Music news
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We had already agreed in principle that the entire structure of the piece would be derived from Mozart’s 40th Symphony, and that obviously, “White Metal” should carry a variation of the concept “Black Metal” and the term “white noise”.—Miguel Prado Having declared last week in my initial Wandelwatching post that this series of essays is…
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Eva-Maria Houben Silence in music was not the cessation of sound, or even a gesture: it was a different sound, one with more density than those sounds made by instruments.—Michael Pisaro If my social-media communities are any indication, Wandelweiser is finally arriving here in New York City. Formed in 1992 by composers Antoine Beuger and Burkhard…
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Suzanne Ciani Having taken 2013 off to venture into world domination elsewhere around the globe, the Unsound Festival plants its flag anew in New York City in early April. I wrote about this groundbreaking Polish fest and its founder, Mat Schulz, for The New York Times in 2010, so I'll refer you to that article…
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"Tomorrow's Valhalla: Critics Weigh in on Standout Operas of Recent Decades"The New York Times, January 5, 2014 As longtime perusers of this blog already know, I always enjoy features in which all the classical-music reviewers for The New York Times are asked to mix it up on a single topic. I missed posting the recent…
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Kate Soper and Gelsey Bell, by Kobi Davis Welcome to 2014—and what a crazy weekend for contemporary American opera in NYC January 11-12 is turning out to be. Not only will the second PROTOTYPE Festival be in full swing (about which more to come), but Morningside Opera will present Here Be Sirens, a new chamber…
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I've written about the music-sales website/service Bandcamp so often, here and on social-media channels, that I run the risk of sounding like a shill, I know. But I can't help it: I just love the browsing, streaming, shopping and sharing capabilities it delivers. Early on, my admiration was slightly mitigated by the idea that even…
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<a href="http://gestinson.bandcamp.com/album/masters-of-the-abstract-an-homage" _mce_href="http://gestinson.bandcamp.com/album/masters-of-the-abstract-an-homage">masters of the abstract (an homage) by g.e.stinson</a> Left coast guitar artist GE Stinson, a founding member of seminal New Age/fusion ensemble Shadowfax who moved onward to all manner of rich, gripping projects, has just reposted this 2011 "homage to some of the masters of abstract jazz and improvisation." I was going to…
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<a href="http://recordings.irritablehedgehog.com/album/eva-maria-houben-piano-music" _mce_href="http://recordings.irritablehedgehog.com/album/eva-maria-houben-piano-music">Eva-Maria Houben: Piano Music by R. Andrew Lee</a> It's not all bad news today; it only seems that way. The world's a mess, but all is right with pianist R. Andrew Lee, who continues to blaze deep trails into the music of major minimalists past and present. New today on the Irritable…
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<a href="http://umorrex.bandcamp.com/album/collected-works-vol-1-the-moog-years" _mce_href="http://umorrex.bandcamp.com/album/collected-works-vol-1-the-moog-years">Collected Works Vol. 1 The Moog Years by M. Geddes Gengras</a> Compilations aren't generally things I spend much time recommending. But in the case of an artist as madly prolific as California synth muso M. Geddes Gengras, Collected Works Vol. 1, a new anthology from Mexican label Umor Rex, is a godsend. Subtitled…
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Visting Houston about a month ago to clean out the last lingering dregs of my adolescent bedroom before the old family house is sold, I came upon these curios of my high-school existence. Trust me, I blew my entire first paycheck from my first real job on a new cassette deck. But before that happened,…
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<a href="http://steamroom.bandcamp.com/album/steamroom-1" _mce_href="http://steamroom.bandcamp.com/album/steamroom-1">Steamroom 1 by Jim O&#39;Rourke</a> A hefty, heady trove of new and recent music by Jim O'Rourke has just turned up on Bandcamp, priced inexpensively and available in a variety of file formats, lossless and otherwise. I've just bought Steamroom 1, a 2012 recording O'Rourke pressed up for his recent Japanese tour with…
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You might know Anne Guthrie's name from Sinter, the excellent CD she recorded with Richard Kamerman for the ErstAEU label, which is where I first learned of and heard this Brooklyn-baed composer, improviser and acoustician. Maybe you've heard her previous recordings on Engraved Glass or Copy for Your Records. I haven't, which is why I'm…
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Conductor Bill Eddins, never one to mince words, weighed in yesterday on the ongoing dissolution of the Minnesota Orchestra, which has just lost two more key players: assistant concertmaster Stephanie Arado, who is taking a teaching position at Interlochen, and principal French horn player Michael Gast, who is coming to the New York Philharmonic during…
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&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=&amp;quot;http://chubbywolf.bandcamp.com/album/seasick&amp;quot; _mce_href=&amp;quot;http://chubbywolf.bandcamp.com/album/seasick&amp;quot;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Seasick by Chubby Wolf&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; Newly posted on the Chubby Wolf Bandcamp page: Seasick, a beautiful posthumous release initially issued in a limited-edition CD run of 250 copies on the Mystery Sea label. The album was mastered by Mathias Ruhlman, who also added a light sprinkling of original sounds. The results are luminous and…
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Charles Gayle in 'Rising Tones Cross' JazzizJuly 1999 The early 1980s were a period of transition for the avant-garde fringe in New York. The loft scene – the days in which Ornette Coleman's hom on Prince Street and Sam Rivers' Studio Rivbea provided workshops for experimenters to develop their art –was drawing to a close,…
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John Shiurba JazzizMay 1999 Bay Area guitarist and free-improvisor John Shiurba hit upon the idea of his new Limited Sedition record label soon after buying a CD burner last year: "I just wanted to put out CDs of my music, and music that I think is worthy," he explains. "But the idea of shopping tapes…
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Sometimes the road ahead is simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time…and knowing the right people. Back in the spring of 2000, with my illustrious public-relations career at an impasse after BMG Classics eliminated almost everyone in the department, I got an interesting offer from Larry Blumenfeld, then the…
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Ken Thomson, by James Hirschfeld Ken Thomson and I first crossed paths back in 1997, when I was the publicist for the Knitting Factory and its first-annual [sic] Texaco Jazz Festival (formerly What Is Jazz?), and he was part of an intrepid team broadcasting multiple events for Columbia University's invaluable radio station, WKCR-FM. Since then,…
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To everyone who surfed into Night After Night yesterday after news of my winning an ASCAP Concert Music Award became public – including the many who came via a supremely kind citation on my brilliant colleague Alex Ross's blog, The Rest Is Noise – thanks very much for stopping by. I'm thrilled by the recognition…
Night After Night 