Pulse

Conversations among composers

Kyle Gann has a great vignette from his office at Bard:

Composers Joan Tower and George Tsontakis were in my office today, discussing composition with a student. George, the student's teacher, said, "We've been talking about the problem of how fast you can add contrasting new ideas to a piece without losing the listener and making the piece disunified." Joan replied, "Oh, that's a problem everyone faces." I said, "Adding new ideas? That had never occurred to me."

I'm with Kyle.

Singing in the dead of night

Via the indefatigable Steve Smith (whose gig-going schedule apparently doesn't miss a beat even when he's down in Richmond VA visiting his fiancée), I learn that eighth blackbird are jumping on the bandwagon with both feet: they have just unveiled their newly-minted blog (apparently maintained by their newly-minted member -- I wonder if "must blog" was listed among the audition requirements?), and they have also just pulled the shrinkwrap off of their first podcast, which features an brief interview with the great, famously irascible composer-pianist Fred Rzewksi.

(Context: they are talking about the improvised cadenzas they each play in Rzewski's "Pocket Symphony," a work commissioned and recorded by the ensemble.)

On Beauty

While I'm rounding up, I should also mention Greg Sandow's insightful series of posts wherein he tries to explain why "listen to it, it's beautiful" is a less-than-compelling selling point for people my age.

The young and the beautiful

Footnote to beautiful

Further beauty footnote

Last gasp of beauty

[xposted at Secret Society]

Who needs information this high off the ground

For your reading pleasure, the best in recent interweb pamphleteering:

Alex Ross (The Rest Is Noise) commands you to Ignore Mozart. (Or at least, that's what his post was initially titled. He has since revised it to the somewhat more accurate but less punkrock Celebrate Mozart by Ignoring Mozart.)

Also, Alex Ross's first-call sub, Justin Davidson, has some thoughts on the new Hearst tower, which is incidentally the first major NYC building I've seen during every phase of its construction.

Composer-critic Kyle Gann's PostClassic is of course required reading for anyone interested in composition, but his recent posts charting the history of Metametrics (loosely: non-academic post-minimalist polymetric music) have been especially strong, complete with audio clips and score excerpts. Check out Metametrics: Origins, Metametrics: Origins 2, and Nested 3:2 Addendum… and take notes, because this will be on the midterm.

While you're at it, check out this profile of Kyle Gann and fellow composer Steve Layton, on life after minimalism. Be sure to listen to the included audio clips from both composers' works -- Gann's "Faith" is killing.  (And I say that as someone who normally can't stand choral works.)

Mwanji Ezana (be.jazz) comments on the recent NYT piece on the one-year anniversary of the Jazz at Lincoln Center compound.

Steve Smith (Night After Night) on new "it" composer Osvaldo Golijov and his chamber opera Ainadamar (which just wrapped up at Lincoln Center. There's more to come, though.)

The Bad Plus (Do The Math) talk Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Sasha Frere-Jones discovers chessboxing. (Incidentally, who was the critic who once compared listening to Wayne Shorter to getting beat up by a chess player?)

David Ryshpan is a talented young piano player I met at The Madness. He has a worthy new blog, Settled in Shipping, which you should read. Posts so far include his excellent diaries from The Madness and an ambitious piece on music and linguistics.

Finally, via jds (Latitude 44.2 North), a helpful list of 2005's Most Loathsome People in America. Any list that contains Johnny Damon, Thomas Freidman, the Discovery Institute's Bruce Chapman, Michelle Malkin, and Pat Robertson is okay by me.

[xposted at Secret Society]