American music critic Greg Sandow is promoting his new book Rebirth: The Future of Classical Music on his blog. He declares he is interested to find solutions to declining audiences for classical music and invites readers to contribute their success stories. Sounds like a plan. I haven't read his book yet, but had this to say about his blog post:
Young people are certainly used to what us older folk might call "multimedia." The solution to classical music's "problem" is simple: engage young people in your productions – young in age or young in spirit. And I don't mean just the obsessed young classical musician. I mean people who live and breath the present. Many sensitive contemporary composers are available to be part of this solution. For classical music to move forward, it has to, well, move forward! The past century is unique in its capacity to archive and create "a canon" of "classical" music." But the music of the past cannot, by itself, speak to the present and the future. Some sentiments, as expressed through music, speak to us over centuries. Others do not. The history of music is a story of change. It should come as no shock that humanity will continue to want from culture something that reflects the time and situation in which we live now. The core of the solution: creative people and programming that artistically mixes the past with the present in productions that enhance the meaning of the works presented by the use of processed image and sound.
Read his blog post here.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Talking with Composers, Canada and beyond
[Reprinted from the site that commissioned the review, Sequenza21.com.]
[Direct link.]
Sonic Mosaics
Conversations with Composers
Paul Steenhuisen
ISBN: 978-0-88864-474-9
Price: CND$ 34.95, USD$ 34.95, £ 18.5
Subject: Music/Criticism
Publication Date: January 2009
Reviewed by John Oliver
http://www.johnolivermusic.com
Sonic Mosaics is a book of interviews conducted by composer Paul Steenhuisen over a three year period from 2001-2004. Over half of the interviews were commissioned by Toronto's monthly, short-run music publication WholeNote on the occasion of a composer's presence in the city for a premiere performance or CD release. Two were originally published in Musicworks magazine and the rest were conducted by Steenhuisen afterward to complete the book and attempt to represent more Canadian composers.
Steenhuisen gets full marks for disclosure: he reveals the shortcomings and strengths of the book in the introduction. Although the book contains a large number of interviews with Canadian composers, the author admits that it is by no means representative of the entire country. The reader is treated to six interviews with non-Canadian composers, three of which occur as a result of a composer's appearance as a guest of New Music Concerts. Five are with the most senior generation of international contemporary music "stars": Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, Mauricio Kagel, Christian Wolff and Helmut Lachenmann; the sixth is UK composer Michael Finissy.
Equivalent Canadian senior composers include R. Murray Schafer, John Weinzweig, Udo Kasemets, John Beckwith, and Francis Dhomont. Yet equivalent senior composers of Quebec and the rest of Canada are not represented. The rest of the interviews give a glimpse into the creative minds of primarily composers who reside in the province of Ontario. Place-of-residence analysis reveals that, of the 26 Canadian interviewees, 16 reside in Ontario, 6 in Quebec, 3 in British Columbia, and one in Alberta: not an accurate proportional representation. The reader may also note that over half of composers represented here teach at universities, an understandable bias given the author's background and the general tendency in Canada for composers to gain a livelihood from teaching. If this represents only a subset of important Canadian composers, the reader's curiosity will be aroused to seek out information about more as a result of reading this book. A second volume is in order.
One might fear that a book of interviews in which one specialist interviews another in the same field would result in an impenetrable, jargon-ridden read that would send the reader crying out for generalists to give them something understandable and relevant to their own experience. This book, though not for the uninitiated, rarely crosses the line into the specialist realm. It should inspire the music fan to want to learn more and will be particularly attractive to musicians and music students. In this way, it achieves the goal to create a context of understanding for the music: mythologies melt away, though they may be replaced with new and more interesting ones!
Steenhuisen as interviewer asks probing, well-researched and varied questions that elicit from his subjects responses that vary from candid and revealing to evasive or predictable. Thankfully, the latter moments are few. Rather, we experience a conversation rich enough in detail to please the contemporary music enthusiast (though rarely theoretical and technical enough for the academic), and broad enough in scope to introduce those in the earlier stages of discovery to basic paradigms of the art and to some major international figures and a cross-section of Canadian composers, most of whom are interviewed for the first time in such a volume. The sense of speaking in confidence brings authority and depth to many of the interviews that a journalist would be less likely to reach.
