Network for New Music is building its programs for the coming season around the centennials of Babbitt and Persichetti, while Orchestra 2001 will offer four concerts, each featuring as conductor a different candidate for the position of successor to James Freeman as music director of the ensemble.
I recently finished reading Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and His Students, from Elliott Carter to Frederic Rzewski by Howard Pollack. The book is made up of brief essays on 33 composers who were all students of Walter Piston, some of whom you know and others you have probably not heard of, like Nicholas Van Slyck and Eugenia Frothingham. It presents Piston as a central figure, with influence comparable to that of Hindemith and Stravinsky, a curious way to think about a composer whose music I have never heard live (apart from practicing the piano part to his Flute Sonata years ago). But the main focus is on the students, not the teacher. Pollack offers appreciations of several composers whose work I was pleased to get to know a little better, including people like Billy Jim Layton, Robert Moevs, Arthur Berger, and many others.
