Posted by Sam Zelitch »
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The Northwestern University Bienen School of Music’s Side by Side music festival featured an impressive lineup of unorthodox musical partnerships, none more idiosyncratic than the electromagnetic combination of the self-desribed post-classical string quartet ETHEL and 70s pop/rock icon Todd Rundgren. “Sorry, I got a little carried away with myself,” said Rundgren from the bench of his grand piano, trying to start a tune without blundering. The song Compassion, which he restarted twice, is one of his lesser known singles, yet his audience at Pick-Staiger Hall on the Northwestern campus in Suburban Chicago on Friday, April 2, 2013, sat in rapt attention even as he interrupted his own singing with occasional self-deprecating giggles.
Singer/songwriter Todd Rundgren (photo credit: toddfan.com)
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Posted by Thomas Deneuville »
Add Comment »From the Make Music Winter website:
“Inspired by the collaborations of John Cage and Lou Harrison, So Percussion’s Jason Treuting and Josh Quillen will create a new piece for a chorus of pitched copper pipes in the streets of Greenwich Village. Led by percussionists Amy Garapic and Matt Evans, each participant will receive a length of pipe along with simple instructions for how and when to play it, and how to interact with the NYC percussionists who will join the proceedings at spots along the way.”
More info: http://makemusicny.org | http://sopercussion.com
Embedding is cool. Crediting is really cool.
Video + Editing: Thomas Deneuville | Opening animation: Daniel Thompson at DTWebart (http://www.dtwebart.com)
Posted by Kelsey Walsh »
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I just finished reading Joel Sachs’ new book, Henry Cowell: A Man Made of Music for the third time. I had previously read it for my own pleasure, and I was delighted to be asked to review it. I’ve read an enormous amount of material on Henry Cowell (although nowhere near as much as Sachs has!), and I must say, this book is by far the best comprehensive biography available. Sachs speaks of the “indigestion” that followed reading every piece of paper associated with Henry Cowell plus background information on San Francisco history, 1920s politics, and so forth. Perhaps it took a while to digest all that information, but the resulting book is well worth the wait. It is a wonderful read, both accessible and informative, full of information and stories so vivid you can’t help but be drawn into Cowell’s life. From Cowell’s humble beginnings at the Menlo Park of the late nineteenth century—then a muddy stretch of nothing worlds from the Silicon Valley suburb it is today—the book chronicles a life so full of adventures it could be a novel.
Henry Cowell
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Posted by Don Clark »
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Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison and Edgard Varèse were truly mavericks in their day, challenging convention, creating new sound worlds and integrating non-Western music traditions into their works. Michael Tilson Thomas and his forces in San Francisco have led an historic effort to keep this music in front of audiences and memorialize it in recordings. These 4 works were all recorded in excellent live sound in 2010 and 2012.
Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the San Francisco Symphony
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Posted by David Pearson »
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What was most captivating about Eclipse String Quartet’s March 22 performance at Roulette in Brooklyn was the clarity with which each melodic line sung through the hall. Every instrument and player brought their own qualities that were never lost in the ensemble, while at the same time coming together in conversation and moments of blend. This was particularly important given their choice of Ruth Crawford’s String Quartet, a highly contrapuntal work rich in dialogue.
Eclipse Quartet - Photo by Stanford Lee Wilson
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Posted by David Gottlieb »
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The San Francisco Symphony’s Centennial Season has featured many interesting events, notably lengthening the travel itineraries for six of the top Orchestras nationwide for San Francisco stops to celebrate its big year. However, a homegrown element of the celebratory Centennial has been a re-birth of Michael Tilson Thomas’ American Mavericks festival, which last ran in 2000. The series as a whole will likely prove to test the ‘Mavericks’ ideal, and tonight’s program proved a perfect example of how the conservativism of Orchestras in a middling economy can affect a festival’s message and meaning, yet how clever programming can still yield a unique evening.
Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the SFS in the Opening Concert of the American Mavericks Festival (Photo Kristen Loken)
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