New music one note at a Time
I have placed some of my own compositions up on my personal website.
Music Posted as pdf for Guitar trio, jazz combo charts, and other small group chamber ensemble music [(ob,bsn).(vln,ob),(3 gtr), etc]
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2009/06/steve_reichs_double_sextet_bro.html
Star-Ledger Article:
When Steve Reich won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in April, many called the award long overdue. Given his revolutionary body of work, it’s hard to argue. But when the new music group Signal performed the winning composition “Double Sextet” at Le Poisson Rouge Monday night, both the piece itself and the sense of lifetime achievement came through in full glory.
To open the celebratory concert, which the composer attended, Signal, led by conductor Brad Lubman, performed what could be considered the work’s predecessor, “Sextet,” written in 1984. Scored by Reich (no relation to this reporter) for four percussionists and two keyboardists, the work features such sounds as electric pianos, bowed vibraphones, marimba, click sticks and crotales. The composer’s trademark layered contrapuntal textures, played with precision and direction, gave the impression of driving rhythmic patterns bouncing against one another.
Le Poisson Rouge, the Greenwich Village club that curates an eclectic blend of classical, indie rock and other genres with an emphasis on new music, recently celebrated its first anniversary. At least in its classical programming, it has been both strikingly consistent and consistently striking, and the relaxed atmosphere, complete with a bar, seems to be a successful model. With many concert halls struggling, it would be interesting to see how a larger work than the chamber music and recitals typically performed here might fare in such a setting.
Hearing Reich’s pieces in such close proximity enhanced the newer work’s broad scope and the raw, human qualities that could be taken on by the strings and winds — instruments absent from many of the composer’s earlier works. “Double Sextet” calls for two ensembles of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion to be played either by 12 musicians, as it was by Signal, or by six playing against a recording of themselves. That is how the piece, which Reich wrote in 2007 and premiered in 2008, was first performed by the new music-ensemble eighth blackbird.
Here is a youtube video of them in the studio recording double sextet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IqVnvkzvNQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Rji3yhRs8
This is an interview with Bear McCreary. Bear’s main instrument is accordion.
Zoe Keating, who combines mad classical cello skills with mad Apple Script skills in order to create hypnotic, layered, musical compositions that sound like a cross between Steve Reich and Kronos Quartet.
Using her MacBook Pro with popular music software Ableton Live and SuperLooper, Keating modifies this potent software combo with some “nasty” Apple Script that allows her to control the looping of live musical phrases with her feet, via MIDI signals from a foot pedal board. That she was an information architect during the dot-com boom should come as little surprise, considering the amount of tech savvy needed to pull off such an elaborate yet elegant setup.
Read the full article:
http://www.macworld.com/article/140421/cellist_fuses_classical_music_and_macbook_with_superb_results.html
also more at wired: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/keating/
Piano to body percussion; solos to quintets; vocal ensembles to electronic music – all that and much more could be seen and heard at the Intercollegiate Composition Forum on Thursday.
On April 30, eight student composers from Whitworth and three students from Gonzaga University gathered in the Music Recital Hall to share their original works of music with an audience of students, staff and community members. The event was part of CompFest 2009.
Associate professor of music Brent Edstrom was the main organizer of the Forum.
“As a composer, there is nothing more thrilling than hearing your piece come to life,” Edstrom said. “It’s exciting… and nerve-racking.”
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“This [composition forum] is a really neat opportunity for new composers to show their thoughts and ideas, and they can get constructive criticism and feedback that can help them continue in their compositional efforts,” Bratton said.
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Read the whole article at:
http://www.whitworthian.com/composition-forum-displays-variety-of-student-musical-creations-1.1745012
Seth Bisen-Hersh sounds like a busy guy, penning six cabaret acts of original material – including The Gayest Straight Man Alive, Neurotic Tendencies, and Why Am I Not Famous Yet? – and composed the original musicals The Spickner Spin, Meaningless Sex, and Trivial Pursuits. He also works steadily as a musical accompanist and vocal coach (whose students, by the way, get their own weekly showcase at Don’t Tell Mama).
http://nytheatremike.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/seth-bisen-hersh-has-writers-block/
Turkish composer Koray Sazli truly knows what it means to overcome hardship and make dreams come true. Sazli, an accomplished composer of orchestral music, has been blind since the age of 9. He used a braille writer, a recorder and a piano for composition in college.http://unlvrebelyell.com/2009/04/27/blind-composer-strikes-a-chord/
Student musicians from Cockeysville Middle School gathered Sunday for a benefit concert to remember classmates Greg and Ben Browning, and their parents, lost last year in a spasm of family violence that horrified their suburban community.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_county/bal-md.concert27apr27,0,2666682.story
Congratulations to these Shorter College Students and a hearty thanks for the Georgia Music Teachers Association for their support of music teaching and the art of music.
http://www.romenewswire.com/index.php/2009/04/27/shorter-students-win-top-honors-at-music-competition/
Miami Herald Ellen 4-26-09 Taaffe Zwilich, the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in music, turns 70 on Thursday, and while the milestone is significant, most people would find it difficult to believe.With her unfailing good cheer and prolific musical output, Zwilich remains a strikingly youthful presence.
And, while the birthday of the home-town composer — Zwilich was born in Miami and is a seasonal resident of Pompano Beach — has been overlooked by South Florida’s musical institutions, it is being celebrated in appropriate style elsewhere.
Zwilich’s Fifth Symphony premiered at Carnegie Hall last October under the baton of James Conlon. Several new recordings of her music have either been released or are in the pipeline.
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Zwilich (pronounced SWILL-ik) has been remarkably prolific. She has written in all genres except opera and has created an extensive body of work, averaging more than one new composition a year since she ”started counting” in 1971.
Read more…
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