January 2012
27 posts
3 tags
Jan 31st
45 notes
2 tags
“Downloaders are making a moral calculation and coming to the conclusion that the...”
– Brad Burnham’s astute take on digital media was originally intended as an entry into the SOPA debate but is now even more relevant in the wake of the Megaupload shutdown. I’ve never been shy about extolling the widespread benefits [for everyone but a narrow group of rights holders]...
Jan 30th
878 notes
2 tags
Jan 29th
31 notes
3 tags
Jan 28th
7 notes
3 tags
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...
Jan 27th
3 notes
2 tags
Jan 25th
4 notes
3 tags
Jan 24th
2 notes
1 tag
“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...
Jan 24th
31 notes
2 tags
Orchestrollercoaster
I shared this on Twitter and Facebook a few weeks ago and got a nice response. At the time I wasn’t aware that the version I linked to [and others elsewhere] had been cropped. So here it is again in the original wide aspect – a delightful and dizzying meeting of music and motion: The music is from the 4th movement of Ferdinand Ries’ Second Symphony, and was animated for the Zurich...
Jan 23rd
2 tags
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.
Jan 22nd
4 notes
2 tags
Jan 21st
312 notes
2 tags
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...
Jan 20th
11 notes
1 tag
Jan 18th
252 notes
2 tags
“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]
Jan 16th
2,280 notes
2 tags
Jan 16th
2 tags
“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.
Jan 14th
35 notes
3 tags
WatchWatch
Wes Anderson meets Benjamin Britten in this just-released trailer for the forthcoming Moonrise Kingdom. Perfect match.
Jan 13th
9 notes
3 tags
Jan 12th
25 notes
2 tags
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...
Jan 12th
13 notes
3 tags
Jan 11th
17 notes
1 tag
Jan 10th
274 notes
2 tags
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]
Jan 10th
3 tags
Jan 9th
5 notes
2 tags
Jan 6th
91 notes
1 tag
Why 2012 will be year of the artist-entrepreneur →
I hope so – it’s certainly about time. [via claytoncubitt]
Jan 6th
60 notes
3 tags
Jan 4th
563 notes
1 tag
“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. ...
Jan 4th
26 notes