GMG Classical Music Forum

Quote from: some guy on May 25, 2012, 07:08:11 PM
http://www.youtube.com/v/NN8xk7xTWLg

Quote from: Philoctetes3 on May 25, 2012, 08:15:34 PM
That's fantastic stuff, I have an entire thread dedicated to my adoration of the 21st century. It's easily my favorite time period for classical music. If I was going to ease someone in though, I'd start with something relatively soft, and tell them to listen to Part's 4th Symphony, and then depending on how adventurous they want to be, I could go in any variety of directions. The disc below is probably my most listened to, as  of recent.

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Quote from: TheGSMoeller on May 26, 2012, 03:16:31 AM
Great stuff, Philo. Have you heard these great discs from Gordon?

Quote from: James on May 27, 2012, 01:32:06 PM
Krzysztof Penderecki

Double Concerto for Violin, Viola and Orchestra (2012)

Quote from: James on May 27, 2012, 03:47:01 PM
Continuing the 21st century survey .. which includes some of the most polarizing composers of art music
in the last 50 years or so, in their later periods of creativity .. 3 Americans ..

Philip Glass .. (partial list below)
In the Penal Colony (2000; voice & string quartet)
Galileo Galilei (2001; opera)
Symphonies 6-11 (2002-2011)
Concerto for 2 Timpanists & orchestra (2000)
Piano Concerto Nos. 1 & 2 (2000, 2004)
Harpsichord Concerto (2002)
The Hours (2002; commercial film score)
Orion (2004; Philip Glass Ensemble)
Waiting for the Barbarians (2005; opera)
The Passion of Ramakrishna (2006; orchestra, soloists, chorus)
Songs & Poems for solo cello (2005-2007)
Book of Longing (2007; song cycle with Leonard Cohen)
Appomattox (2007; opera)
Violin Concerto No. 2 "The American Four Seasons" (2009-2010)
The Perfect American (2011; opera about the death of Walt Disney, premiere 2013)

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Steve Reich
Dance Patterns (2002)
Cello Counterpoint (2003)
You Are (Variations) (2004)
Variations for Vibes, Pianos, Strings (2005)
Daniel Variations (2006)
Double Sextet (2007) Pulitzer Prize for Music
2x5 for 2 drum sets, 2 pianos, 4 electric guitars, 2 bass guitars (2008)
Mallet Quartet for 2 marimbas, 2 vibraphones or 4 marimbas (or solo percussion & tape) (2009)
WTC 9/11 for string quartet & tape (2010)

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John Adams
(2001) Nancy's Fancy
(2001) Guide to Strange Places
(2001) American Berserk
(2002) On the Transmigration of Souls (Pulitzer Prize for Music)
(2003) My Father Knew Charles Ives
(2003) The Dharma at Big Sur
(2005) Doctor Atomic
(2007) Doctor Atomic Symphony
(2007) Son of Chamber Symphony
(2007) Fellow Traveler
(2008) String Quartet
(2009) City Noir
(2010) Absolute Jest

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Quote from: UB on May 28, 2012, 12:14:27 PM
Finally one of my favorite composers born after 1970  Bruno Mantovani. (http://www.brunomantovani.com/home.html) I will let his music speak for itself...you will either like it or you will not.

Quote from: Mirror Image on May 28, 2012, 06:03:44 PM
What is up with these Scandinavian composers born between late 40s and late 50s? Lindberg, Salonen, Ruders, Saariaho...man...what a list.

Quote from: North Star on May 28, 2012, 09:53:05 PM
And if you replace Ruders with Aho, they're all Finnish.

Quote from: some guy on May 27, 2012, 10:06:55 PM
Depends on how you define "awesome," I guess. (A lot of younger composers strike me with awe.)

But has it occurred to you that you may just be seeing a bit of how history and looking backwards works? Would you have thought Bartok was "awesome" if you'd first heard of him in 1932? (Think of all the awesome work he did after 1932, too. So there's that, too. Someone born in 1980 is only 32. And not everyone gets started as early as Mozart or Schubert--or, fortunately, gets cut off as soon.)

In any event, looking at wiki is questionable. Wiki is in the same "too recent to tell" quandary you find yourself in, which quandary you would not find yourself in were you to just get out there and listen to some music! Plenty of stuff going on now that's worth hearing by composers born since 1957. More than plenty.

The only precipitous decline, I'd venture to guess, is in the number of awesome young composers you'd be likely to find in wiki.

Quote from: James on May 30, 2012, 05:22:22 AM
Dum transisset I–IV for string quartet (2007)

Quote from: snyprrr on May 30, 2012, 07:06:46 AM
I don't need new Composers.

Quote from: snyprrr on May 30, 2012, 07:06:46 AM
There is a GLUT of... we've had, what? 600 years of Masterpieces?

Quote from: Mirror Image on May 28, 2012, 09:59:08 PM
Haven't heard any Aho yet. Waiting on BIS to release an Aho box set.

Quote from: springrite on May 30, 2012, 07:23:20 AM
Instead of waiting for that better deal, I dare you to buy them individually. I dare you.

Quote from: Mirror Image on May 30, 2012, 07:24:38 AM
Haha...I've made it this long without Aho. I can wait until a box set is released. :)

Quote from: springrite on May 30, 2012, 07:25:48 AM
They won't because he is still composing new symphonies.  :P

Quote from: Mirror Image on May 30, 2012, 07:29:29 AM
I have no luck. :)

Quote from: karlhenning on May 30, 2012, 07:37:21 AM
As Varèse said (and Zappa often quoted): The present-day composer refuses to die.

Quote from: some guy on May 30, 2012, 09:42:05 AM
As for snyprrr's bitterness, I actually find that to be unconvincing as well.

Quote from: some guy on May 30, 2012, 09:42:05 AM
An anonymous quote from an anonymous blog just doesn't quite do the old convincing thing. Not for me, anyway. Who asked this question? Who answered it? Are either of them (if it's two different people) worth listening to? (I.e., do they know enough about contemporary music to be authoritative? (Are Turnage and Lindberg representative?))

The most sensible answer to "After Stockhausen, Cage, Scelsi, Xenakis - what can actually come?" is "All the things that actually have come."

As for snyprrr's bitterness, I actually find that to be unconvincing as well. You're bitter about the putative qualities of music that you report as not listening to? There's a sensible solution to that situation as well. Listen to it. (And do it without lamenting that it's not like x, y, or z from the past. Let it be itself. Fair's fair. I'll wager you're never bitter that Varese doesn't sound like Brahms. Or that Brahms doesn't sound like Berlioz....)

Quote from: snyprrr on June 01, 2012, 07:50:40 AM
Ah, I argue in vain.

Quote from: some guy on June 01, 2012, 09:29:31 AM
It's not so difficult as you make it out to be snyprrr.

I tend to avoid making negative comments simply because anything I fault will be something someone else likes and why rain on their party? My tastes and predilections are only the end all and be all for myself. And even there, why they change from time to time.

If I talk, I praise. If there's something I dislike, I mostly just shut up.

Mostly.

Otherwise, I do not demand greatness as you do. OK. We are different. What I demand, from myself, is attentive and sympathetic listening. I don't demand or expect or desire (to the best of my abilities) anything from the composers. Why? They've already done their job if I can hear their music. That is, they've written some music. That's what composers do. They have nothing else to do, no meeting me halfway or trying to impress me or whatever silliness that I've heard other listeners demand from them.

They've done their job. Now it's my turn. And if I fail, then I tend to shut up about my failure, that's all. I like talking (and hearing) about successes.

Quote from: Arnold on June 04, 2012, 06:51:27 AM
Lera Auerbach : 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano
Vadim Gluzman, Angela Yoffe

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Some near-21st Century music (1999) that is very nice.  The piece has been described as "riveting and spellbinding" and "fabulously spectral work, haunting in its ominous use of bleak lyricism, relentless in its hypnotic attraction, and thoroughly inventive in its somber mood and design" - but don't that scare you away. 

For anyone suspicious of "new music" this work might act as a good entry point.  But that is not to say that it is not extremely well-written and somewhat (to use an over-used word for new music) demanding; it is - but it is also accessible.

:)

Quote from: James on June 02, 2012, 08:02:12 AM
An active, award-winning, commission-busy Spaniard ..

Alberto Posadas
Versa est in luctum (2002) for 4 instruments & electronics
Snefru (2002) for accordion & electronics
Liturgia Fractal (2003–2007) for string quartet
Nebmaat (2004) for ensemble
Anamorfosis (2006) for ensemble
Cripsis (2007) for ensemble
Nebmaat (2008) for quintet
Oscuro abismo de llanto y de ternura (2009) for ensemble
Glossopoeia (2009) for 3 dancers, 4 musicians, video, electronics

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Posadas

(http://www.kairos-music.com/composer/photos/posadas.jpg)

(more to come)

Quote from: some guy on June 05, 2012, 11:39:22 AM
James, you bring up classical training in a recent post. I was not thinking about training when I made my list. And I don't think about training when I listen to music. But I've been thinking about training since reading your post. The list I made was made by a person who is a classically trained listener. That is, once I first heard "classical" music, around age 9, I was hooked and have listened to little else since then. So what you've got there is a list of some of the people I listen to as a classically trained listener.

Quote from: snyprrr on May 30, 2012, 07:06:46 AM
Can't I find EVERY single thing I could possibly ever want, within the years 1946-1996?

Quote from: snyprrr on May 30, 2012, 07:06:46 AM
Oh, and another thing... WHO are these youngsters who want to be Composers anyhow? I assume most are rich Jewish kids from NYC... yea, I know, that's a horrible attitude to have, but who but the rich kids are even going to have the money to go to  University or whatever?

Quote from: snyprrr on June 05, 2012, 08:41:47 PMI just don't want tax dollars going to some...ewww :P... Composer!! (ok, that's just ONE Rant :-* ;D)

Quote from: some guy on June 05, 2012, 01:57:14 PM
North,

I've done all that other stuff, too.

Guy

Quote from: some guy on June 05, 2012, 10:44:29 PM
Well, I certainly do not consider listening to be "mere"! :o

Quote from: some guy on June 05, 2012, 09:32:22 PM
But one man's "ewww composer" is another man's "wow! composer." So who gets to decide?

And your tax dollars go to all sorts of different things. Better that they go to bullets to kill kids halfway around the world, maybe? (I.e., there are lots of much more rant-worthy topics than ewww composers getting a miniscule fraction of your tax money.

Anyway, most composers I know pay their bills by teaching and by selling CDs and by concerts. It's not a lot, but they get by. You were thinking that they got huge grants of hundreds of thousands of dollars from government grants? This only happens in their dreams.

Quote from: snyprrr on June 06, 2012, 07:11:17 AM
I'm done. :-[ :-[ :-[

Quote from: James on June 06, 2012, 02:18:24 AM
Yea good luck getting anywhere doing just that ..

Quote from: snyprrr on June 06, 2012, 07:11:17 AM
Oh, maybe I just NEED to keep arguing,... I know my 'cause' is lost.

