This is such good news—composer Steve Reich won the Pulitzer Prize for his Double Sextet. Reich’s music has played such a significant role in my life. Back in 1976 I was living in Manhattan and I heard my first live performance of his legendary Music for 18 Musicians that year. It was unlike anything I […]
Music
What’s Sound Got to Do With It?
More wisdom from Elliott Carter (see posting below for more). This is from an article in the Wall Street Journal and came to me by way of friend and artist George Wingate (thanks George): If the public doesn’t respond, it matters very little. Think of other complex works that had difficulty finding an audience, he […]
Wisdom, at 100
Photo by Angela Rowlings From an interview with Elliott Carter (who turned 100 this year): Have you gone through periods of different styles? Elliott Carter: The way I think about it is that I’ve always considered my works as adventures. They were always adventures in something I didn’t know anything about, like finding a new […]
Term Limits
Kyle Gann posted this note on his blog, PostClassic: Thank You, Sarah Palin We in American music owe a great debt to John McCain and Sarah Palin. Those two have so cheapened and tainted the word “maverick” that it will be at least a generation, maybe two, before anyone will be able to use the […]
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Olivier Messiaen
Composer Olivier Messiaen As I head to New Jersey to say goodbye to yet another dear friend who has only days to live, the soundtrack in my head is music that speaks to that dimensionality, the one where very little makes logical, rational sense. Olivier Messiaen’s music has held me in its power for most […]
Jason Moran and The Bandwagon: Milestone
Tarus Mateen, Nasheet Waits, Jason Moran (Bandwagon) In the “Earth stood still for a minute. Seriously dude, it did” category: My son Bryce came with me on a 2 hour pilgrimage from Boston to Hanover, New Hampshire–Dartmouth College–on Thursday night to hear and see Jason Moran perform with The Bandwagon (Tarus Mateen on bass, Nasheet […]
Wired for Sound
It is an easy seduction for an artist–any artist–to complain about being misunderstood and unappreciated. But according to Oliver Sachs (by way of Trevor Hunter’s excellent blog, New Music Box,) musicians may have a neurological right to that claim: At last week’s Chamber Music America conference, keynote speaker Oliver Sacks brought up an astonishing fact: […]