November 2011
15 posts
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October 2011
18 posts
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Mahler for movies →
Need a Trauermarsch for your next short film? You’re in luck – my reading of the first movement of Mahler 5 with the WCFSO is now available as a free download from the new Vimeo Music Store [along with other recent performances of music by Mozart, Debussy and Chabrier]. All tracks are Creative Commons-licensed through the Free Music Archive and are ready for download and auteur usage.
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“Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a...”
– Kurt Vonnegut, with your friendly weekend reminder to get creative. [Quote from his 2006 essay collection A Man Without a Country]
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Composer Quiz → Michael Gilbertson
Michael Gilbertson and I are deep in preparations for tomorrow's premiere of his new piece, but we managed to grab a few quiet moments between rehearsals and appearances to do the first-ever orchestra21 guest artist lightning round. [Hit up my ask page with questions you'd like to see answered in future composer and performer interviews]: So Michael, thanks for submitting yourself to this. Let's start with the hard-hitting journalism – where are you from?
Michael Gilbertson: I was born and grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, and still spend a lot of time there. I've spent most of the last five years working and studying in New York.
JW: And your musical background?
MG: I started playing piano when I was quite young, and later learned violin and viola. I love theater and drama, which has definitely influenced the dramatic inclination of my music.
JW: What are you up to currently?
MG: Just started working on my masters degree at Yale. The next big project is a guitar concerto for the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and I’ve also begun a three-year term as composer-in-residence of Red Cedar Chamber Music.
JW: Red Cedar, cool – we just worked with them here in Cedar Falls. But how about something even more 'currently', like last Friday night?
MG: I remember going to an 11pm show at the Yale Cabaret, after that I don’t remember a thing.
JW: I had a few evenings like that courtesy the Cabaret ... I think! Now that this stuff is out there you might as well tell us the one thing you don’t want us to know about your music.
MG: Almost nothing in it is truly original. When I begin the process of writing a piece, I sometimes make a list of musical ideas from other sources I want to adopt into my sound world.
JW: Influence is such a central force in musical traditions. What's in your ears these days?
MG: Right now, Michael Jackson. Also a lot of music by the British composer Thomas Adès.
JW: Yes, I'm intrigued by Adès too. And of course MJ! Classic, but maybe not quite as classic as some of your favorite old masters?
MG: Bach, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Copland.
JW: Talk to us about New York, the inspiration for your new piece.
MG: The era, the 1920s, was as much an inspiration for the piece as the city itself. The particular challenge in Tragedy Tomorrow was to try to capture some of the aesthetic qualities of art deco in music. There’s a sense of bursting energy, motion, and optimism in the art of that time. While futurism in interwar European artistic movements had a harder, modernist edge, the futurism at work in American movements like art deco took on a sense of glamour and elegance, which I hope is evident in the piece.
JW: No doubt - I really feel the classically American exuberance in this music. So, when not composing you are ...
MG: I follow politics closely, and always look forward to the Iowa caucuses. I love running, biking, playing and watching tennis, and recently took up squash. Reading and seeing plays, particularly Shakespeare, Chekhov, Strindberg, and Kushner – usually enjoy that more going to concerts. I also devote a good chunk of time each year to coordinating a music festival in Dubuque called Juilliard in June which I started in 2009. The event brings six of my Juilliard friends to Iowa each June for educational seminars, and a gala concert.
JW: Which brings us to our most important question ... Corn or soy?
MG: Definitely corn.
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Introducing Michael Gilbertson →
I rarely reblog my own posts but this one from a few years back is a great introduction to the music of Iowa native and current WCFSO guest composer Michael Gilbertson, who’s in town this week for the premiere of his new orchestral piece Tragedy Tomorrow.
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“Musicians come and go and they’re stewards of the music for a brief period of...”
– Guitarist and composer Trey Anastasio, reflecting on his recent collaboration with the New York Philharmonic in an interview for The Believer’s annual music issue. Interesting that an individual so firmly outside the art music camp could intuit our purpose as art music ensemble performers so...
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“Music is really being reinvented in this digital age, and that is bringing it...”
– Prescient words, not from a performer or agent or music label executive or arts manager but from Steve Jobs.
[Quoted in a 2003 Rolling Stone interview, via skaarendesign]
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Wolf Fifth →
If rare vinyl recordings of avant garde and experimental music are your thing – or you just happen to have a predilection for diminished sixths – you will definitely want to spend some time sampling the downloads at this blog.
[via @moderncomp]
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