Quote from: karlhenning on June 06, 2012, 07:53:50 AM
(* munches popcorn *)

Quote from: James on June 09, 2012, 03:57:19 AM
http://www.youtube.com/v/KPQWnmNXJsI

2004 - Unsuk Chin
"Concerto for Violin and Orchestra"

Dec. 3, 2003

(http://grawemeyer.org/images/music_composition_images/previous/chin.jpg/image_mini)

Composer Unsuk Chin's "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra" has won the 2004 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.

Premiered in Berlin in January 2002 by violinist Viviane Hagner and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester conducted by Kent Nagano, the 25-minute concerto has been described as "a synthesis of glittering orchestration, rarefied sonorities, volatility of expression, musical puzzles and unexpected turns." Written in four movements, the work is influenced by both Western and Eastern traditions and blends aspects of older and more contemporary classical forms. An extremely demanding violin solo complements rather than competes with the orchestral material.

The concerto already has been performed by the Seoul Philharmonic and the Finnish Radio Symphony. The BBC Symphony Orchestra will perform the concerto in London in February, and the concerto's U.S. premiere is in view. The work is dedicated to Robin and Steve Kim.

About Unsuk Chin
Unsuk Chin's music crosses many boundaries.

Chin, winner of the 2004 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for her "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra," is known for the diversity of her music. Her works include music for voice, tape, electronics, solo piano, ensembles of every size as well as orchestra.

Chin, 42, began her musical career as a child in her native Seoul, Korea. She attended the Seoul National University, where she studied composition under Sukhi Kang. She appeared as pianist at the Pan Music Festivals and in 1984 her work "Gestalten" ("Figures") was selected for the ISCM World Music Days in Canada and for UNESCO's Rostrum for Composers.

In 1985 she moved to Hamburg, Germany, and studied composition with 1986 Grawemeyer winner György Ligeti. She has lived in Berlin since 1988 and most recently served as composer-in-residence with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, which commissioned the "Violin Concerto".

Chin began receiving international acclaim in 1991 with the premiere of "Acrostic Wordplay" for soprano and ensemble, a work that has been performed in 13 countries. Her music is now conducted by leading figures including Kent Nagano, George Benjamin and Sir Simon Rattle.

Her first purely orchestral piece, "santika Ekatala" (1993), won first prize in a Japanese competition and was performed twice in October 1993 by the Metropolitan Orchestra of Tokyo. Her 1998 work "Xi," for ensemble and electronics, commissioned by the Ensemble InterContemporain, won the Bourges Electroacoustic Music Prize.

Her Grawemeyer-winning work was premiered in Berlin in January 2002 by soloist Viviane Hagner and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester conducted by Kent Nagano. The concerto has been performed by the Seoul Philharmonic and the Finnish Radio Symphony. The BBC Symphony Orchestra will perform the concerto in London in February.

Her most recent work, "Double Concerto" for piano, percussion and ensemble, received its world premiere by the Ensemble InterContemporain last winter in Paris.

Chin has two major composition projects on the horizon. A new work for voices and ensemble has been co-commissioned by the London Sinfonietta, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, St Pölten Festival (Austria), and the Ensemble InterContemporain (Paris), for premiere in 2005. A stage work for the Los Angeles Opera is planned for premiere in the 2005/06 season.

She has composed works for the Ensemble InterContemporain, the Gaudeamus Foundation, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Inventionen Festival in Berlin, the BBC, West German Radio, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony, the Danish National Radio Symphony, the Oslo Philharmonic, and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester in Berlin.

For more information on Unsuk Chin and her music, visit her website: www.boosey.com/chin

Quote from: Arnold on June 06, 2012, 08:36:33 AM
Formal music/composition training is very valuable and can, depending on the teacher, be a crucial process for a student finding his/her voice and learning the craft of musical composition.  However, there have been some composers who learned their craft in another fashion.  I am thinking here of Harry Partch, John Luther Adams (who despite earning a B.A. in music got most of his training through alternative methods), and others who did not follow the traditional path.

There are no rules.

:)

Quote from: James on June 12, 2012, 03:21:24 PM
Michael Nyman (b.1944) http://www.michaelnyman.com/
2000 – Facing Goya (opera; libretto by Victoria Hardie)
2001 – a dance he little thinks of (orchestra)
2003 – Violin Concerto (violin and orchestra)
2003 – Man and Boy: Dada (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)
2005 – Love Counts (opera; libretto by Michael Hastings)
2006 – gdm for Marimba and Orchestra (concerto)
2006 – Acts of Beauty' (song cycle)
2007 – A Handshake in the Dark (choral piece with orchestra)
2007 – Interlude in C (expansion of a theme from The Libertine for Accent07 touring ensemble)
2007 – Eight Lust Songs song cycle
2008 – Yamamoto Perpetuo for Solo Flute (arranged by Andy Findon)
2009 – Sparkie: Cage and Beyond opera with Carsten Nicolai
2009 – The Musicologist Scores (band)
2010 – 2Graves
2010 – Vertov Sounds

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Quote from: snyprrr on June 13, 2012, 07:13:42 AM
this Thread is the best thing on here now

Quote from: James on June 11, 2012, 09:56:25 AM
If you want to have a career as a serious composer, it helps to have experienced teachers, a focused/structured approach, and some sort-of testing/guidance .. doesn't matter who you are. No one can operate & learn in a vacuum. This doesn't always mean a conventional route, but you have to start somewhere with people 'in the know', the earlier the better.

Quote from: James on June 16, 2012, 01:53:42 PM
NMC is delighted to launch its Debut Discs project on 11 June ..

... which was created, with the generous help of funders, to support emerging British composers, giving them an international platform for their work.

The first three releases in the series focus on the following composers:
Huw Watkins
Dai Fujikura
Sam Hayden

and future releases will include works by Helen Grime, Joseph Phibbs, Ben Foskett, Richard Causton and Charlotte Bray. We are also delighted to have the ambassadorial support of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and a fantastic collaboration with BA (Hons) Graphic Design students at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design.

Visit our Debut Discs mini-site for more information about the series and the collaboration with the design students at Central Saint Martins.

In the videos below, Dai Fujikura talks about his love of horror movie soundtracks and being a rebellious child; Huw Watkins tells us about his musical family and the advantages of being a composer-pianist and Sam Hayden explains his transition from rock musician and trumpeter to composer and talks about his admiration for mentor Jonathan Harvey and the artists he works with.

http://www.youtube.com/v/-I4N7K0wDRo

http://www.youtube.com/v/Yi0IEqcDpoo

http://www.youtube.com/v/npERQn-A8Ps

[...]

Debut Discs ambassador Sir Peter Maxwell Davies talks about the
current social climate and its impact on emerging composers ...

http://www.youtube.com/v/ppQ_lcHYlOI

"An opportunity like this that NMC gives to these very, very deserving and talented composers is, not only for me but for all of us, a chance to learn, a chance to come in to contact with something which is vibrant and alive ... they really do feel that it is a hell of a job to break through and to get anybody to take any notice of them and I'm very moved and very touched that this wonderful opportunity is presented to these young people to get their work out there" - Peter Maxwell Davies

"There's no card, business card, better than a compact disc for a composer. It doesn't half impress people and they get a long way on it ... these composers they will get more performances, more commissions, more recognition just by having that disc" - Peter Maxwell Davies

"From having to pay back money for their education, to having to earn money for whatever reason, when they don't get the grants that they used to get they don't get the scholarships that they used to get to study. These things have made it very, very tough for a lot young musicians, particularly young composers. And I'd just like to say one thing which I think is very, very serious; coming from my background, had I been born much later and been going into the Royal Academy or to university now and I would have had to have borrowed money in order to do that, my parents would have said "no, it is immoral to borrow money, you never do it". And I wouldn't have had the education ... people like John Ogdon, Harrison Birtwistle, Elgar Howarth, and I wouldn't have had a look in" - Peter Maxwell Davies

"This idea of working with art students, I think it's wonderful, I know when I was a student I learned so much from art, architecture students particularly when I was studying in Italy.  And also I think these days at the RA for instance they have chance to work with cinema with ballet with modern dance. I think this cross-fertilization is absolutely essential it always happened in the past, these days people seem to live in little artistic compartments unless you give them a push and shove them together and I think that's very bad and very dangerous; and so this aspect of cross-fertilization between the arts, hooray for that. - Peter Maxwell Davies

http://www.nmcrec.co.uk/debut-discs

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Quote from: some guy on June 16, 2012, 11:53:13 PM
It's Vaughan.

And are you seriously telling me that Curtis Curtis-Smith has less ooomph than Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf?

Quote from: James on June 18, 2012, 03:11:42 AM

Hmmm ..

Lachenmann .. ?
Ferneyhough . ?

[...]

Nono?
Rihm ..

..

Quote from: James on June 18, 2012, 06:31:51 PM
Oh .. it must be the one I already have, but only managed to listen to once. :P

Quote from: James on June 20, 2012, 02:47:09 AM


I don't have the new one .. I have the sax one, which I really must listen to again.

The CLEMENS GADENSTÄTTER (http://www.kairos-music.com/home.php?il=320&l=deu#320) just landed yesterday.  8)

Quote from: James on June 20, 2012, 02:47:09 AM

The CLEMENS GADENSTÄTTER (http://www.kairos-music.com/home.php?il=320&l=deu#320) just landed yesterday.  8)

Quote from: petrarch on September 16, 2012, 01:09:52 PM
Just listened to this again after almost a year since the first time. Did nothing to me.

Quote from: snyprrr on September 16, 2012, 09:09:46 PM
Wasn't it supposed to be 'happy' music? ???

HAPPY MUSIC?? >:D

We'll have NONE of that thank you. ::)tap tap tap...

Quote from: James on September 19, 2012, 03:07:46 AM
Oh that's what it's 'supposed to be' .. right.

Quote from: sanantonio on January 07, 2013, 05:17:07 PM
I just listened to a fantastic work from 2003 by Michael Gatonska (http://michaelgatonska.com/) from a CD called First Takes.  The work was "Transformation of the Hummingbird"

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61DbT3Mw04L._SL500_AA280_.jpg)

I also discovered another interesting composer, Allen Brings, whose music can be found on this site: New Music Online (http://library.newmusicusa.org/allenbrings)

This site seems to be connected to New Music Box and it also sponsors a 24-hour streaming radio site called Counterstream Radio (http://www.counterstreamradio.org/).

QuoteJames Dillon's La navette (2001) for its 26 minutes (longer than the 20 suggested) engrossed the listener in its hallucinatory effects. Scored for a large but not extravagant orchestra, Dillon enthrals with his fastidiously worked textures and timbres and the densely weaved yet luminous soundworld. This slow if varied (and logically organised) processional – recalling such immortal 'moderns' as Birtwistle's The Triumph of Time, Boulez's Rituel and Stockhausen's Trans (and maybe too George Lopez's Landscape with Martydom, which Michael Gielen has recorded) – extends a lot of information to the open-eared and alert listener, all of which fits microscopically into a large expanse of inexorable growth and rhythmic automata. In this pristinely executed performance (antiphonal violins serving a new work just as revealingly as the nineteenth-century ones, Dillon's writing for them sometimes Baroque in figuration), La navette (shuttle) moved like clockwork and fitted together transparently. The composer embraced the conductor for a job well done and certainly worth doing.

