December 2009
12 posts
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Back to school
I was extremely fortunate to spend two years studying conducting with one of the most promintent living teachers of the art form, Gustav Meier. This week I’m reliving that unparalleled learning experience through his new book, The Score, the Orchestra and the Conductor. If you have any interest whatsoever in the art and technique of conducting this is a publication you should seek out.
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Movement of the hands
You Will Be Assimilated: Movement of the hands of conductor Riccardo Chailly while conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No 4, first movement. Carnegie Hall, New York City, 10 February 2000. By Morgan O’Hara. More here.
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Beat conductor
Here are the musical artists I heard most in 2009, a group dominated by very good [and generally under-appreciated] independent hip hop from around the world:
With J Dilla taking top play-count honors, you can imagine how excited I am to perform Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s beautiful orchestral arrangements of his music just over a month from now.
And for those of you wondering why...
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Too much Messiah?
This one is for all those musicians who’ve had a bit too much Messiah this holiday season.
symphony no. 2 in e minor: William Hogarth – The Enraged Musician, 1741
And for those who haven’t had enough … Here is a closer look at Handel’s famous score, penned in the same year and place as Hogarth’s outrageous musical street scene. [Another nice find from Sandra.]
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Listening to LA
Last month at an LA Phil concert led by Gustavo Dudamel I thought I saw Alex Ross in the lobby of Disney Hall. Turns out it was him, and this is what he heard:
Although Dudamel has the image of an impulsive conductor, a wild man of lunging arms and dancing feet, his musical choices tend to be controlled, sometimes a little predictable. He favored a lush, heavy sound in Mozart [Symphony no....
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A copyright 'thought experiment'
In the wake of news that Capitol Records is suing Vimeo over music employed in the latter’s uploaded video content, Tumblr lead developer Marco Arment offers a copyright ‘thought experiment.’
Marco.org: What if copyright infringement were made completely impossible? What if we had perfect enforcement at the technical level? (I know this isn’t possible, but bear with me. It’s a...
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Another composer shares Beethoven’s birthday
As always, a worthy find from Ordinary finds: Another composer shares Beethoven’s birthday, Hungarian master Zoltán Kodály [Dec. 16, 1882 - 1967], who was a great collector of folk music, as well as a pioneer of musical technology. Photo of two Hungarian 20th C. greats, by Alfredo Dagli Orti: Béla Bartók & Zoltán Kodály [seated L & R, respectively], and an unidentified string quartet...
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Creative control
That’s exactly what a group of artists and producers, dissatisfied with the tactics of the major label music industry, decided to establish for themselves with creativecontrol.tv, ‘a cutting edge online content label maintaining creative control over all content and production from programming to advertising.’
In addition to being a fan of the artists involved with this,...
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Future shares
Click to listen →
The always diverting and discerning Stephen Fry speaks on the history of copyright, and offers thoughts on file sharing and the future of entertainment. [Download this talk or subscribe to Fry’s Podgrams series here.]
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Away from the familiar
Catching up recently on bookmarked links, I rediscovered this piece by Alan Rich for LA Weekly. In it he characterizes the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s decision to engage Gustavo Dudamel as its music director - audacious when it was announced several years ago – as ‘a bold gesture away from hidebound tradition and toward youth, experiment and challenge, and away also from the familiar...
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Living the arts
Here is my recent interview for the Iowa Arts Council ‘Live the Arts in Iowa’ series.
What is the best piece of advice you were ever given? Listen. It’s a quality that my principal conducting teacher, Gustav Meier, emphasized both on and off the podium. What is a piece of advice you wish to give to others? To young musicians: Stay in close touch with your love of music -...
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Why We Tumbl
No doubt you’ve noticed that this blog is now at Tumblr. I’ve had a more minimal, personal tumblog for a while and have enjoyed using the platform so much that it seemed natural to bring my main site over here. But there are also critical reasons for my relocation, and Mark Coatney touches on several of them in the following post from his Newsweek tumblog.
Newsweek: The other day, we...