Steenhuisen's questions and style – sometimes probing, other times knowingly prodding the subject – create a text that never lags. The author states, again in the introduction, that "while trained in neither journalism nor interviewing techniques, I am instead a self-taught critic, and approached the interviews as an interested professional, with the goal that my own interests and perspectives on the work of the interviewee would overlap with those of other listeners." This approach gives the reader a consistency of intent throughout the book, thus providing a book full of ideas about music, composition and the professional life, though few biographical details.
Considering the interviews' length and generalist purpose, they are remarkably thorough. For example, we have a fine overview of the career of Pierre Boulez in 8 pages: "you should be autodidact by will, not by chance" and "I like specialists only for surgery and medicine, but not for music." The personality of each interviewee shines out. Steenhuisen's intends is to cover as much territory as possible. Among his many questions, Steenhuisen usually directs the interview toward the discussion of a specific work and its ideas and touches on the subject of social relevance by way of the topic of communication. Several of the senior composers have appeared in print in the past and are well-known in Canada, but may be new to non-Canadian readers. Entirely new information is contributed to our understanding of contemporary music in the interviews of younger generations. Among the most fascinating are Howard Bashaw, who speaks of pre-compositional planning, musical structure, the role of the piano, intimacy, exactitude, and performance energy; Michael Finnissy, whose continuous ramblings seem chaotic on the surface but clearly the work of a brilliant mind; and Chris Paul Harman's discussion of recontextualisation, self-criticism and self-distancing from the materials of music. Helmut Lachenmann's entire interview could function as a suitable introduction to the whole book, especially his description of his own music as creating a "situation of perception, which provokes you to wonder 'What is music?'"
Another great pleasure comes from comparisons among composers, and the echo of one composer's ideas in another's. To give just one example: the echo of Normandeau's birth of the musical material from listening to the sounds in Barbara Croall's description of her way of composing; then the relationship of Croall's attraction to the "imperfect", "in-between" sounds to Lachenmann's explanation of the use of such sounds as establishing "new contexts" for listening and composing. The book is full of such riches. A highly-recommended read.
[Direct link.]
Sonic Mosaics
Conversations with Composers
Paul Steenhuisen
ISBN: 978-0-88864-474-9
Price: CND$ 34.95, USD$ 34.95, £ 18.5
Subject: Music/Criticism
Publication Date: January 2009
Reviewed by John Oliver
http://www.johnolivermusic.com
Sonic Mosaics is a book of interviews conducted by composer Paul Steenhuisen over a three year period from 2001-2004. Over half of the interviews were commissioned by Toronto's monthly, short-run music publication WholeNote on the occasion of a composer's presence in the city for a premiere performance or CD release. Two were originally published in Musicworks magazine and the rest were conducted by Steenhuisen afterward to complete the book and attempt to represent more Canadian composers.
Steenhuisen gets full marks for disclosure: he reveals the shortcomings and strengths of the book in the introduction. Although the book contains a large number of interviews with Canadian composers, the author admits that it is by no means representative of the entire country. The reader is treated to six interviews with non-Canadian composers, three of which occur as a result of a composer's appearance as a guest of New Music Concerts. Five are with the most senior generation of international contemporary music "stars": Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, Mauricio Kagel, Christian Wolff and Helmut Lachenmann; the sixth is UK composer Michael Finissy.