Quote from: sanantonio on January 08, 2013, 09:53:26 AM
Gadenstätter (http://www.kairos-music.com/home.php?il=124&l=deu#124): Comic Sense (Concerto for Piano and Keyboard solo and ensemble)

[asin]B0006GBJBM[/asin]

Interesting work.  I don't think the title is irrelevant.

Quote from: Brewski on January 14, 2013, 10:38:17 AM
Thanks for this. Of the many interesting things you posted in this thread, this is the one that I would like to hear first. Last year the JACK Quartet played the world premiere of Gadenstätter's String Quartet No. 1, and I thought it was a remarkable debut in the genre.

--Bruce

Quote from: petrarch on January 14, 2013, 03:07:02 PM
I made a couple of comments about my listening experience of that work a few months ago. I didn't find it at all engaging, but rather bland and superficial.

EDIT: I see it was on this same thread, and just 10-15 replies ago (!).

QuoteThe major pieces of the record, Art of Metal I and Art of Metal III, both belong to a cycle devoted to the metal contrabass clarinet. The cycle's connecting thread, the driving idea, is a metaphorical approach to what metal brings to mind, this alloy often synonymous with strength, power, solidity, energy, brilliance, shine... The instrument itself is totally made of metal; Selmer designed a special metal mouthpiece for the piece to replace what is usually made of ebonite. The sound of both pieces is full of explosive moments and phrases of furious virtuosity. "Vulcano", a piece for ensemble, fits perfectly in those metallic soundscapes of the "Art of Metal" pieces. Inspired by ancient myths on Vulcanos and the volcanos themselves the piece is about buried and erupting powers. Different definable volcanic states and volcanic activities – from lava flows to earthquakes - stimulate the imagination and provide directions, trajectories, for what can be done with sound.

QuoteComposer/harpist Anne LeBaron has had an interesting career in both classical and jazz genres. As a Fulbright scholar, she studied with Gyorgy Ligeti. Her active career as a harpist has led to collaborations with Derek Bailey and Anthony Braxton, and her own Anne LeBaron Quintet in the jazz fields as well as solo and chamber works, including a recent commission for a Double-Harp Concerto.

A description of Anne LeBaron's sound world can best be told by the composer herself: "These works respond to diverse stimuli in my life, ranging from the sounds of frogs, birds, and preachers--the sonic geography of the American South--to the writings of Artaud and the vocal and dramatic art of Korea and Japan."

QuoteChaya Czernowin was born on 7 December 1957 in Haifa and was brought up in Israel. She commenced studies in composition at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv and from the age of 25 has lived in Germany, Japan, the USA and Austria. Thanks to her teachers Abel Ehrlich, Dieter Schnebel, Brian Ferneyhough and Roger Reynolds and also a series of scholarships and prizes, she was able to devote herself intensely to the development of her musical language. Czernowin's compositions have been performed at more than fourty festivals throughout the world including the 20th Century Music Festival in Mexico, at the Wien Modern in Vienna, the Asia Pacific Triennial in Australia and in Huddersfield. She has been in great demand as a teacher due to her profound knowledge of experimental contemporary music. She taught composition at the Yoshiro Irino Institute in Tokyo in 1993/94 and at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt between 1990 and 1998. She was professor for composition at the University of California San Diego from 1997 to 2006 and taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna from 2006 to 2009. She received invitations to attend as a guest professor in Göteborg and Seoul. She has been the director of the International Summer Academy for young Composers in Schloss Solitude near Stuttgart since 2003 and was appointed professor for composition at the University of Harvard in 2009.

QuoteShifting Gravity is a collection of works that combines the three sections of Anea Crystal with the compositions Sheva and Sahaf. The second part of the CD consists of the cycle Winter Songs III for 10 instrumentalists and electronics. Wergo s recording shows a different side of Czernowin, who, up to now, has been appreciated mainly for her stage works, in particular for the music theatre play Pnima ... Ins Innere or her adaptation of Mozart s Zaïde / Adama. The instrumental works heard here were all created after the music-theatre plays, and focus on metaphysical themes of paralysis, adherence and proliferation.

QuoteBarrett was born in Swansea, Wales. He began to study music seriously only after graduating in genetics and microbiology at University College London in 1980 (Warnaby 2001). From then until 1983 he took private lessons with Peter Wiegold. There followed fruitful encounters at the 1984 Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik with Brian Ferneyhough and Hans-Joachim Hespos. In the 1980s he became associated with the so-called New Complexity group of British composers because of the intricate notation of his scores. However, he is equally active in free improvisation, most often in the electronic duo FURT with Paul Obermayer, formed in 1986, and a voice/electronics duo with Ute Wassermann since 1999, but also since 2003 as a member of the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Since 1990 about half of his compositions have been written for the ELISION Ensemble, most notably the extended works Opening of the Mouth, DARK MATTER and CONSTRUCTION. In 2005 he and Obermayer formed the electroacoustic octet fORCH.

Many of Barrett's works are grouped into series, and have extra-musical associations—particularly with the writers Samuel Beckett and Paul Celan, but also the Chilean painter Roberto Matta, and ideas from physics, mythology, astrology and philosophy (in the texts of DARK MATTER). Barrett's compositional techniques, which derive equally and indistinguishably from serial, stochastic and intuitive methods, have since the mid-1980s made extensive use of computer programs he has developed himself (Warnaby 2001). He regards free improvisation as a method of composition rather than as a different or opposed kind of musical activity (Gilmore 2009). He has often been politically outspoken (Whittall 2005), and in 1990 joined the Socialist Workers Party (Britain). While no longer an active member he remains aligned with revolutionary socialism (Lenz 2005).

His codex series of compositions explores diverse ways of using composed frameworks as a point of departure for improvisation, particularly with larger groups, while the fOKT series extrapolates some of FURT's characteristic forms of texture and coordination into the octet context of the fORCH ensemble. The results of these more experimental and collaborative projects have exerted an increasing influence on Barrett's other compositional work, which remains mostly fully notated, although several compositions (for example transmission, Blattwerk and adrift) alternate between precise scoring and free improvisation for part or all of their duration. However, these different strategies are used in order to maximise the musical potential of the whole, rather than drawing attention to the distinction between improvisational and notational methods of composition—as Barrett himself puts it (2009): "As a listener I generally prefer to concentrate on what music is doing rather than how it was done".

QuoteAmos Elkana was born in Boston but grew up in Jerusalem. At the age of 15, he picked up the electric guitar and began to study music which soon became his primary occupation in life. In 1987, aged 20, he returned to Boston to study jazz guitar at the Berklee College of Music and composition at the The New England Conservatory of Music. In 1990, he moved to Paris where he studied composition with Michele Reverdy. He also took composition classes with Erik Norby in Copenhagen, and with Paul-Heinz Dittrich and Edison Denisov in Berlin. In 2007 Elkana received his MFA in music/sound from Bard College, New York. While at Bard, he focused on electronic music and took lessons with Pauline Oliveros, David Behrman, Richard Teitelbaum, George Lewis, Maryanne Amacher and Larry Polansky among others.

Quote from: sanantonio on January 15, 2013, 11:19:43 AM
Chaya Czernowin (http://www.schott-music.com/shop/persons/featured/chaya-czernowin/) (1957)

(http://www.schott-music.com/shop/resources/682633.jpg)

[asin]B004KOW2GW[/asin]

Quote from: sanantonio on January 17, 2013, 10:21:30 AM
Amos Elkana (http://www.amoselkana.com/) (1967)

Elkana's music is a bit different from most Israeli composers who seem to prefer to work with folk melodies, etc., in a generally tonal environment.  His music is more in the soundworld of Ligeti and he has received the endorsement of Israel's grandfather of serialism, Josef Tal.

I am listening right now to a work for orchestra, Tru'a included in the compilation Perspectives 2

[asin]B001JIR3HK[/asin]

Quote from: Henk on January 17, 2013, 10:27:06 AM
Funny. Sciarrino is classic. She's not.

Quote from: Brewski on January 17, 2013, 10:34:25 AM
??? Don't know what this means...

I just discovered Czernowin's music about a year ago, and it's pretty demanding, uncompromising stuff. Her opera, Pnima...ins Innere, is like nothing else I've seen. And thanks for reminding me of that Richard Barrett Dark Matters, which I intended to get - until I forgot about it!

--Bruce

Quote from: sanantonio on January 17, 2013, 10:46:07 AM
Thanks.  I sometimes feel like a tree falling in the forest.

;)

Quote from: Brewski on January 17, 2013, 10:53:54 AM
;D I am definitely in the camp of those here who (at the moment, for better or worse) read much more than post. And I know there are generally other fans of the composers you mention - they are probably as time-strapped as I am...

So even though we may not be able to reply in great detail, some of us are reading!

--Bruce

Quote from: sanantonio on January 17, 2013, 10:55:05 AM
I've found these Israeli composers from a really nice website called The Living Composers Project (http://www.composers21.com/).  It is organzed by country, and since Israel is an interest of mine, I thought to start there, plus Israel has a manageable list, whereas some countries, e.g. the USA, have such enormous lists it will take some time to drill down into them.

One more name before I go, Erel Paz (http://www.musicpaz.com/) - is another Israeli composer working in a more rigorous style than what one normally finds from this country's composers.

His website (http://www.musicpaz.com/) has a radio stream of his music (http://www.musicpaz.com/musicpaz_radio.htm).

Quote from: Henk on January 17, 2013, 10:27:06 AM
Funny. Sciarrino is classic. She's not.

Quote from: dyn on January 17, 2013, 02:02:51 PM
here's another radio station that may interest you - http://www.halas.am/#/about/ (http://www.halas.am/#/about/) (it autoplays whatever's currently on, you can turn it off if you don't like it)

there's alot of hard-to-find experimental and avant-garde music, very little of it traditionally classical; you can search by genre. all the programs can be downloaded as MP3s if you're so inclined.

QuoteThe music of German composer Benjamin Scheuer is often characterized by theatrical and humoristic elements. Toys and all kinds of sounds from everyday life are blended with traditional and contemporary techniques and are used for formal experiments often implying the technique of collage. He loves to travel and tries to visit international festivals and courses as much as he can. In 2012 his studies with Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe, several collaborations with musicians in Holland, his fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center,a stay in the French Abbey Royaumont and the first workshops of a new music theatre project in Aldeburgh, UK, have been important experiences for him.

Quote from: Henk on January 17, 2013, 08:27:28 PM
Bruce, still listening to all that crap?

Quote from: sanantonio on January 18, 2013, 10:23:06 AM
How cool is this?  A Composer A Day (http://composerscircle.com/)

BENJAMIN SCHEUER

http://www.youtube.com/v/i2P0VZycKbo#!

Quote from: sanantonio on January 18, 2013, 10:23:06 AM
How cool is this?  A Composer A Day (http://composerscircle.com/)

BENJAMIN SCHEUER

http://www.youtube.com/v/i2P0VZycKbo#!

Quote from: sanantonio on January 18, 2013, 10:23:06 AM
How cool is this?  A Composer A Day (http://composerscircle.com/)

BENJAMIN SCHEUER

http://www.youtube.com/v/i2P0VZycKbo#!

