February 2008
11 posts
4 tags
Planets, WCSFO on air
Broadcast – My November 3, 2007 concert with the WCFSO will be featured on Iowa Public Radio’s Symphonies of Iowa series this Saturday morning at 10:00 am. [As always, time given is local.] This event featured a major commission from visual artist Gary Kelley, who created a series of evocative paintings and works on paper that were filmed by Scott Smith and presented alongside our...
5 tags
Sampleography
Celebrated jazz record label Blue Note recently released ‘Droppin’ Science: Greatest Samples From The Blue Note Lab’, a collection of jazz tunes that have been sampled by important hip hop artists and djs. The way in which this type of musical influence functions in hip hop fascinates me, especially as so much of my professional work deals with how the same issue has unfolded in...
2 tags
Programming 101
We are busy putting the final touches on the 2008-09 orchestra season here in Iowa, culminating the annual process of selecting guest artists, initiating collaborations, building musically rewarding programs, balancing costs and strategizing marketing. If you have heard me speak about my work in person you already know that I believe the contemporary music director’s most essential...
3 tags
Guacho groove
So what DO the cowboys of Latin America sound like?
Find out this weekend. The WCFSO teams up with irrepressible local duo Calle Sur for a cross-cultural, family-friendly program of cowboy music from North, Central and South America. The concert is entirely self-produced with Karin Stein and Ed East of Calle Sur. Guest Alfredo Rolando Ortiz will perform his South American Suite for harp.
This...
2 tags
LA, meet BCAM
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens its new Broad Contemporary Art Museum this weekend. The new facility represents the first phase of LACMA’s Transformation Project. Check out the BCAM countdown on its last day.
[In case you are wondering why I am posting this… I am a native of LA and have spent many hours at LACMA over the years. I also have a long-standing interest...
6 tags
As red as ...
Valentine’s day, rooted as it is in violence, invites a revisiting of the old Veronese feud.
Juliet: My only love, sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me That I must love a loathèd enemy. William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene v [138-141]
Click to listen →
Sergei Prokofiev – Romeo and Juliet, Suite no....
7 tags
Wharton recap
A look back at Philip Wharton’s residency with the WCSFO in January.
View the program and read the review here.
Check out an earlier post on our community and education events.
See more images at Flickr, and discover Philip’s enchanting music below.
Click to listen →
Philip Wharton – Passing Season, A Curtain of Rain [world premiere] WCFSO –...
2 tags
Lincoln time
The Lincoln Bicentennial begins today in the president’s birth state with a celebration at the Kentucky Center for the Arts featuring the Louisville Orchestra, soprano Angela Brown and actor Sam Watterson. The program features the world premiere of Lincoln At Ease by my friend Peter Schickele. Radio journalist Bob Edwards hosts.
After prepping the orchestra last week, I have the evening off...
3 tags
Wedding marches
Last weekend in Cedar Falls the WCFSO hosted a marriage proposal in the front rows of the GBPAC Great Hall. Then we tuned up and kicked off our Shakespeare in Love program with Mendelssohn’s music for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’
If you a] were at the concert, b] are also planning to get engaged and/or married to the strains of Mendelssohn, or c] just enjoy his music,...
2 tags
New music midwest
WCFSO principal flutist Claudia Anderson electrified the crowd in Cedar Falls last night with her performance of Lowell Liebermann’s 1992 Flute Concerto. A truly exciting and rewarding stride in programming an ever wider array of contemporary musical voices for audiences in northern Iowa. [Yes, that was composer-in-residence Philip Wharton leading the violins.]
If you are among those...
6 tags
New links for February
Sounds NMA Index The complete works of Mozart in pdf format
Thoughts BüK Pamphlets for the 21c
Sights Mochilla LA-based photographers of music and culture Banksy Underground visual-conceptual artist
Spaces Dwell Read it if you don’t already Wright Chicago auctioneer of modern design