decades is increasingly being forced to make...
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“Remix culture is the new Prohibition, with massive media companies as the lone...”
– Andy Baio conjures a frightening spectre for the major media conglomerates, at least considering how the original Prohibition turned out. But today’s consumers – drinkers, if you will, of ideas and aesthetics – are tapping into streams of discovery and creation whose breadth and depth were...
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As if on cue, a tremendous gift from all of you here on Tumblr. I am humbled and inspired by your interest in my work!
Naturally I’d like to give something back, and to personalize it I’m turning to my very first follower. Sandra, thanks for hanging out this entire time – let me know if there’s an orchestra concert you would like to attend in your area and two tickets are on...
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How Luther went viral →
Substitute ‘major labels’ and ‘digital media’ for ‘Catholicism’ and ‘pamphlet’ and it’s clear that we have an old-fashioned Reformation on our hands in the music business today. Obviously I’m with the Protestants.
[via kottke.org]
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“Mozart devoured all he could of the music of Handel and Bach and earlier...”
– Tom Service makes a critical point about aesthetic influence and borrowing in his recent Guardian piece on Mozart’s Requiem.
So allow me to play devil’s – not to mention artists’ – advocate for a radical deconstruction of ‘today’s copyright’: Would we have...
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#askaconductor →
It’s on for the second year in a row. Tweet at me!
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“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most...”
– Ernest Hemingway, elucidating an idea by which every musician should live.
[via vineetkaur]
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WatchFollowing up on two earlier posts about Brandenburg 3 here is a look at another of the six famous concerti grossi, courtesy iconoclastic Bach intepreter John Eliot Gardiner and intrepid chamber orchestra English Baroque. The focus this time is the final work of the set – BWV 1051 for two violas, two gambas, cello and continuo – as seen from the player’s point of view.
I’m having a...
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The Contemporary Classical Composer's Bullshit... →
I was going to suggest that conductors might benefit from something like this, but perhaps we’re already good enough at generating our own BS?
[via @timoandres]
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November 2011
15 posts
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The Big List of Classical Music Blogs →
A thorough new index by composer Colin Eatock.
[via @alexrossmusic]
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“I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.”
– Ray Charles explains how it’s done. Good career advice for aspiring conductors, too.
[via A Conversation On Cool]
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“Technical perfection is a ridiculous and unfortunate expectation, one created by...”
– Will Robin is right on. As recorded musical media sheds the inflated monetary value it accrued during the twentieth century we’ll continue to see fresh performance practices – informed by the daring, interesting approaches Will seeks – develop in the twenty-first.
[via my colleague Hunter...
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