Equivalent Canadian senior composers include R. Murray Schafer, John Weinzweig, Udo Kasemets, John Beckwith, and Francis Dhomont. Yet equivalent senior composers of Quebec and the rest of Canada are not represented. The rest of the interviews give a glimpse into the creative minds of primarily composers who reside in the province of Ontario. Place-of-residence analysis reveals that, of the 26 Canadian interviewees, 16 reside in Ontario, 6 in Quebec, 3 in British Columbia, and one in Alberta: not an accurate proportional representation. The reader may also note that over half of composers represented here teach at universities, an understandable bias given the author's background and the general tendency in Canada for composers to gain a livelihood from teaching. If this represents only a subset of important Canadian composers, the reader's curiosity will be aroused to seek out information about more as a result of reading this book. A second volume is in order.
One might fear that a book of interviews in which one specialist interviews another in the same field would result in an impenetrable, jargon-ridden read that would send the reader crying out for generalists to give them something understandable and relevant to their own experience. This book, though not for the uninitiated, rarely crosses the line into the specialist realm. It should inspire the music fan to want to learn more and will be particularly attractive to musicians and music students. In this way, it achieves the goal to create a context of understanding for the music: mythologies melt away, though they may be replaced with new and more interesting ones!
Steenhuisen as interviewer asks probing, well-researched and varied questions that elicit from his subjects responses that vary from candid and revealing to evasive or predictable. Thankfully, the latter moments are few. Rather, we experience a conversation rich enough in detail to please the contemporary music enthusiast (though rarely theoretical and technical enough for the academic), and broad enough in scope to introduce those in the earlier stages of discovery to basic paradigms of the art and to some major international figures and a cross-section of Canadian composers, most of whom are interviewed for the first time in such a volume. The sense of speaking in confidence brings authority and depth to many of the interviews that a journalist would be less likely to reach.
Steenhuisen's questions and style – sometimes probing, other times knowingly prodding the subject – create a text that never lags. The author states, again in the introduction, that "while trained in neither journalism nor interviewing techniques, I am instead a self-taught critic, and approached the interviews as an interested professional, with the goal that my own interests and perspectives on the work of the interviewee would overlap with those of other listeners." This approach gives the reader a consistency of intent throughout the book, thus providing a book full of ideas about music, composition and the professional life, though few biographical details.
Considering the interviews' length and generalist purpose, they are remarkably thorough. For example, we have a fine overview of the career of Pierre Boulez in 8 pages: "you should be autodidact by will, not by chance" and "I like specialists only for surgery and medicine, but not for music." The personality of each interviewee shines out. Steenhuisen's intends is to cover as much territory as possible. Among his many questions, Steenhuisen usually directs the interview toward the discussion of a specific work and its ideas and touches on the subject of social relevance by way of the topic of communication. Several of the senior composers have appeared in print in the past and are well-known in Canada, but may be new to non-Canadian readers. Entirely new information is contributed to our understanding of contemporary music in the interviews of younger generations. Among the most fascinating are Howard Bashaw, who speaks of pre-compositional planning, musical structure, the role of the piano, intimacy, exactitude, and performance energy; Michael Finnissy, whose continuous ramblings seem chaotic on the surface but clearly the work of a brilliant mind; and Chris Paul Harman's discussion of recontextualisation, self-criticism and self-distancing from the materials of music. Helmut Lachenmann's entire interview could function as a suitable introduction to the whole book, especially his description of his own music as creating a "situation of perception, which provokes you to wonder 'What is music?'"
Another great pleasure comes from comparisons among composers, and the echo of one composer's ideas in another's. To give just one example: the echo of Normandeau's birth of the musical material from listening to the sounds in Barbara Croall's description of her way of composing; then the relationship of Croall's attraction to the "imperfect", "in-between" sounds to Lachenmann's explanation of the use of such sounds as establishing "new contexts" for listening and composing. The book is full of such riches. A highly-recommended read.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Five-ring Concerto for Turning Point Ensemble completed
Well friends, it's been an intense home stretch for my new chamber concerto for the Turning Point Ensemble. I finished the piece exactly one week ago – which I managed to announce on Twitter – and then went straight into copying parts and finalizing details of the score. But I didn't even come up with the title until just a few days ago!