Quote from: Johnll on January 18, 2013, 03:16:16 PMIf you put a piece of paper in front of him and told him to write a SQ in which he was only allowed to bow and pluck the strings could he do it?

Quote from: some guy on January 20, 2013, 11:26:45 AM
Why would anyone put a piece of paper in front of him and tell him to write an SQ in which only bowing and plucking are allowed?

Quote from: some guy on January 20, 2013, 11:26:45 AM
Wrong question.

Why would anyone put a piece of paper in front of him and tell him to write an SQ in which only bowing and plucking are allowed?

(There's nothing particularly sacred or valuable about bowing and plucking, is there?)

Anyway sanantonio, this discovery of yours gets my vote for the best discovery of the [any time period, here].

Quote from: petrarch on January 20, 2013, 01:15:54 PM
A commission?
[/quote
The piece in question is not bad but the instrumentation is an affront. Even if I had the money for a commission I would not do it until he proved he could demonstrate he can compose without resorting to titillating our so sophisticated listeners with his drop a rock in tray or PA horn weirdo stuff.

QuoteThe music of composer Jeffrey Holmes has been called "Captivating...haunting and slightly disorienting" by the Los Angeles Times, "Drifting...ethereal" by the San Francisco Classical Voice, and "Interesting and musically arresting, music to be really heard and deserving of reflection" by the Society of Composers, INC. As a traditionalist, he composes music for acoustic orchestral instruments, using standard notational methods; as a formalist, he works within a complex and unique diatonic, chromatic, and microtonal language; as a transcendentalist, he combines the inherent abstraction of sound with a greater meaning and possibility of interpretation through the use of lyricism and overt expression.

His music has been performed at festivals such as the Darmstadt Ferienkurs für Neue Musik (Germany), La Pietra Forum for New Music (Florence, Italy), at "Microfest" (2003, 2005, and 2011) and both the "HEAR NOW" and "What's Next?" festivals (Los Angeles), and in venues including Carnegie Hall (New York), the Historic Dvorak Museum (Prague, Czech Republic), and the Chapelle historique de Bon-Pasteur (Montreal, Canada). He has received commissions and performances from groups including the Penderecki String Quartet, Bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood (Germany), ECCE (East Coast Contemporary Ensemble), "Duo Resonances" – France (Frédérique Luzy and Pierre Bibault), Piano Spheres, the Eclipse String Quartet, Trio Terroir, California Institute of the Arts Orchestra, USC Thornton Symphony, Xtet, Inauthentica, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, and others.

He holds a doctorate in music composition from the University of Southern California, and has studied with composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Donald Crockett and Stephen Hartke. Currently, he is Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at Chapman University. His music is published by Edition Svitzer (Copenhagen, Denmark), Doberman-Yppan (Quebec, Canada), and J.W. Pepper (USA), and has been recorded on the Sono Luminus label, distributed worldwide by Naxos.

Quote from: Johnll on January 20, 2013, 03:13:46 PM
Even if I had the money for a commission I would not do it

QuoteOriginally from Cleveland, Ohio, Anthony Donofrio completed the Ph.D. in Music Composition at the University of Iowa. He is very interested in fusing the compositional techniques found in literature and painting with his own approach to composing music. Along with Morton Feldman, Elliott Carter, and Stuart Saunders Smith, he cites Mark Rothko, David Foster Wallace, and Italo Calvino as his primary artistic influences. As a result of these influences, Anthony has taken an interest in creating half concert and full concert-length pieces, such as the 30-minute III for Saxophone, Piano, and Percussion, which will be premiered in April of 2013. Currently, Anthony teaches at Kent State University, giving courses in Music Theory, Post-Tonal Music, American Music, and is also the Director for the Kent State New Music Ensemble.

Quote from: petrarch on January 20, 2013, 03:49:38 PM
Your prerogative... And irrelevant.

QuoteA live recording of our "re-premiere" of Marcos Balter's "Chambers." This piece was written for us and premiered in the spring of 2011, and since then Marcos made some significant revisions to the piece.

Marcos writes about this piece:

""Chambers" is a three-part snapshot of my compositional personality. The first movement focuses on attentive listening, immersing oneself into seemingly static textures that in return gradually unveil their many complexities and hidden hyperactivity, primarily through timbre. The second movement in centered at around the role of spatial and temporal organization of musical ideas as well as at the physical and contextual questioning of music repetition. The third movement both summarizes the two previous movements and adds to them other elements dear to me: virtual polyphony (the illusion of a bigger instrumental force), internal and external counterpoint, stylistic plurality at the service of the music material, and close structuring of transitions and proportions. "

Quote from: Johnll on January 20, 2013, 04:54:56 PM
But I understand you fancy yourself a composer please tell us how YOU would notate dropping some rocks in a tray or breathing into a PA horn.

QuoteThe "Cornelius Cardew Memorial Prize" (1982) was the first in a series of awards, prizes, commissions and scholarships he received as a composer. From the onset of his career until today, Gerhard Stäbler has not only been active as a composer, but he was also involved in political and organizational arenas. The New Music festival "Aktive Musik" was initiated by Stäbler, who also served as the artistic director of the 1995 World Music Days of the ISCM in the Ruhr Valley. A third vital point of his activities lies in teaching: during workshops and seminars Stäbler has worked with many young international composers.

He was composer-in-residence and visiting professor throughout North and South America as well as in the Middle and Far East. Stäblers music often transcends the conventional framework (and therefore the audience's expectations), be it through the use of gestures or movement in space, through lighting and olfactory stimulation, or an active integration of the audience - it is very important to him to stimulate the imagination, to sensitize the ears and other perceptory organs towards unexpected perceptoral and thought processes. This is also the origin of his interest in the interaction between composition and improvisation, which feeds off of the unique tension between performers during the pre-formed yet open musical moment - as to be seen in the graphical score Red on black (1986). By the same token his music is always characterized by extremely contemplated development, and contains elaborate constructs that don't impede the direct musical statement.

Especially since the 1990's Stäbler has created Work-"groups" that shed a musical light on different aspects of a thematic complex (e.g. the compositions surrounding CassandraComplex). In some cases works that stand autonomously can be performed simultaneously. Stäbler repeatedly causes the listener to critically reflect upon the music, without his music having to be overtly political: the shriek of a crow is musically interpreted in it's possible implications (in old myths or as harbinger of doom) in Karas.Krähen (1994/95). The music doesn't just exploit its own symbolism, but always points towards our individual actions in this world we live in.

Quote from: petrarch on January 21, 2013, 03:40:35 AM
Notation possibilities are quite diverse. It could be written down as a simple text directing the "gesture" as a single event, or as a set of more fine-grained events with higher levels of detail. It really depends on what are the intentions of the composer. A lot has been written about notation, particularly that covering extended playing and performing techniques, but the best way to go about it is still to look at the actual scores and see for yourself how composers have solved the challenge of specifying what they want.

Quote from: Johnll on January 21, 2013, 01:53:57 PM
Unfortunately I cannot read a score and the question one of curiosity more than anything else. I appreciate your response!

Quote from: dyn on January 21, 2013, 10:54:47 PM
a piece by Benedict Mason called felt | ebb | thus | brink | here | array | telling, a bit over an hour long, for spatial ensemble using various sound sources

the CD may actually be out of print—it's not listed on col legno's website, and most retailers seem to be out of stock—but for the curious, audio can be found through sites of questionable legality :s

Quote from: sanantonio on January 22, 2013, 03:54:17 AM
I haven't heard the work you mention but there are some recordings of his music on Spotify.  This for example:

[asin]B000003GJ3[/asin]

I am listening to his String Quartet right now.

Quote from: petrarch on January 21, 2013, 04:07:19 PM
Not all scores are unreadable--particularly since "text scores" and "graphical scores" came to the fore. Just check the following--it is the full score for Stockhausen's Richtige Dauern, from his Aus den Sieben Tagen cycle:

http://www.sonoloco.com/rev/stockhausen/14.html#Anchor%201 (http://www.sonoloco.com/rev/stockhausen/14.html#Anchor%201)

QuoteMy compositional work consists of three categories: concert works, sound installations and sound sculptures.

The concert works (with or without live electronic) were written with a view to concert performance, staged in a platform-auditorium scenario or similar. I conceived the idea of a "sound-space-process" (German: klangraumprozess), which makes use of the possibilities opened up by live electronics, in my search for a concert setting that emphasises the live character of a performance (and cannot be reproduced at home by the listener using a stereo panorama). In addition, some compositions that do not use live electronics were conceived. The concert works belong to the genre of chamber music, but the sound-space-processes lead to the unfolding of an orchestral sonority.

The sound installations were created for specific physical spaces and were conceived as verbal concepts. The installations are largely the result of collaborations with visual artists.

The sound sculpture develops as a meeting of the first two categories, where this meeting takes place with a shift in time and/or space. The observation that lies behind this idea is that the perceiver puts together a physical structure or object in the memory as a sum of side elevations (views) in perspective and, thus, that the recognition of a sculpture is an achievement of the memory. A concert work or a series of concert works are added to the sound installation. Thus, the audience do not hear the installation and the concert work simultaneously in the same space, but rather they have to weave together the sounds in the memory to form a sculpture.

Quote from: sanantonio on January 22, 2013, 03:54:17 AM
I haven't heard the work you mention but there are some recordings of his music on Spotify.  This for example:

[asin]B000003GJ3[/asin]

I am listening to his String Quartet right now.

Quote from: edward on January 23, 2013, 02:38:09 PM
Though a good disc, I'd want to add the caveat that these are early pieces and to me sound like what Mason was at the time--a very talented student of Ligeti's. His later music has pushed off in directions further away from the mainstream (and often towards 'sound art', whatever that is).

Quote from: sanantonio on January 24, 2013, 06:18:26 PM
Rebecca Saunders (b.1967) (http://www.edition-peters.com/composer/Saunders-Rebecca)

Rebecca Saunders was born in London in 1967. She studied music,majoring in performance (violin) and composition, at EdinburghUniversity, and studying composition from1991-1994 with Wolfgang Rihmat the Karlsruhe Music College in Germany. From 1994-1997 she held thePremier Scholarship at the Edinburgh University for a PhD inComposition with Nigel Osborne.

She has received various composition prizes including the Ernst vonSiemens Förderpreis, the ARD and BMW AG musica viva Prize, the PaulHindemith Prize, the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Award forChamber Music in 2008 and the GEMA Deutscher Musikautorenpreis forInstrumental Music 2010. In 2009 she became a member of the BerlinAcademy of Arts, and was the Capel-Compositeur at the StaatskapelleDresden for the 2009/2010 season. She was tutor at the DarmstadtFerienkurse in 2010.

Rebecca Saunders has expanded her spectrum of musical genre since 2003: chroma (2003-2010) divides up to twenty chamber groups and sound sources throughout the performing space. The characteristics of the architectural space define the formal juxtaposition of the various chamber music groups, whereby each solo or group is like a protagonist in a form of pure instrumental theatre. inside out, music for a choreographed installation, was her first work for the stage and was created in collaboration with Sasha Waltz in 2003.

