April 2011
25 posts
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A Trove of Historic Jazz Recordings has Found a... →
Yet another instance of archaic, interest-driven copyright law stifling the distribution of important art and, by extension, the creativity that might otherwise arise from broad access to our shared artistic heritage:
The collection is, in a word, historic. ‘It is a wonderful addition to our knowledge of a great period in jazz,’ says Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz...
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“The new modern symphony orchestra will once again be a living, breathing,...”
– My thoughts exactly, even if the rest of conductor Joseph Swensen’s state-of-orchestras submission to the NY Times ArtsBeat blog is open to debate [see the comment thread]. I’ll limit my own commentary to the suggestion that some ensembles – including the one I direct – are already well...
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The Rachmaninoff Covenant →
Good reading if you missed [or were miffed by] yesterday’s DCMA scuffle between online music score library IMSLP and the UK Music Publishers Association. The ruckus was touched off by a bogus MPA copyright claim related to a work by Rachmaninoff, prompting Matthew Guerrieri to review the legal complexities surrounding Russian music written during the first half of twentieth century. His...
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The most amazing thing
If you’ve been following this blog for a while you know that I try to share feedback from my concerts whenever I can, especially from young people. Below are the responses of one fifth grade class in Waterloo, Iowa to their experience hearing Beethoven 5 at last week’s WCFSO educational concerts:
That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen
I love Beethoven now that I heard...
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“Research is showing that our brains understand music not only as emotional...”
– Pam Belluck of the New York Times reports on new studies into our brains’ comprehension of music. Her account of how scientists are gauging responses to different interpretations of the same music should be useful for any performer, and is just plain fascinating for anyone interested in human...
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WatchCellist Yo-Yo Ma is involved in yet another genre-defying project, this time hooking up with Memphis Jook virtuoso Lil’ Buck to open up the creative minds of in-need Los Angeles kids. Wait for their collabo on Saint-Saëns’ Swan from Carnival of the Animals at 2:30 – it adds a whole new dimension to the idea of breaking down the classics.
[Discovered via culturite, who posted Spike...
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Do Lectures →
Every fall David and Clare Hieatt host a unique gathering at fforest Farm in Cilgerran, Wales:
We invite a set of people to come down here and tell us what they Do. They can be small Do’s or big Do’s or just extraordinary Do’s. But when you listen to their stories, they light a fire in your belly to go and Do your thing, your passion, the thing that sits in the back of your head each day, just...
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quixotekid asked: Great info on Dvorak! I really enjoy some of his pieces. The community orchestra that I am in is playing Festival March for our Spring/Summer concert next month! Good stuff.
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WatchIn 1954 Leonard Bernstein made his first Omnibus television appearance, illuminating the inner workings of Beethoven’s creative process through a mixed-media demonstration of the composer’s sketches for the Fifth Symphony. It boggles my mind that over half a century later orchestras are still reluctant to try approaches like this on our so-called ‘classical’ concert series....