I always think that the writing is the hardest part: so much energy required to conceive of the ideas, get the writing for the instruments working optimally for them to communicate with the audience, and so on, but then comes staring at the full score and the individual parts trying to make sure there are no errors, omissions, etc., and that requires a completely different brain. Lucky thing too, because my creative brain is pretty tired by the end of the piece! So the parts took four full days to complete. It's funny: the music notation software companies, like Sibelius and Finale, advertise that the parts are created (linked) as you write the piece, making everything sound so effortless. It sells the product, but in reality, there are cues to write in, page turns to calculate, formatting issues, etc. Maybe I should write fewer notes!
So in the end, I have written a five-movement concerto for chamber orchestra, in which the three sections of the orchestra – string, winds, and brass – compete with one another (one could say). I haven't designed or designated a "winner" of this competition. That would be a game the audience could play with the piece.
The plan for the music has not changed since my October 5, 2009 post to this blog in which I outlined five movements. The only change came in the feeling of the second movement, which had initially been inspired by the short-track speed skating. In the end I think it evokes the whole movement of speed skating, whether on the oval short track or on the long track. So, the movements are:
1. Curling
2. Speed Skating
3. Skeleton
4. Freestyle skiing
5. Hockey
In that post, I spoke about "sonifying the actual rhythms of the winter sports." This has remained true through the completion of the remaining three movements.
For the October workshop, I had only the first two movements complete. At the workshop, I worked with the musicians to create an incredible sound for the Skeleton movement. We worked at adding details to the musical sketches I had written. Here is a sport that is experienced in polar opposite ways depending on whether you are a television spectator, or you are at the track. I've never attended an Olympic event of any kind – and couldn't even conceive of getting tickets for our own Olympics with the crazy prices (and so on). So my experience of the Olympics is probably a lot like most of us: we know it through broadcast media. Watching past Olympic Skeleton events on youtube, I was struck by the incredible noise that these atheletes endure on their sleds. For the broadcasts of the Skeleton runs, the atheletes agree to have microphones attached to their sleds. So the television audience hears a continuous noise of the sled against the ice of the track for the entire duration of the run. By contrast, those on the side of the track will wait in silence and anticipation for the rider to round the corner just before where they stand, and then their moment of taking in the Skeleton event goes by in a matter of seconds, with a swish and a rumble. I have had to imagine this, since the youtube videos I saw didn't really have much to speak of in the way of audio when they showed the camera on the audience.
The short movement of my piece called "Skeleton," begins with a representation of the common pre-race tension with the use of low, sliding strings. Then the race is "announced" by brass and after the short run to get going, the athelete jumps on the sled and all hell breaks loose in the ensemble. All of the musicians work together to create a dense continuously moving – yet in a way static – texture that represents this "life of the microphone on the sled" experience. Then, in the only clear nod to camera techniques in the composition, there is a "jump-cut" to the audience-on-the-track perspective. This will strike many as the most "avant-garde" of the movements, drawing as it does from the kinds of textures found in the orchestral works of Xenakis, Penderecki and Ligeti from the 1960s.
(An aside for the techno geeks: the microphone, attached to the sled, actually gives us an entirely unique sonic experience of the Skeleton run that doesn't exist outside the "life of microphones" story. Certainly, the athelete does not have their ear attached to the sled!)
The fourth and fifth movements create the gestures and movements of freestyle skiing and hockey. The former features the bumpy ride to the bottom of the ski run with the two jumps in the middle that launch the skier into the air to a sudden slow turning motion – again a play of opposites, from extreme exersion to suspended animation. "Hockey" begins with a big canonic resonating chamber, a technique found in several of my other works (see Prismophony for guitar quartet, third movement, and the opening to Raven Steals the Light for orchestra, to give two examples.) Once the puck is dropped, a new kind of music ensues that is a different kind of resonating chamber: the entire music is constructed from dominant seventh chords, but this time the geometry of hockey is everywhere: curves, zigzags, straight-lines, deek moves. There are no random walks here or other mathematical tricks to create this type of music. I composed entirely from chromatic chord progressions using a common-tone technique found in music from Wagner through Debussy, Scriabin and Stravinsky, though the musical energy is much indebted to the rhythmic energy of the latter.