Later works, such as Stirrings Still I and II, and most recently murmurs from 2009, are quiet and fragile collage compositions in which Saunders continues to address her fascination with the separation of the musicians in the performing space.

"Molly's Song 3 - Shades of Crimson [For three instruments] (https://soundcloud.com/krater-ensemble/krater-ensemble-rebecca)

Quote from: dyn on January 25, 2013, 07:51:59 AM
now: Salvatore Sciarrino - Come vengono prodotti gli incantesimi (http://avantgardeproject.conus.info/mirror/agp73/index.htm (http://avantgardeproject.conus.info/mirror/agp73/index.htm)) although i don't know if it's 21st century. really good stuff though.

Quote from: petrarch on January 25, 2013, 09:52:28 AM
It is part of his Fabbrica degli incantesimi, a suite of works for solo flute he composed between 1977 and 1989. The recording on Col Legno with Roberto Fabbriciani is absolutely wonderful. It was the first set of recordings that really got me into Sciarrino.

[asin]B000024XMQ[/asin]

QuoteHefti's compositional work takes its cue from external references: his 1st string quartet Ph(r)asen (2007) not only follows two outstanding examples of the genre – Robert Schumann's string quartet op. 41 no. 1 and Leos Janáceks 2nd string quartet ,,Intimate Letters" –, it puts selected text passages from the correspondence of the composers with their lovers to music. The texts noted in the score are, to be sure, not to be recited, but are supposed to inspire the performer. This double presence of old models, musical and semantic-biographical, makes the quartet into music about music. And it is meta-music in a further sense, too: its title questions the technical aspects of music-making on string instruments. In this case the term "Phasen" also means the distribution of the actions of the left and right hands, their shifting and uncoupling – a particular challenge for the performer!

Quoteborn in Bruges in 1983, and had violin, piano, music theory, composition and many more courses at the Bruges music academy. From 2002 till 2007, I studied composition at the Ghent Conservatory with Frank Nuyts, and attended, among others, lessons of Godfried-Willem Raes (improvisation) and Filip Rathé (analyses and beyond). I had master classes with Peter Eötvös and Luca Francesconi, and I visited different composition courses, such as the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, were I attended seminars of Marco Stroppa, Vykintas Baltakas, Isabel Mundry, Mark Andre and many more. In 2009, I could work with the Neue Vocalsolisten and Bruno Mantovani during Acanthes (Metz, France). Further, I attended conducting lessons/seminars with Ensemble Modern, Johannes Kalitzke, Marco Angius and Lucas Vis.

Quote from: sanantonio on January 22, 2013, 03:54:17 AM
I haven't heard the work you mention but there are some recordings of his music on Spotify.  This for example:

[asin]B000003GJ3[/asin]

I am listening to his String Quartet right now.

Quote from: Cato on February 15, 2013, 06:32:42 AM
Possibly others here have heard of these composers and this label:

http://www.col-legno.com/en/catalog/ (http://www.col-legno.com/en/catalog/)

e.g.

[asin]B00005LAHK[/asin]

or

[asin]B008XBIS4I[/asin]


[asin]B005Q130X2[/asin]

Quote from: sanantonio on February 15, 2013, 08:01:01 AM
I know of and really like the label Col Legno; they have a good catalog for new music.  Spotify has these three recordings, as well as, a few others by Lampson.  I am listening to the first one you have pictured right now.

Quote from: dyn on February 15, 2013, 11:05:24 AM
for contemporary stuff, Col Legno is matched by very few. Maybe NEOS. Can't think of many other labels with selections as wide and as interesting though.

QuoteMy composing was never determined by ideology or by what was just fashion. I appreciate the craft high and do not stop to learn from the great masters of the past. And I believe that the source of inspiration lies deep within us. My music is as varied as the world, with occasional cheerful or playful, as I think it is necessary nowadays, other times it is very serious, especially if the text requires it, they can also "raised" (many be on the use of the word smile), but our soul is longing for the transcendent.

Quote from: petrarch on February 15, 2013, 02:48:44 PM
Kairos? Mode? Stradivarius? Accord and Montaigne in the 1990s? Col Legno is one of my favorites, and Neos is becoming a very good one too.

Quote from: karlhenning on February 26, 2013, 11:17:52 AM
Hey, Atlantans!

My friend, and excellent fellow composer, Mark Gresham has written a piano trio whose première will be Sunday, 3 March.  I'll scare up the deets . . . it would be cracking if any of you might attend the event!

Quote from: karlhenning on February 26, 2013, 11:17:52 AM
Hey, Atlantans!

My friend, and excellent fellow composer, Mark Gresham has written a piano trio whose première will be Sunday, 3 March.  I'll scare up the deets . . . it would be cracking if any of you might attend the event!

QuoteFrances White composes instrumental and electronic music. She is particularly known for her works combining live instruments and computer-generated electronic sound spaces. She studied composition at the University of Maryland, Brooklyn College, and Princeton University. She has received awards, honors, grants and commissions from organizations such as Prix Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges (France), the International Computer Music Association, Hungarian Radio, ASCAP, the Bang on a Can Festival, the Other Minds Festival, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, The Dale Warland Singers, the American Music Center, The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, and The Guggenheim Foundation. She has received resident artist fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and The Djerassi Resident Artists Program. In 2007, Mode Records released Centre Bridge, a CD devoted to her electroacoustic works. Ms. White's music has also appeared on CD on the Wergo, Centaur, Nonsequitur, Harmonia Mundi, and Bridge labels. Ms. White's music was featured as part of the soundtrack of Gus Van Sant's award-winning films Elephant and Paranoid Park.

Ms. White studies the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), and finds that the traditional music of this instrument informs and influences her work as a composer. Much of Ms. White's music is inspired by her love of nature, and her electronic works frequently include natural sound recorded around where she lives, in central New Jersey.

Quote from: TheGSMoeller on February 26, 2013, 12:10:46 PM

Edit:  Found it. (http://www.atlantacomposers.com/2013/02/riverside-chamber-players-to-premiere.html)

Quite a hike for me, but I'm gonna try. Sounds like a great program.

Quote from: Johnll on February 26, 2013, 05:25:36 PM
I could almost walk there and I am going unless her majesty objects. Well this would be only the second time out this year for me. GSMoeller be a little wary of Google maps as my first search put it a long way off of Holcomb Bride which is round the corner from me.

Quote from: sanantonio on March 01, 2013, 04:36:44 AM
Agata Zubel (http://www.zubel.pl/)

Shades of Ice, by Agata Zubel (https://soundcloud.com/london_sinfonietta/zubel-mixmaster02-1)

Quote from: Brewski on March 05, 2013, 06:45:12 AM
How did you like this? (I haven't heard it yet.) I had the great pleasure of meeting her last year, when Klangforum Wien did a world premiere by her at the Austrian Cultural Forum.

--Bruce

Quote from: karlhenning on March 25, 2013, 05:03:09 AM
Sometimes abbreviated to Broken ... Wind, I hope not?

QuoteProgram Note:
I encountered the poetry of Julie Choffel while working on a project for Voices Up: New Music for New Poetry, a concert at Fordham University - Lincoln Center Campus. Her new book, The Hello Delay, published in March, 2012, won Fordham's annual Poetry Out Loud contest. Choosing three of these poems, I composed a set for soprano, violin and cello. The curiously ambiguous Producing For A While is the third song in the set, and here finds a new home as a work for my favorite sinfonietta, the IU New Music Ensemble.

Quote from: sanantonio on March 05, 2013, 06:41:46 AM
Martin Smolka ... Semplice (2006) - Part II

http://www.youtube.com/v/06pNqvUMKxg

Metaphorically speaking, Smolka's music oscillates round two poles: 1) Cracked, buoyant conviviality, music of a hobbling orchestrion, symptomatic civilisation sounds, a folk or brass band playing, preferably, out off tune; 2) Melancholic memories, aching desire, the nostalgic echo of the sounds of Point 1. Corresponding to this is the usual structuring strategy of Smolka's compositions: they almost invariably form juxtapositions of inwardly homogeneous and sharply contrasting form segments, which through their opposition (slow – fast, joyous – sad, tumultuous – gentle, etc.) actually correspond to the "sonata" categories: the main theme – the secondary theme. Smolka, however, frequently works with jarring, film-like, cuts, evolutionism is suppressed, seams admitted, dynamic and textural differences foregrounded, with repetition being the basic principle.

The essentially emotional tone of Smolka's compositions also relates to the application of micro-intervals serving the composer, on the one hand, to evoke real sounds, on the other, to "detune" traditional harmonic and melodic formations – the motivation for this fundamentally subversive seizure of the inherited material is further amplification or re-awakening of its emotional potential (e.g. Solitudo for ensemble). In the late 90s Smolka focused his attention on this very "recycling" of elements of traditional music deformed in micro-interval terms and arranged in the collage manner (Remix, Redream, Reflight for orchestra or Blue Bells or Bell Blues for orchestra, awarded by the Foundation Prince Pierre de Monaco). Moreover, over the past decade or so Smolka has taken a keen interest in vocal music, especially that for chorus (Poema de balcones for chorus, Psalmus 114 for chorus and orchestra, etc.).

His website. (http://www.martinsmolka.com/en/index.html)

Quote from: Johnll on April 03, 2013, 08:01:33 PM
If you say so. This stuff is way over my little nogin and then we got that emotional stuff going on. I do not understand!.

Quote from: sanantonio on April 04, 2013, 04:07:55 AM
I find it is better to listen to the music rather than get bogged down by how the composer describes his work.

Quote from: some guy on April 05, 2013, 05:57:36 AM
Logically, that approach does indeed make good sense.

The bogging down, however, near as I've been able to tell, happens prior to the actual contact with the art. That's a thing I'm not sure there's any solution to. How does one convince someone who has already decided, but who is convinced that their decision followed some contact, that the art is really fine, just fine?

Near as I've been able to tell, it's impossible.

Historically, that seems to have been the case as well, too. The bogging down as a historical phenomenon, so far as it can be documented in the evolution of programming and in contemporary reactions, preceded the earliest examples of the 20th century avant garde popularly believed to have been responsible for the alienation of audiences world-wide.

Preceded.

QuoteAs a composer, Joshua is interested in writing for both large and chamber ensembles of varying instrumentation.  He is currently working on his Masters thesis - a piece combining songs of the humpback whale with a chamber ensemble (electronics, Bb clarinet, 4 off-stage sopranos, violin, violoncello, and piano).  In doing so, he hopes to create an environment for the "whale" (recordings controlled through live manipulation) and the chamber ensemble to interact in a more versatile way than in previous compositions.  The goal of this project is to take the listener into the "world of the whale" and create a line of communication between the ensemble performers and the "whale" (laptop performer).  For this project, Joshua is working with Dr. Alejandro Rutty, Dr. Patricia Gray, and the Dr. Roger Payne Sound Archive. 

Quote from: Ivan MoodyNocturne of Light was written specifically for Paul Barnes and the Chiara Quartet. Dr Barnes had asked me for a work that would be impregnated with the spirit of Byzantine chant, a requirement with which I was more than happy to comply, given that so much of my work takes its inspiration in Byzantine Orthodox music, poetry and theology.

