Now that midnight hour is struck, I can now safely post the Tanglewood 2009 season listings, which have been embargoed until November 21.  read more »

Now that midnight hour is struck, I can now safely post the Tanglewood 2009 season listings, which have been embargoed until November 21.  read more »

I'm going to try to clarify the musical complexity issue. What we have now, left over from the previous post, is what I'll call the Byrne argument: that a lot of incomprehensible, audience-alienating music has been written out of a kind of reverse elitism - and what I'll call the Nonken argument (after superb pianist Marilyn Nonken, who wrote in): that there's a lot of difficult, complex music that will never appeal to a wide audience, but it has its admirers, and they should be allowed to have it. On the face of it, these assertions both seem obviously true, and you'll notice they don't even contradict each other.  read more »

Ever since we realized my iPod was in the middle of the wash machine cycle earlier this week, I've returned to listening to my legacy CDs. I continue to be impressed by how good the music of Aaron Copland sounds when transcribed for piano. Maybe it's the mixture of astringency and warmth.out of stock eugenie russo cd at amazon. el saln mxico on wikipedia.

An Exploration into rhythm in the music of Chip Michael Clark Note: Scores discussed in this article will be posted soon When I first began thinking about my music back in September 2007, I felt what I wanted to write about was what made my music unique, the quality that people describe as having a "Chip-ness" about it. Many of the composers I admire have a recognizable personality to their music. Dmitry Shostakovich has a Russian strength to his music (even though he was in and out of popularity with the Soviet Union throughout his life), his music embodies the aspirations of the people of his time . Aaron Copland is often described as the Dean of American composers . His blend of American folk tunes and modern music became known as the American Sound. Leonard Bernstein's use of cultural iconic themes and warring rhythms typify the social clash of the mid to late 20th century. These composers are all influences in my writing, but not the only ones. I grew up in the midst of the disco era, and began playing the trombone at the age of seven. This exposed me to a variety of different styles of music, from the Latin sounds of Gloria Estafan and the Miami Sound Machine, to the rhythmic jazz of Dave Brubeck. I played in concert band, jazz band and orchestra - everything from standard classical repertoire through arrangements of the Beatles. Taking influences from popular music styles is hardly unique. Michael Finnissy uses influences of jazz and Negro spirituals in his work . Philip Glass speaks about influences of rock on his brand of " music with repetitive structures ." Bartk used influences of Hungarian, Slovakian, Romanian and Bulgarian folk music; these are the forms of music he grew up with. It is no surprise that some of my own influences are found in the music I listened to and played as a child. So, what is it that makes my music mine?  read more »

"The opera explores the unpredictability of life's beginnings and endings."

The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Opera Theatre will present a fully staged production of the opera "The Tender Land" by Aaron Copland on Friday and Saturday, April 18 and 19. via Stevens Point Journal

Though I accidentally met Elliott Carter while standing in line for tickets one evening back in the late-70s and had a pleasant if short conversation with him, I was too shy to go up and (re)-introduce myself to him the night Id heard all five of his quartets in one performance . A friend read that post and wrote that he regretted not going up to meet Aaron Copland when he saw him at a 1987 recital.  read more »

A week or so ago, at the ASCAP Awards ceremony, I heard John Corigliano address the group of fiendishly gifted benighted young composers. He warned them about the potential dangers of attending music school, and urged them not to dismiss their own passion, a passion he heard strongly in the music. It can, he intimated, be trained out of you. I got to thinking: what did school do to me? Did it somehow deflate my own passion?  read more »

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • March 7, 2008 ________________________________________________________________________________ Carlos Chavez A small but furious musical brawl is shaping up here next week, when partisans of Mexico's most eminent composer, Carlos Chvez , will square off against equally zealous supporters of the long-neglected Silvestre Revueltas .  There's not much at stake, unless you care who wears the imaginary crown of "Mexico's Greatest Composer" (and really, do you?). But the five-day program of concerts, films and discussions may be a highlight of the musical season, as it turns a revealing spotlight on Revueltas, one of the most wildly original -- and deeply tormented -- musicians of the 20th century. "Revueltas is a spontaneous composer with an eruptive, vibrant personality, and he's one of the most important composers ever produced in the Western Hemisphere," says Joseph Horowitz , a program organizer and artistic director of the Post-Classical Ensemble , one of the groups performing. "He's been the victim of ignorance and prejudice, but we're much more ready for his music than we were 20 years ago." That's the proposition behind "Two Faces of Mexican Music: Carlos Chvez (1899-1978) and Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940) Revisited," which starts Tuesday and features concerts by the prize-winning Cuarteto Latinamericano , the Camerata Interamericana and the Post-Classical Ensemble (with the Mexican singer Eugenia Leon ).  The National Gallery will also host screenings of the Revueltas-scored films “Redes” (with cinematography by the great Paul Strand ) and the irresistibly titled “¡Vmonos con Pancho Villa!” from 1936. And at the very least, it promises to be a fascinating study in contrasts. Chvez and Revueltas came of age at the close of the Mexican revolution as the country was going through a sort of artistic renaissance. Painters such as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were forging a new nationalistic cultural identity, and composers, too, began exploring what it meant to be Mexican. Foremost among them was Chvez. Chvez was unmistakably brilliant. He carved out a preeminent role as conductor, teacher and administrator, heading the Mexican Symphony Orchestra and the National Institute of Fine Arts. In his mid-20s he was winning praise from composers including Aaron Copland for works that still define modern Mexican music: sophisticated, rooted in the music of the pre-Columbian past, but with an international outlook closer to Stravinsky and neoclassicism than to anything you'd hear in the streets of Mexico City.  read more »