An invitation to the reader to attend.
The concert on which my new work will be performed for the first time is a fantastic, ideal concert program to hear my work. The program features Arnold Schoenberg's early Chamber Symphony Opus 9 for 15 solo instruments, and the Canadian premiere of Pulitzer-prize winning American composer
John Adams’ exhilarating Son of Chamber Symphony. John Adams and I share a connection that goes back to my student days at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where I studied with him and heard him conduct the premiere performance of his break-through work "Shaker Loops." But it's more than that. There is an energy in Adams personality and music that resonates with my own. He feels like a kindred spirit. Please come to the concert, hear the great Turning Point Ensemble, and come by to say hello after the concert, especially if you are a regular reader of this blog!
Learn more about the concert and buy tickets.
I always think that the writing is the hardest part: so much energy required to conceive of the ideas, get the writing for the instruments working optimally for them to communicate with the audience, and so on, but then comes staring at the full score and the individual parts trying to make sure there are no errors, omissions, etc., and that requires a completely different brain. Lucky thing too, because my creative brain is pretty tired by the end of the piece! So the parts took four full days to complete. It's funny: the music notation software companies, like Sibelius and Finale, advertise that the parts are created (linked) as you write the piece, making everything sound so effortless. It sells the product, but in reality, there are cues to write in, page turns to calculate, formatting issues, etc. Maybe I should write fewer notes!
So in the end, I have written a five-movement concerto for chamber orchestra, in which the three sections of the orchestra – string, winds, and brass – compete with one another (one could say). I haven't designed or designated a "winner" of this competition. That would be a game the audience could play with the piece.
The plan for the music has not changed since my October 5, 2009 post to this blog in which I outlined five movements. The only change came in the feeling of the second movement, which had initially been inspired by the short-track speed skating. In the end I think it evokes the whole movement of speed skating, whether on the oval short track or on the long track. So, the movements are:
1. Curling
2. Speed Skating
3. Skeleton
4. Freestyle skiing
5. Hockey
In that post, I spoke about "sonifying the actual rhythms of the winter sports." This has remained true through the completion of the remaining three movements.
 |
| First reading of Five-ring Concerto; Owen Underhill conducting; at Seycove Secondary School, North Vancouver, BC |
The short movement of my piece called "Skeleton," begins with a representation of the common pre-race tension with the use of low, sliding strings. Then the race is "announced" by brass and after the short run to get going, the athelete jumps on the sled and all hell breaks loose in the ensemble. All of the musicians work together to create a dense continuously moving – yet in a way static – texture that represents this "life of the microphone on the sled" experience. Then, in the only clear nod to camera techniques in the composition, there is a "jump-cut" to the audience-on-the-track perspective. This will strike many as the most "avant-garde" of the movements, drawing as it does from the kinds of textures found in the orchestral works of Xenakis, Penderecki and Ligeti from the 1960s.
(An aside for the techno geeks: the microphone, attached to the sled, actually gives us an entirely unique sonic experience of the Skeleton run that doesn't exist outside the "life of microphones" story. Certainly, the athelete does not have their ear attached to the sled!)
The fourth and fifth movements create the gestures and movements of freestyle skiing and hockey. The former features the bumpy ride to the bottom of the ski run with the two jumps in the middle that launch the skier into the air to a sudden slow turning motion – again a play of opposites, from extreme exersion to suspended animation. "Hockey" begins with a big canonic resonating chamber, a technique found in several of my other works (see Prismophony for guitar quartet, third movement, and the opening to Raven Steals the Light for orchestra, to give two examples.) Once the puck is dropped, a new kind of music ensues that is a different kind of resonating chamber: the entire music is constructed from dominant seventh chords, but this time the geometry of hockey is everywhere: curves, zigzags, straight-lines, deek moves. There are no random walks here or other mathematical tricks to create this type of music. I composed entirely from chromatic chord progressions using a common-tone technique found in music from Wagner through Debussy, Scriabin and Stravinsky, though the musical energy is much indebted to the rhythmic energy of the latter.