I had, in addition, long wanted to write a Nocturne, and here I had an opportunity to write a Nocturne for Christ - the "three days' space" between His burial and his Resurection. To that end, the principal thematic material of the work is the communion chant for Holy Saturday, "Exigerthi os o ypnon", "As One Who has slept", speaking of the ineffable mystery of the "sleeping" God and His arising. Almost all the other material of the work derives from this chant, which is heard near the beginning of the piece, following an introductory passage, in the piano, divided into three segments. Thereafter the music deals with, as it were, human reflection on this momentous event, exploring grief, anger and, always, hope.

In the Orthodox icon of the Resurrection, Christ is depicted as trampling down the gates of Hades, while He frees Adam and Eve. Near the bottom of the icon, one can see the shattered locks and keys, and I have endeavoured to suggest this by means of a very short section which makes use of pizzicato strings and the pianist playing inside the piano. Thereafter there is an unstoppable build-up to the joy of the Resurrection, symbolized specifically by the use of another chant, "Christos anesti", "Christ is risen". This is also used in combination with the first chant, resulting in a whirlwind of celebratory joy and light.

Nocturne of Light represents, then, the three days' space in the tomb both from a ceremonial and a human, affective, point of view. I wanted to portray awe and shock and bewilderment and then joy, but still without it having always the composer's ego as the driving force. It is present of course, because Christianity uniquely values the human individual, but, and even though this is not liturgical music and I have no reason or need to make comparisons with icon painters and their rigorous discipline, something of that is still there, and the music therefore has a ritual, ceremonial dimension as well as a human one.

Quote from: karlhenning on May 05, 2013, 04:12:18 AM
Ivan Moody, Nocturne of Light, Pt 1:

http://www.youtube.com/v/IqybBqVhwyw

Quote from: sanantonio on June 20, 2013, 03:56:16 PM
Nina C. Young - Memento Mori - JACK Quartet

https://www.youtube.com/v/mKNyNFHfNIk

Quote from: some guy on June 20, 2013, 06:23:51 PM
I once played one of my favorite electroacoustic pieces for some friends. Michèle Bokanowski's L'ètoile absinthe.

The response? Dark!

Well. It surprised me. And when I mentioned it to Michèle next time I saw her, she said "Dark? That's the bright one!"

So rather than supply a piece that celebrates happiness and joy--or at least that I identify as so doing--I think I'd rather work on that whole "dark/happiness" thing. Regardless of it's putative subject matter, a piece that impresses you or that pleases you has impressed you or pleased you. Done. Listening to Dvořák's Noonday Witch always makes me happy, for instance. I find the music to be pleasing. The subject matter, however?

Gross!!

Quote from: sanantonio on May 09, 2013, 01:44:55 PM
A 21st century composer writing orchestral music in the Jean Sibelius school?  Meet Steven R. Gerber (http://stevengerber.com/).

Quote from: some guy on July 23, 2013, 11:29:01 PM
Imagine a composer in 1813 writing in the school of Vivaldi. If anyone then had tried that on, they would have been laughed off the stage. And once off, they would have had to suffer unspeakable humiliations involving rotting vegetables and circus freaks. In 2013, however, composers can build successful careers from that kind of tat and be honored and admired citizens in their communities.

Quote from: The new erato on July 23, 2013, 11:34:12 PM
But that is because music and artists plays a decidedly different role in todays society then it did then, as you surely are aware.

Quote from: some guy on July 24, 2013, 08:55:07 AM
This is a contrary position to mine in what way? (I believe that you are just restating my point here. Differently than I would state it, but it seems to be the same point.)

As for rock throwing, this is the internet, so at least it's all virtual.

And the throwing back at me has been virtually noted.

Funny how expressing certain opinions gets classified as "rock throwing" while personal attacks of the putative thrower are considered perfectly fine. Things that make you go "hmmmm."

Quote from: some guy on July 24, 2013, 08:55:07 AM

As for rock throwing, this is the internet, so at least it's all virtual.

Quote from: some guy on July 23, 2013, 11:29:01 PM
Nowadays, concert audiences will go ape-shit over pastiche.

Quote
Imagine a composer in 1813 writing in the school of Vivaldi.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 24, 2013, 09:34:58 AMOne of the things I like about the 21st (and 20th) century is the freedom composers have for expression.  There is no dominant style; composers are free to use whatever method they wish, or combine them in any form they wish.  I consider this a good thing.

Quote from: some guy on July 26, 2013, 08:15:05 AMI certainly do not reject the sounds of 1931 or 1831 or 1731. But someone in 2013 who is freely working with the methods from those times is not adding anything to the stock of worthwhile work in the world. That person is simply going over the same ground that's already been gone over. If I want to hear Brahmsian melodies and textures, I simply listen to some music by Brahms. I do not want someone contemporary with myself to offer me regurgitated Brahms. I've got genuine Brahms to satisfy any Brahmsian cravings I might have.

Quote from: some guy on July 26, 2013, 08:15:05 AM
In practice, so far as I can see, most people who celebrate the diversity and freedom of the 20th and 21st centuries to this extent--"composers are free to use whatever method they wish"--are really only celebrating the freedom of certain composers who are free to please them by writing comfortable music that they already know, even before they hear it. (Lowell Liebermann just did this very thing last Saturday in Portland, with his "new" piece Four Seasons.) And that is some genuine partisanship, if you please.

Quote from: some guy on July 26, 2013, 08:15:05 AM
To me, it is a bad thing "that there are living composers writing music that might, on the surface, sound like Sibelius." That is, I want my living composers to live in the present, not in the past. I too am a "more is more" kind of listener.

Quote from: some guy on July 26, 2013, 08:15:05 AM
In short, I do not think that "methods" are neutral things, nor that they are equally valuable. I do not think that creating genuine art is a matter, simply, of using "methods." And I am a little bit suspicious of "based on how it strikes my ears" as that could be just as prejudicial and partisan as anything else. (Your ears, like mine, are connected to a mind that has prejudices and preferences and partisanship and perhaps several other p words as well. One exception: no pair of ears is pure.)

Quote from: The new erato on July 26, 2013, 08:21:05 AMMuch of the greatest music I know was born (I'm only guessing here) from a will to communicate with an audience.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 26, 2013, 09:15:58 AM
I can't speak for anyone else, but that does not describe me.  I don't much care for a Sibeliusian style, even from him.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 26, 2013, 09:15:58 AMThe "present" can cover a lot of ground, IMO.  For many people the Sibelius sound is still current and "in the present" since so much of the music around us, e.g. film scores, is in that style.

Quote from: sanantonio on July 26, 2013, 09:15:58 AMI do consider methods neutral.

Quote from: some guy on July 26, 2013, 08:15:05 AMIf I want to hear Brahmsian melodies and textures, I simply listen to some music by Brahms. I do not want someone contemporary with myself to offer me regurgitated Brahms. I've got genuine Brahms to satisfy any Brahmsian cravings I might have.

Quote from: James on July 28, 2013, 06:54:24 PM
Hey John .. if you enjoy that one, then there is plenty more in his canon that should be to your liking. For instance, the beautiful sub-cycle (within KLANG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klang_(Stockhausen))) of 7 intimate and wonderful trios, all based on the material of the 3 versions of this very piece you find attractive. And believe me, there are rewards for accepting his challenges. Initially his music DOES require more from the listener, and that's kind of the point. So there is a level of procovation but it doesn't seek to alienate people. Music that is immediately accessible has a pretty limited and surface-level breadth of communicative capacity. This music SHOULD make us examine our pre-conceived notions. And maybe when we do, it will resonate with us the way other music can't. This is certainly the case for me, and this music does indeed have a following for just this reason. And Stockhausen morose? Hardly ever especially compared to others of his generation .. there is plenty of LIGHT.

Quote from: Johnll on August 02, 2013, 06:34:14 PM
This thread seems to have gone asleep and I hope on one was waiting for me.  I wanted to mention Jorg Widmann a German clarinetist/composer , a student of Rihm. Like Rihm he is comfortable  composing in a variety of styles, but I do not sense much else in common.  The things I am familiar with are not on You Tube, and I have never heard the pieces below, but it gives some sense of who Jorg is.
This first piece is a clarinet sonata. Jorg at his best is playful although it is often subtle. Maybe because I have just become acquainted with it, and in that aspect only, it calls to mind Michaels Reise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvXG9m6JI6k

The next piece, on the light/dark scale, is partly cloudy.  Perhaps it contains a touch of fantasy but is not playful.  If you do not know what a amonica is, like me, it is a glass acoustical instrument
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2psVd3Kj0V8

The third piece is called a string quartet. It more aptly might be described as variations on a folk tune and is bizarrely playful. Give a couple of minutes. What I find most interesting about it is he would write this 10 years ago, when he was just beginning to be recognized, because it is not at all what you would expect from a serious c21 composer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3qqA5MaceQ

This last piece is what you might expect from some serious c12 composers. It uses the piano as a percussion instrument including the keyboard occasionally. To my knowledge it is his only "ground-breaker". I have posted a link for the curious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_9HZkersN4&list=PLF8B5F884E256DFAB

Jorg is a confident bright young man with a spark of life and humanity to him.  I have enjoyed some of his music, and while he is not great yet, he has many years to develop his compositional legs.

Quote from: sanantonio on August 04, 2013, 06:49:46 AM
Pierluigi Billone ~ Δίκη Wall (2012)

https://www.youtube.com/v/LT2NtL7ZiNY

Percussion + ensemble.

Quote from: sanantonio on August 08, 2013, 04:22:22 PM
Steven Stucky ~ Symphony (2012)

https://www.youtube.com/v/WfPRltoWa_8

Quote from: kaergaard on August 08, 2013, 09:04:50 AM
Lots of them I can think of and play and enjoy. How about Hans Werner Henze? or Peter Eøtvøs_ two of my favourites. Oh yes, of course Osvaldo Golijov!

Quote from: modUltralaser on August 08, 2013, 06:18:43 PM
Starting next week I'll be posting a bunch. It's a bit distressing how small this topic is, comparatively.

Quote from: Brewski on August 08, 2013, 08:14:47 PM
PS, below, more Pierluigi Billone, an excerpt from his Mani.Mono for solo spring drum (2009), written for Alex Lipowski of the Talea Ensemble. I can't quite articulate why I find this piece so fascinating - perhaps its the unexpected sonorities created by the instrument (which I don't recall ever hearing before). Another interesting listen: Mani.De Leonardis (2004), for four automobile springs and glass.

http://www.youtube.com/v/mfjgn6gtQrM

--Bruce

Quote from: sanantonio on August 09, 2013, 04:51:10 AM
Great piece!  I don't know anything about the instrument but it sounds as if it is electronically amplified.

I am interested in Billoni's music, his work which seems to be celebrating sound for its own sake, is something I very much appreciate.  The Italian avant garde has interested me going back to Maderno, and the group including Nono, Dallapiccola, Berio, and others of that period, and more recently, with Sciarinno and Scelsi.  The younger generation of composers continue the music with great success in most cases, IMO.

