Five links - the first two beautiful, the second two amusing:
- Joy Howard at The Crooked Line on a sublime performance of a Schein motet at Emmanuel Church.
- The Dalai Lama on what he learned from Thomas Merton.
- via Arts Journal, Creature Comforts on “what is Art?”
-via a Penn colleague, an inimitable performance by Nicolas Slonimsky
-and the last, both sublime and ridiculous; again, via Arts Journal
Final rehearsal for Luminism went well today, with yesterday’s adjustments falling into place very nicely. This was the first time I heard the piece all the way through, and therefore my first chance to really assess the formal shape. I think it is going to work, though there is a lot of slow music.
After a fine dinner at Muza, a Polish restaurant in Troy (a sampler with pierogis, stuffed cabbage and potato pancakes was excellent; the Polish beer, called Zywiec, well, nothing special), my colleagues John Harbison, Stacy Garrop, and I went to hear the Albany Symphony’s new music ensemble, called Dogs of Desire. The Dogs are a unique endeavor, in that they have a relatively set chamber orchestra instrumentation, and that they play only newly commissioned works written for the group. The aesthetic angle is downtown-ish, with pop elements, including arrangements of familiar tunes, yet the group is not easily pinned down. I see George Tsontakis and Paul Moravec on their list of commissioned composers, alongside Marc Mellitts, David Lang, and Caleb Burhans. My favorite pieces tonight were a new work by Todd Reynolds involving Eric Singer’s musical robots (midi-ed acoustic instruments - some of the same instruments that Pat Matheny has been touring with); Ted Hearne’s setting of a Frank O’Hara poem; and, as an encore, an arrangement of the Bruce Springsteen song Fire (you know it from the Pointer Sisters version) by Derek Bermel. David Alan Miller conducted very fine performances, though amplified chamber orchestra remains tricky with respect to balances: the strings were occasionally reduced to mimes.
Yvonne Loriod has died. A collection of obituaries here. Alex Ross posted this video, which says a lot about her extraordinary pianism.
I met her at Swarthmore College in 1978, at a complete performance of the piece one of my piano teachers always called “Give My Regards to Jesus”. (Why Swarthmore, you ask? Gerald Levinson, composer on the Swarthmore faculty, was one of Messiaen’s few American pupils.) Of the pianists I have heard do the piece, only Peter Serkin and Pierre-Laurent Aimard could get the variety of color that she achieved.
Did you know she premiered the Boulex 2nd Sonata? Or played a cycle of 22 Mozart concerti? Or ran the tape recorder on joint ornithological expeditions with her husband?
No, this is not a post about New York’s famously dysfunctional state legislature. I’m talking about the Albany Symphony’s American Music Festival this weekend. I am here for the premiere of a commissioned work, Luminism, and there will be music by Stacy Garrop and John Harbison as well. Read more here, including comments from Albany music director David Alan Miller. 
I heard a rehearsal of my piece Tuesday evening - the orchestra is sounding very fine. I sent David a lengthy list of requests and suggestions, including two spots where I want to make more than just an adjustment in dynamics - adding a few notes to the contrabass part, and changing the register of the ending. It is late in the game to be making substantive adjustments like that, but David works very efficiently, so I am hopeful we can get everything implemented at tonight’s rehearsal. One challenge is that the stage at RPI’s new EMPAC is a little small - the hall sounds and looks great, but the musicians - in particular the percussionists - are a little crowded.
I was not in Albany yesterday, but in NYC for the American Academy of Arts and Letters Ceremonial. It is a singular experience to be on a stage with Meryl Streep, James Levine, John Ashberry, Michael Graves, Hal Holbrook, Bill Moyers, Garrison Keillor, Marilynne Robinson, Edward Albee, etc., etc. - not to mention my composer colleagues…
The Philadelphia Music Project - a grant making initiative of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage - has put its magazine online. Composer Rob Maggio has written a short essay about his upcoming premiere with Orchestra 2001 this weekend. Those concerts will also feature music by Barber, a premiere by Paul Moravec, and a local premiere by Andrew Rudin.
Master pianist Hank Jones has died at 91. AP obit here. NPR Jazz Profile here. Rifftides, including video, here. Secret Society, including video and links here. Do the Math comments here. In his post for Jones’s 88th birthday, Ethan Iverson refers to Tiptoe Tapdance as a record with “probably the best jazz treatment of spirituals”. I would commend to your attention another album with spirituals, Jones’s disc with Charlie Haden entitled Steal Away. I never tire of this album, which manages to be simple and pure-hearted yet deeply sophisticated all at once.
Louis Armstrong was in the habit of traveling with a reel-to-reel tape deck when on his endless tours. Although he seemed to prefer Guy Lombardo recordings to lull himself to sleep at night, his tape collection constituted a remarkably varied playlist. According to Terry Teachout’s biography Pops, it included:
“Walter Gieseking playing Debussy, Helen Traubel singing the “Liebestod”, Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Shostakovich’s First Symphony, the original-cast albums of The King and I and South Pacific, recordings of Julius Caesar and Don Juan in Hell, and jazz and pop in profusion: Bix Beiderbecke, Bunny Berrigan, Bing Crosby, Fats Waller, Bert Williams, and a surprising amount of modern jazz, including albums by Stan Kenton, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, and George Shearing.”
Would you have thought Armstrong’s listening would be that wide-ranging?
Here is a picture taken after Network for New Music’s 25th Anniverary concert. Not quite all the 25 composers made it into this shot, but still, it’s a goodly number.
Seated, L to R: Anna Weesner, Joseph Waters, Network Artistic Director Linda Reichert
Kneeling, L to R: Melinda Wagner, Andrea Clearfield, Jan Kryzwicki, Arne Running
Standing, L to R: David Laganella, Kyle Bartlett, Cynthia Folio, unidentified (sorry!), Philip Maneval, Andrew McPherson, Ingrid Arauco, Maurice Wright (obscured), Thomas Whitman, Jeremy Gill, Jay Reise, Gerald Levinson, Kyle Smith, Rob Maggio, James Primosch, David Ludwig
And here’s another one with folks associated with Penn - as alums and/or faculty:
L to R: David Laganella, Anna Weesner, Andrew McPherson, Jay Reise, Melinda Wagner, Thomas Whitman, James Primosch, Gerald Levinson, Rob Maggio, Kyle Bartlett, David Ludwig
If you don’t know what the post title refers to, visit here, here, and here (though, idiotically, the last lacks the essential illustration).
James Primosch, composer 