An invitation to the reader to attend.
The concert on which my new work will be performed for the first time is a fantastic, ideal concert program to hear my work. The program features Arnold Schoenberg's early Chamber Symphony Opus 9 for 15 solo instruments, and the Canadian premiere of Pulitzer-prize winning American composer
John Adams’ exhilarating Son of Chamber Symphony. John Adams and I share a connection that goes back to my student days at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where I studied with him and heard him conduct the premiere performance of his break-through work "Shaker Loops." But it's more than that. There is an energy in Adams personality and music that resonates with my own. He feels like a kindred spirit. Please come to the concert, hear the great Turning Point Ensemble, and come by to say hello after the concert, especially if you are a regular reader of this blog!
Learn more about the concert and buy tickets.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Friday, January 1, 2010
Into overtime for the "Hockey" movement
The Muse and I have come to a tie, and so now we go into overtime on the last movement – called Hockey – of my Chamber Concerto for the Turning Point Ensemble. (Don't worry Jeremy and Owen – co-directors of TPE – I've had the upper hand on the Muse for most of the game and plan to make it a quick overtime.) It's been an intense time of discovery for me, about which I'll write when the music is done! Soon it's off to a New Year's Day dinner with family. Overtime begins January 2!
Happy New Year everyone!
Happy New Year everyone!
Blogged with the Flock Browser
John Oliver makes new logo for 2010
UPDATE, January 14: This logo is now available on t-shirts, coffee mugs, beer steins, mouse pads, cutting boards, bags & other merchandise at Wordplay Designs.
I woke up this morning and was thinking about living in Vancouver in the year 2010 and the politics of the Olympics. I am a great supporter of the Olympic spirit and the concept of internationalism, and international cooperation toward the goal of achieving world peace. As a creator, I am concerned that artists are properly remunerated for their creations, and so therefore, I believe in copyright as one tool to help feed artists. When the tool of copyright is used to abscond with public property or shared culture, then it becomes a problem. "Good morning" is a phrase that cannot be copyrighted, for example. No reasonable person could argue that people cannot use their imaginations to comment on living in the year 2010 in Vancouver because we happen to host the Olympic Games this year.
It is in that spirit that I hope to capture the essence of the issue in this "logo for 2010" that came to my mind this morning. This is the era of intense debate over the role of copyright, with new alternatives being presented by collectives wanting to relax the rules of copyright to acknowledge the recontextualizing activity that many would argue is a key element in any creative work, a reality that is facilitated by copying and pasting in digital media.
Though it came to my mind, it may also have occurred to others as well. If so, great! Please feel free to share the idea. I thank you in advance for referring people to my blog to see the logo, rather than copying and pasting.
;^)
Happy New Year 2010!
John Oliver
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
thingNY creates largest commission of experimental music in the history of email spam
In late October I received an email message that said:
We are thingNY, a collective of composer-instrumentalists based in New York City. On Saturday, December 19, 2009, we will be presenting a concert called SPAM, based on responses we get to this very email. Congratulations! If you're reading this email, you've been selected to write us some music…
I thought "that's cool," wrote the deadline into my calendar, and promptly got back to work on a paid commission. Then, a couple of days before the final deadline, they sent a reminder. Their timing was good: I was in the middle of a writer's block on my commission. So I sat down and wrote CLIMATE CHANGE in about 7 hours for the full band and sent it off.
I had been reading a lot of Naomi Klein, and remembered one particular passage from an article on the Copenhagen Climate Conference on her web site that I went back to as the source material for the narrator part for the piece. After performing some analysis of the text, I extracted keywords that define the structure of the piece. It was a great breath of fresh air to write…and as soon as I had finished it and hit the send button, I got back to work on a piece that had been blocked (the 2010 commission). Logjam gone!