Quote from: Brewski on August 09, 2013, 06:50:17 AM
Unfortunately that amplified effect is probably due to the recording, valuable as it is to have. (At the concert, there weren't any electronics that I could see, anyway.)

And yes, so many of these younger Italian composers are so interesting! The Talea players also introduced me to the work of Fausto Romitelli, a great revelation from the last few years. Here's a 4-minute video, apparently excerpts from several pieces - I wish they had posted a little more info - from their recording session at EMPAC/Renssalaer last year for the album below (which is terrific, by the way).

http://vimeo.com/49399829

[asin]B008645Y0S[/asin]

--Bruce

Quote from: sanantonio on August 09, 2013, 06:32:04 AM
Salvatore Sciarrino ~ String Quartet no.8 (2008)

http://www.youtube.com/v/SgfTObtVAQ8

Quote from: Brewski on August 08, 2013, 07:44:09 PM

Excellent. PS, there are many of us who check in with this thread more often than it might appear, and lurk more than post.

--Bruce

Quote from: cjvinthechair on August 09, 2013, 09:42:13 AM
Speaking as an irregular 'lurker', I just love it when I find posted a piece of 21st century music I can appreciate - means a wait sometimes, but well worth it.
Latest example; Steven Stucky...most grateful for 'discovering' him. Thank you to all who post !

Quote from: sanantonio on August 09, 2013, 06:58:49 AM
There a few more clips in YouTube of Romitelli - I agree many younger Italians doing some fascinating music.

:)

Quote from: kyjo on August 09, 2013, 10:10:52 AM
Ah Clive, good to see you here! I agree, Stucky is one of America's most talented living composers. I love his post-impressionist style! Clive, have you heard Imants Kalnins' Symphony no. 6 (available on classical-music-online.net) or Joep Franssens' Grace for orchestra (available on YT)? I consider these to be the most beautiful compositions of this century :) I'm not usually one to be moved to tears by music, but I came pretty close to doing so in both of these compositions. :)

Quote from: cjvinthechair on August 10, 2013, 03:33:49 AM
Likewise Kalnins...would love to get his entire output; can that be done, do you suppose ?

Quote from: Philo (Artist formerly known as) on August 11, 2013, 07:02:51 PM
Victor Smolski's The Heretic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqK4Hg-OWxI

Definitely something I think MN Dave, Greg, and Andy would enjoy. It's a conceptual piece composed by a heavy metal guitarist, so there are a lot of intricacies that are normally missed otherwise i regards to 'normal' heavy metal music. Honestly, I can't think of anything other than Andy's disc that come close to this in conception, maybe Branca.

Quote from: Sean on August 12, 2013, 04:33:24 AM
A depressing thread. I know work by some of these names and I'll telling you by extension that virtually without question that all the music mentioned here is drivel or of very limited artistic value, and won't in the least merit a footnote in posterity's charting of the decline of art music.

How's that for an ingratiating post? Feel free to ignore it and swim on through these polluted waters into the night.

Quote from: North Star on August 12, 2013, 04:38:16 AM
It's wonderful logic - similarly I can tell you that the late 18th & early 19th century produced almost nothing of great value, based on Hummel & Ditters von Dittersdorf's music.

Quote from: North Star on August 12, 2013, 04:38:16 AM
It's wonderful logic - similarly I can tell you that the late 18th & early 19th century produced almost nothing of great value, based on Hummel & Ditters von Dittersdorf's music.

Quote from: Philo (Artist formerly known as) on August 12, 2013, 04:45:29 AM
Please don't encourage him.

Quote from: sanantonio on August 12, 2013, 04:57:38 AM
Kyle Bobby Dunn (born February 27, 1986 in Ontario) is a composer, arranger, and live performer of modern and neo-classical based drone music. He has performed in live and exclusive outdoor settings, including Banff National Park, since 2000 and has released music on various international recording labels.

Quote from: sanantonio on August 12, 2013, 04:48:24 AM
https://www.youtube.com/v/i5WGcfTekEo

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on August 12, 2013, 11:00:10 AM
Well done!

Mr. Dunn's contribution, I am afraid,  simply seemed to pointlessly and endlessly drone on.  (Pun not really intended, but I can't think of a better word to use.)

Now listening to the Lang, which seems to be in the same category as the Abrahamsen. (I don't remember first names--is this the Lang who wrote Little Matchbox Girl?)

Quote from: karlhenning on August 12, 2013, 11:14:26 AM
Have you had to play a part that is a drone?  ;)

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on August 12, 2013, 08:37:06 AM
Hey!  I like Hummel!

Let's just say that with Sean,  I've finally found a use for the 'ignore' function on this board.

Quote from: North Star on August 12, 2013, 04:38:16 AM
It's wonderful logic - similarly I can tell you that the late 18th & early 19th century produced almost nothing of great value, based on Hummel & Ditters von Dittersdorf's music.

Quote from: North Star on August 09, 2013, 12:27:49 PM
This was quite enjoyable, thanks for posting more Romitelli - I've heard Professor Bad Trip before, thanks to Bruce. What the heck, I'll listen to it now again.
http://www.youtube.com/v/20gECBNfiIo

Quote from: some guy on August 12, 2013, 07:12:38 PM
A Romitelli I'd never even heard of.

Bruce, you are now officially my hero.

Quote from: sanantonio on August 14, 2013, 05:19:25 PM
https://www.youtube.com/v/xrtEnPfrQws

Quote from: cjvinthechair on August 15, 2013, 03:32:46 AM
Thanks so much for intro. to Moulijn - some other fine pieces on YT !

Quote from: sanantonio on August 15, 2013, 08:23:15 AM
Liza Lim (http://lizalimcomposer.wordpress.com/) is an interesting composer, I may have already posted about her work - but here is a somewhat recent composition.

http://www.youtube.com/v/oiezf8IMLoA

Also, a page of more videos HERE (http://lizalimcomposer.wordpress.com/videos/).

Quote from: Philo (Artist formerly known as) on August 15, 2013, 06:41:27 PM
Just great stuff. Best thread, in regards to music, on this forum.

Koka Nikoladze's Starshine:

First, an interesting trio of guitar, violin, and percussionist (rather multi-instrumentalist). Good use of extended techniques intermingled with melodious music. Some really good harmonies and tones. Lovely balancing between the three. The percussion was especially exceptional. The sounds created were right up my alley. This is definitely something for the more experimental crowd.

Ursula Mamlok's Concerto for Oboe and Chamber Orchestra:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7yqaL24tXU

A piece that sounds informed by Schoenberg's camp. The oboe part seems quite virtuoistic. Light, bright, and airy with some very cool percussion interplay. A lot of passing around notes amongst the players makes for a very enjoyable affair all around. Not very traditional, but come one, give it a shot, it's the oboe.

Quote from: sanantonio on August 15, 2013, 06:56:09 PM
Here's the first clip - very nice, btw

https://www.youtube.com/v/MbWnFfSziME

Quote from: sanantonio on August 29, 2013, 04:53:17 AM
https://www.youtube.com/v/DwCdgXTFPLA

Rand Steiger (http://rand.info/rands/text/bio.html)

Quote from: Brewski on August 29, 2013, 09:30:08 AM
I was at the first performance of this piece, by the Talea Ensemble, and liked it quite a bit.

http://www.seenandheard-international.com/2011/04/21/the-talea-ensemble-at-merkin-concert-hall/

--Bruce

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on September 09, 2013, 04:38:19 AM
Per this (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,22200.msg739230.html#msg739230), you can hear some of Mark Gresham's Mortal Coils on his website (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markgresham.com%2Fmusic.html&ei=08AtUpCvJM-kyAHo-YDQBA&usg=AFQjCNHBRUEeGWYzjh2-nPQGgqiGE47OnA&sig2=W6Jy2CaVnJsGsu2-8N5VgA).

(Fair disclosure: Mark is a friend, and my publisher.  The piece kicks butt, all the same.)

Quote from: sanantonio on September 10, 2013, 09:47:40 AM
Darija Andovska (http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/andovskaa.htm)
(*1979)

http://www.youtube.com/v/MvXFjOa0NBM


Calipso, per flauto, clarinetto basso, pianoforte e percussioni (2003)
-- Icarus Ensemble diretto da Marco Pedrazzini

Quote from: sanantonio on September 09, 2013, 08:03:53 AM
Robert Phillips (http://robertphillipsmusic.com/)
(b. 1981)

http://www.youtube.com/v/pl4E6TXO7R0


Aur (Hebrew: אור, English: Light) for string quartet and electronics, played by the JACK Quartet

[Note: usually the Hebrew word for light is transliterated as "Or".]

Quoteas in a mirror, darkly
The tangible structure and sound form of my work has changed continually in recent years. Besides tranquil pieces in which the material moves in a circular course, there are works in which the complexity of the sounds and their combinations were taken that much further so that clearly more complicated polyphonic and rhythmical textures evolved.

In my new piece for Klangforum Wien I am concerned amongst other things with the aspect of "pollution" such as sometimes occurs on (old) films through dust particles and scratches or that appears if one is looking through scratched glass. In this context, two things were important for me: first the random emergence of these impurities/contaminations (they are not inherent, but so to speak arise); and second the possibility of focusing on this accidental appearance by projecting it into a more or less empty space.

My composition focuses on this random appearance in the form of selective incidents which, distributed seemingly aimlessly, float without connection in space whilst the music itself is as if frozen. ~ Joanna Wozny

Quote from: TheGSMoeller on September 21, 2013, 12:23:52 PM
My first contribution to this thread, which is a great thread BTW.
Caroline Shaw's a cappella piece "Partita in 8 Voices"   This is a piece I recently purchased through iTunes and have absolutely been spellbound by it. Here is the first and second of four movements.


Mvt. I - Allemande

http://www.youtube.com/v/2mukrVsKqTs

Mvt. II - Sarabande

http://www.youtube.com/v/-aJF5uoU7fI

Quote from: some guy on September 21, 2013, 05:29:48 AM
Adam's a really fine composer. I first met him a number of years ago at Bourges (when there still was a festival there), the same year Diane Simpson (now Salazar) was there.

Both doing very different but very interesting things.

Adam's colleague at the university where he teaches, Felipe Otondo, is also really cool.

Reviews of albums by Adam and Felipe are on the first page of Asymmetry Music Magazine as it currently is.

And one of Emmanuelle Gibello's album, too, which is a lot of fun.

http://asymmetrymusicmagazine.com/

Quote from: NorthNYMark on September 21, 2013, 10:02:44 AMJust wanted to add a note of thanks to sanantonio for keeping this thread going.  It will take me quite a bit of time to digest everything (or even a small percentage of what's been shared here), but I couldn't ask for a more interesting introduction to contemporary musical currents.

Quote from: Philo (Artist formerly known as) on September 20, 2013, 08:37:07 AM
Wanted to give you a big thank you, sanatonio. I appreciate all of this wonderful music. Thanks again.  8)

QuoteLuke Bedford was born in 1978 and studied composition at the Royal College of Music.

Bedford's piece was inspired by a story of two conjoined twins in the 19th century who became singers, saving themselves from a lifetime of slavery or freak shows through their musical talent.

