A source for news on music that is challenging, interesting, different, progressive, introspective, or just plain weird

Tag: Composer

  • Yvonne Lee in Seattle

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    From WAYWARD MUSIC: 8:00 PM; $5-$15 sliding scale donation at the door (WCF members attend one concert in the Transport series free). Presented by Washington Composers Forum, Nonsequitur, and Jack Straw Productions. WCF’s Transport Series is sponsored by 4Culture. Pianist Yvonne Lee performs music by modern masters: Anton Webern‘s Variations, Opus 27; Elliott Carter‘s Retrouvailles…

  • Anthony Braxton and Walter Thompson Premiere in Brooklyn

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    Anthony Braxton (via last.fm) From the Irondale Ensemble Project: The Irondale Center Presents: Anthony Braxton and Walter Thompson Premiere A New Soundpainting Composition Performed by Anthony Braxton, Walter Thompson, and the Walter Thompson Orchestra April 16, 17 & 18, 2009 What: Anthony Braxton and Walter Thompson Premiere – A New Soundpainting Composition When: April 16,…

  • RIP Henri Pousseur

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    Henri Pousseur (via last.fm) Henri Pousseur passed on late last week. Generally regarded as a member of the Darmstadt School in the 1950s, Pousseur’s music employs serialism, mobile forms, and aleatory, often mediating between or among seemingly irreconcilable styles, such as those of Schubert and Webern (Votre Faust), or Pousseur’s own serial style and the…

  • Mills College Music Department Turns the Wheels of Progress

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    Image via Wikipedia A recent Mills College performance is reviewed. It began with a single riser, draped in black, on a half-lit stage. Atop it sat a desk chair with plain blue cushions, such as you might find in a library or school lab. Surrounding the chair were a laptop computer, an audio processor, and…

  • Meredith Monk’s Big Week

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    Ms. Monk has a big event tomorrow. A small army of performers, including 25 dancers and nearly 100 choristers, will occupy the spiral ramp of the Guggenheim Museum in New York on Thursday. The ad hoc troupe will assemble to perform “Songs of Ascension,” a ritualistic work by avant-garde composer and choreographer Meredith Monk, who…

  • At NEC, six hours of Stockhausen

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    Image via Wikipedia A recent Stockhausen performance is reviewed. At just after 3 p.m. on a Sunday, Vic Rawlings begins to “play a rhythm in the vibration of his body.” He’s only following directions, those of the late German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose “Verbindung” (“Connection”) gives that instruction. What does it mean? Rawlings interprets it…

  • Asko Schoenberg Ensemble on Tour in March

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    A few European shows from Asko Schoenberg: Saterday, 14 maart, 16:30 uur The Hague, Theater aan ‘t Spui Ligeti Academy RODRIGO TASCON Paroxysmal Distorted Resonance DiIEGO SOIFER Periods of ellipsis ABEL PAUL Punta de Fuga MORTON FELDMAN For Frank O’Hara NICCOLÒ CASTIGLIONI Momenti Musicali Saterday, 14 maart, 20:30 uur Rotterdam, Kunsthal, Auditorium Redsound: Steve Reich…

  • Free Jazz Blog Reviews

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    Image via Wikipedia From Free Jazz: Sunday, February 22, 2009 WHO Trio – Less Is More (Cleanfeed, 2009) ***** Saturday, February 21, 2009 Steven Bernstein, Marcus Rojas, Kresten Osgood – Tattoos and Mushrooms (ILK Music, 2009) Thursday, February 19, 2009 Trio 3 + Irène Schweizer – Berne Concert (Intakt, 2009) **** Related articles by Zemanta…

  • Classical Music Meets the Avant Garde

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    And if you’re around Milwaukee tonight, check out experimental music by Ryan Carter. Strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and laptops. Yes, laptops. Classical music is getting an electronic upgrade thanks to a myriad of ‘laptop orchestras‘ popping up across the globe, increasing interest and knowledge in musical technology and a desire to make a break from…

  • Sonomu Reviews

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    From Sonomu: Erik Enocksson, Farväl Falkenberg (Kning Disk) The original soundtrack to a movie about teenage angst in smalltown Sweden that was made quite a fuss over at the Venice and Toronto film festivals of 2006. Erik Enocksson bids farewell to Falkenberg with a folksy sound undercut and thereby upgraded by a quirky choice of…

  • John Zorn Scores Richard Foreman’s Astronome

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    A review of this show is available. Richard Foreman has a stimulus package for those who’ve missed the Ontological-Hysteric Theater‘s sensory overload the last few years. The director-playwright-designer founded his pioneering theater in 1968, mounting total-environment stagings of his own mind-plays. But in 2006, he embarked on the Bridge Project, a series of smaller video-performance…

  • Improvised music is made for listening

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    The Seattle Improvised Music Festival is previewed. Starting tonight and continuing for two consecutive weekends, the Seattle Improvised Music Festival will feature a dozen musicians in various combinations, performing one of the most- difficult-to describe forms of modern music. There are several saxophone players (Wilson Shook, Wally Shoup, Kelvin Pittman), keyboard players (Gust Burns and…

  • New on Victo Records

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    From Victo Records: In the spring of 2006, Spanish sound artist Francisco López led a composition workshop in Montreal. A master of the field recording and its use in acousmatic composition, López asked the participants to share their urban field recordings. From their work came a compact disc, Montreal Sound Matter on Pogus, and an…

  • RIP Lukas Foss

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    Composer Lukas Foss has passed on. Lukas Foss, a prolific and versatile composer who was also a respected pianist and conductor, died at his home in Manhattan on Sunday. He was 86, and also had a home in Bridgehampton, N.Y. His wife, Cornelia, announced his death. Although he was a German émigré, Mr. Foss was,…

  • John Zorn Book Review

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    Image by Laertes via Flickr PopMatters reviews a new book on Zorn. Where does one start in analyzing the career of John Zorn? The avant-garde composer and saxophone player is among music’s most daring and productive artists, yet very few serious studies of his work have been attempted. Dissecting his work is like peeling back…

  • This Week’s Wayward Music Shows

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    From Seattle’s Wayward Music: Saturday, January 17, 2009 Seattle Improv Fest Benefit: 1-Minute Solos 8:00 PM; suggested donation $10 or more. Seattle Improvised Music presents its annual benefit concert to raise funds for the 24th annual Seattle Improvised Music Festival. This year’s festival (February 13, 14, 15 and 20, 21, 22) will feature performers from…