The work will be presented this Saturday night in New York City, along with compositions from:
Jude Traxler, Heber Schuenemann, David Finlay, Eli Stine, Juliana Steele, Kyle Gann, Marina Rosenfeld, Scott Wollschleger, Sally Williams, Kathy Supove, Moritz Eggert, Daniel Goode, Luciano Azzigotti, Greg Kirkelie, Carr, Joe Kneer, Joseph Nechvatal, Mary Jennings, Brian McCorkle, Paula Diehl, Johnny Kira, Pall Ivan Palsson, Michael Cooper, Emily Koh, Terence Zahner, Joshua Kopecek, William Brittelle, Christian Gentry, Gabrielle Gamberini, Aaron Feinstein, Douglas DaSilva, Greg Pfieffer, Brad Baumgardner, Dave Golbert, Paul Burnell, Jim Legge, David Morneau, Andrea La Rose, Holly Eve Gerard, Gary A. Edwards, Brian McCorkle, Matthew Reid, Gail Noor, Jonah Bloch-Johnson, Greg A Steinke, Tania Leon, Alexandra Fol, Lucy Koteen, Luca Vanneschi, Sarah Prusoff, Ilias Pantoleon, Luis Menacho, David Simons, David Snow, David Drexler, Mike von der Nahmer, Martha Mooke, Art Jarvinen, David Wolfson, Neil Lyndon, Piotr Grella-Mozejko, David Broome, Matt Malsky, Linda Joe, Greg A Steinke, Nate Trier, Mats Eden, Mort Stine, Ophir Ilzetzki, Yianni Naslas, Jane Stuppin, Jessica Quinones, David Snow, Mark Stephen Brooks, Christopher Fulkerson, Ryan Muncy, Barry Seroff, Emanuel Ayvas, Stephanie Miller, Beth Tambor, Pauline Oliveros, Michael Gordon, Adam Reifsteck, Janet Maguire, Jiri Kaderabek, Marilyn Shrude, Joe Hallman, Mimi Kim, Doug Yule, Jeffrey Young, Tom Lopez, Andrew Griffin, Gene Pritsker, Winnie Sunshine, Sima Shamsi, Wally Gunn, Carl Danielsen, Mike Hanf, and Erin Rogers.
Here's their advert:
thingNY presents: SPAM
Sat. Dec. 19, 2009 - 7:00pm
The University of the Streets
130 E 7th Street (at Ave. A)
New York, NY
Admission: $15 at the door
$10 at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/88612
thingNY will boldly state that it has created the largest commission of experimental music in the history of email-submitted spam. Hundreds of new works, words and images from all over the globe, including composers, performers, artists, the Bloomberg administration, peers, subordinates, ordinates, our moms, automated responses, vacation replies and perhaps one or two threats.
We are thingNY, a collective of composer-instrumentalists based in New York City. thingNY is a not-for-profit collective of composer-performers who exist (1) to create, promote, and perform bold and imaginative experimental and improvisational concert art music of the highest caliber, (2) to champion the music of exciting emerging and established composers with skill and enthusiasm, and (3) to collaborate across disciplines with other artists in order to bring new music to new audiences.
We are thingNY, a collective of composer-instrumentalists based in New York City. On Saturday, December 19, 2009, we will be presenting a concert called SPAM, based on responses we get to this very email. Congratulations! If you're reading this email, you've been selected to write us some music…
I thought "that's cool," wrote the deadline into my calendar, and promptly got back to work on a paid commission. Then, a couple of days before the final deadline, they sent a reminder. Their timing was good: I was in the middle of a writer's block on my commission. So I sat down and wrote CLIMATE CHANGE in about 7 hours for the full band and sent it off.
I had been reading a lot of Naomi Klein, and remembered one particular passage from an article on the Copenhagen Climate Conference on her web site that I went back to as the source material for the narrator part for the piece. After performing some analysis of the text, I extracted keywords that define the structure of the piece. It was a great breath of fresh air to write…and as soon as I had finished it and hit the send button, I got back to work on a piece that had been blocked (the 2010 commission). Logjam gone!
The work will be presented this Saturday night in New York City, along with compositions from:
Jude Traxler, Heber Schuenemann, David Finlay, Eli Stine, Juliana Steele, Kyle Gann, Marina Rosenfeld, Scott Wollschleger, Sally Williams, Kathy Supove, Moritz Eggert, Daniel Goode, Luciano Azzigotti, Greg Kirkelie, Carr, Joe Kneer, Joseph Nechvatal, Mary Jennings, Brian McCorkle, Paula Diehl, Johnny Kira, Pall Ivan Palsson, Michael Cooper, Emily Koh, Terence Zahner, Joshua Kopecek, William Brittelle, Christian Gentry, Gabrielle Gamberini, Aaron Feinstein, Douglas DaSilva, Greg Pfieffer, Brad Baumgardner, Dave Golbert, Paul Burnell, Jim Legge, David Morneau, Andrea La Rose, Holly Eve Gerard, Gary A. Edwards, Brian McCorkle, Matthew Reid, Gail Noor, Jonah Bloch-Johnson, Greg A Steinke, Tania Leon, Alexandra Fol, Lucy Koteen, Luca Vanneschi, Sarah Prusoff, Ilias Pantoleon, Luis Menacho, David Simons, David Snow, David Drexler, Mike von der Nahmer, Martha Mooke, Art Jarvinen, David Wolfson, Neil Lyndon, Piotr Grella-Mozejko, David Broome, Matt Malsky, Linda Joe, Greg A Steinke, Nate Trier, Mats Eden, Mort Stine, Ophir Ilzetzki, Yianni Naslas, Jane Stuppin, Jessica Quinones, David Snow, Mark Stephen Brooks, Christopher Fulkerson, Ryan Muncy, Barry Seroff, Emanuel Ayvas, Stephanie Miller, Beth Tambor, Pauline Oliveros, Michael Gordon, Adam Reifsteck, Janet Maguire, Jiri Kaderabek, Marilyn Shrude, Joe Hallman, Mimi Kim, Doug Yule, Jeffrey Young, Tom Lopez, Andrew Griffin, Gene Pritsker, Winnie Sunshine, Sima Shamsi, Wally Gunn, Carl Danielsen, Mike Hanf, and Erin Rogers.
Here's their advert:
thingNY presents: SPAM
Sat. Dec. 19, 2009 - 7:00pm
The University of the Streets
130 E 7th Street (at Ave. A)
New York, NY
Admission: $15 at the door
$10 at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/88612
thingNY will boldly state that it has created the largest commission of experimental music in the history of email-submitted spam. Hundreds of new works, words and images from all over the globe, including composers, performers, artists, the Bloomberg administration, peers, subordinates, ordinates, our moms, automated responses, vacation replies and perhaps one or two threats.
We are thingNY, a collective of composer-instrumentalists based in New York City. thingNY is a not-for-profit collective of composer-performers who exist (1) to create, promote, and perform bold and imaginative experimental and improvisational concert art music of the highest caliber, (2) to champion the music of exciting emerging and established composers with skill and enthusiasm, and (3) to collaborate across disciplines with other artists in order to bring new music to new audiences.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Decimating the Arts in Canada: HERITAGE COMMITTEE CALLS FOR REVERSAL OF CUTS TO DIVERSITY PROGRAM
Go to Decimating the Arts in Canada blog post.
The final report from the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is in and clearly states that cutting the Grants to Specialized Music Recording and Distribution grants is bad for the music sector and bad for the economy. Now it is up to the Federal Government to decide to do the right thing and restore this very small percentage of their total budget.
Click on the link above to read a press release on the subject.
The final report from the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage is in and clearly states that cutting the Grants to Specialized Music Recording and Distribution grants is bad for the music sector and bad for the economy. Now it is up to the Federal Government to decide to do the right thing and restore this very small percentage of their total budget.
Click on the link above to read a press release on the subject.
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