The soloists seem at times to be 'joined at the hip' but at other times to be locked in a power struggle.

The harmony/struggle between 2 string soloists is a little remniscent of George Benjamin's Viola, Viola. However this is neither a duet like Benjamin's work, nor is it a double concerto like Mozart's.

The soloists open without accompaniment and orchestral colour is added gradually and stepwise, to give an increasing depth of sound as the work builds up.

Juliet Williams

Quote from: sanantonio on September 17, 2013, 05:16:01 PM
https://www.youtube.com/v/gUdF4NGLung

Jean-Paul Dessy (http://www.moderecords.com/profiles/jeanpaul_dessy.html)

Quote from: karlhenning on October 03, 2013, 04:04:34 AM
The shores of Tricoli?

Quote from: some guy on October 03, 2013, 03:04:36 AM
The Tricoli is wildly gorgeous.

Quote from: sanantonio on October 02, 2013, 06:44:48 PM
Rashad Becker (http://www.factmag.com/tag/rashad-becker/)

https://www.youtube.com/v/MKvwModIsBY

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on October 03, 2013, 04:28:41 AM
I hear the sewers of Tricoli; then what is clearly a bout of severe indigestion (who says music can't clearly depict non-musical themes!), with the piece climaxing in group flatulence. If that is what he was going for, it's very well done.

We have a very different definition of gorgeous.

Sarge

Quote from: sanantonio on October 03, 2013, 05:04:49 AM
Glad to see people are giving the music a try - even if some don't like a clip here and there.  I try to present music from a variety of composers, with no expectation that anyone will like all of them (well, I do, but that's just me  ;)  ).

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on October 03, 2013, 04:28:41 AMWe have a very different definition of gorgeous.

Quote from: cjvinthechair on October 03, 2013, 04:42:33 AMSorry, Mr. Sanantonio - am diligently searching through your posts for things I can vaguely appreciate, but doing less well of late.

Quote from: Scarpia on October 03, 2013, 06:17:48 AM
Are the concepts of melody, harmony and rhythm now considered so outmoded that modern music has dispensed with them?  That's the impression I get after a few random clicks on this thread.

Quote from: some guy on October 03, 2013, 08:18:58 AM
Hahaha, you sound like a nineteenth century critic struggling with Beethoven's Grosse Fuge.

Quote from: some guy on October 03, 2013, 08:18:58 AMHahaha, you sound like a nineteenth century critic struggling with Beethoven's Grosse Fuge.

Quote from: Scarpia on October 03, 2013, 08:32:07 AM
This may strike you as strange, but I have never read 19th century critics of the Grosse Fuge.  Does the piece by Michael Pisaro have melody, harmony or rhythm, or have I missed something?

Quote from: sanantonio on October 03, 2013, 09:09:18 AM
For some time there has been a growing body of work, mainly electronic, but can be acoustic or electro-acoustic, which deals in sound divorced from meter, or conventional harmony.  One could think of works by Morton Feldman which might fit this description, and those go back 30 years or more.  Nevertheless, there is still plenty of music being written which utilizes melody, harmony and rhythm in a more conventional fashion - and if you were to scroll back a page or two, you would find some examples.  Granted, the melody, harmony and rhythm might be complex and/or atonal, but the work is not divorced from those three aspects as you have implied.

I don't post much from tonal works, since those do not occupy my main interest for new music, but there is plenty of that kind of music being written today as well.

Quote from: sanantonio on October 03, 2013, 05:31:15 AM
Enno Poppe (http://www.ricordi.de/poppe-enno-portrait.0.html?&L=1)

https://www.youtube.com/v/vKmc0PDxZgM

Quote from: Scarpia on October 03, 2013, 09:46:33 AM
I don't have any particular interest in modern tonal works, and am generally interested in modern works which have a lot of complexity (i.e., Elliot Carter, thorny, non-electronic Boulez, that sort of thing).   But I get the (perhaps incorrect) assumption that having recognizable pitches in music is now considered passe.

Quote from: karlhenning on October 03, 2013, 08:27:18 AM
More of us need to read Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective, and heed its lessons.

Quote from: sanantonio on October 02, 2013, 07:19:19 PM
Michael Pisaro (http://michaelpisaro10years.tumblr.com/)

https://www.youtube.com/v/7v2OKdWpHtw

Quote from: Scarpia on October 03, 2013, 08:32:07 AMDoes the piece by Michael Pisaro have melody, harmony or rhythm, or have I missed something?

Quote from: karlhenning on October 03, 2013, 09:51:49 AM
And I'll repeat (the latest occasion was for Annie's benefit, though she scorned the idea without proving her own case) that music for upitched percussion ensemble does not miraculously become "non-music" for want of definite pitch.

Quote from: some guy on October 04, 2013, 04:15:41 AM
You have missed something.

The piano part is so conventionally melodic/harmonic/rhythmic that that almost kills the piece for me.

Quote from: sanantonio on September 28, 2013, 05:14:17 PM
Brett Dean (http://www.boosey.com/composer/brett+dean) (b. 1961)

https://www.youtube.com/v/197n_eDgcM8

"Polysomnography" for woodwind quintet and piano
Unknown performers

II. Myoclonus 0:02
III. Sleep Spindles 1:48
IV. Delta Waves 4:44

Quote from: Scarpia on October 03, 2013, 06:17:48 AM
Are the concepts of melody, harmony and rhythm now considered so outmoded that modern music has dispensed with them?  That's the impression I get after a few random clicks on this thread.

Quote from: Brian on October 09, 2013, 04:03:35 PM
A couple of guys I know have started a casual message board (http://robertwmcclure.weebly.com/listening-fridays.html#/listening-fridays/), primarily intended for composers and serious listeners, where every Friday they post a new piece of music and discuss it. Like a book club, but a listening club. The first one's a vocal piece from 2006. Try it out.  :)

Quote from: Important label blurbEliane Radigue's Adnos trilogy was composed between 1973 and 1980 and is among her finest compositions. Adnos is a deeply meditative work of infinite depth and sensitivity; one of the high points of modern minimal electronic composition. Packaged in a heavy duty 3CD jacket much like the recent Eleh releases and containing extensive archival materials.

Quote from: sanantonio on October 10, 2013, 02:52:57 AM
Inspired by the 20th century violin concerto thread [....]

Quote
The centenary has given Mr. Conlon an opportunity to advance the case for Britten more intensely than usual. "I'm taking advantage of it to put him more in the forefront than might be possible at another time," he said. "Americans don't need somebody to play more Brahms or Beethoven. They need to know that there is very important music out there that they're not listening to—because our ears and spirits need constant renewal."

Quote from: Cato on October 10, 2013, 04:02:00 AM
Here is a quote from James Conlon, which I read today, in an article about the operas of Benjamin Britten:
(My emphasis above)

See:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520704579125240632913728.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_6 (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520704579125240632913728.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_6)

Quote from: sanantonio on October 10, 2013, 05:02:03 AM
https://www.youtube.com/v/CnpdjRp5OT4

A very nice work.

Quote from: Brian on October 09, 2013, 04:03:35 PM
A couple of guys I know have started a casual message board (http://robertwmcclure.weebly.com/listening-fridays.html#/listening-fridays/), primarily intended for composers and serious listeners, where every Friday they post a new piece of music and discuss it. Like a book club, but a listening club. The first one's a vocal piece from 2006. Try it out.  :)

Quote from: some guy on October 12, 2013, 12:51:43 AM
I've heard that piece, too.

There are a few very brief bits that an extremely sensitive person might, at a stretch, refer to as noisy.

There are many very long bits that are either extremely delicate or extremely soft and placid.

As for interesting, well that's such a loaded term. Loaded with what? My mother, for instance, used it exclusively to refer to things she didn't like but didn't want to just say she didn't like them.

Coupled with "noisy," I suspect that "interesting" here also means "didn't like it."

Hard to say, though.

Quote from: James on October 12, 2013, 02:29:58 PM
His Vln Cto is supposed to be really good, I haven't dug in yet. It won the heralded Grawemeyer award for outstanding musical achievment last year. (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,20551.msg632614.html#msg632614)

Quote from: sanantonio on October 12, 2013, 07:08:19 PM
Murail: Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra "Le Désenchantement du monde" (2012)

I can't find a YT clip or even a commercially released recording but you can listen to this work through the Instant Encore site ~ HERE (http://www.instantencore.com/work/work.aspx?work=5070803).

Ensemble: New York Philharmonic
Conductor: David Robertson
Artist: Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Piano)

Quote from: Scarpia on October 12, 2013, 01:55:16 PM
Fascinating that you were able to determine that I didn't like the piece.

Quote from: Scarpia on October 12, 2013, 01:55:16 PMAs far as the piece having 'very many long bits  that are either extremely delicate or extremely soft and placid' and 'a few very brief bits that an extremely sensitive person might, at a stretch, refer to as noisy,' I can't imagine it was the same piece.  Most of it was quite vigorous, and made dramatic use of a large percussion section, including timpani, bass drum, tuned and untuned gongs, side drum, xylophone, cymbals, etc.  My wife, who does not have a particular interest in modern classical music, was very impressed with the orchestra.  She commented "it was so messy, I was amazed the musicians could tell when it was their time to play."

Quote from: sanantonio on October 12, 2013, 07:08:19 PM
Murail: Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra "Le Désenchantement du monde" (2012)

I can't find a YT clip or even a commercially released recording but you can listen to this work through the Instant Encore site ~ HERE (http://www.instantencore.com/work/work.aspx?work=5070803).

Ensemble: New York Philharmonic
Conductor: David Robertson
Artist: Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Piano)

Quote from: Brewski on October 17, 2013, 06:07:41 AM
Thanks for posting this! I heard the world premiere last spring (review here (http://www.seenandheard-international.com/2013/04/24/beethoven-almost-trumps-sparkling-new-murail/)) and was wondering if a recording would show up for a repeat hearing.

--Bruce

Quote from: sanantonio on October 15, 2013, 05:11:15 PM
Variable Formations (http://www.anothertimbre.com/variableformations.html)

An extract from 'Variable Formations', a 40-minute performance by John Tilbury (piano), Lee Patterson (amplified objects), Phil Durrant (electronics), Jamie Drouin (electronics), Angharad Davies (violin) & Johnny Chang (viola). Recorded live at Cafe Oto in February 2013 and released on Another Timbre in October 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/v/DxB2QwVUUBs

Quote from: Scarpia on October 18, 2013, 06:02:08 AMAfter reporting my enjoyment of Foreign bodies some guy told me off for enjoying the piece for the wrong reason and made condescending comments about my wife.

Quote from: James on October 19, 2013, 06:23:54 AM
This thread would also be a good place to round-up the latest new-music releases ..[asin]B00BLDHPZS[/asin]

Quote from: sanantonio on October 12, 2013, 07:08:19 PM
Murail: Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra "Le Désenchantement du monde" (2012)

I can't find a YT clip or even a commercially released recording but you can listen to this work through the Instant Encore site ~ HERE (http://www.instantencore.com/work/work.aspx?work=5070803).

Ensemble: New York Philharmonic
Conductor: David Robertson
Artist: Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Piano)

Quote from: sanantonio on October 18, 2013, 06:11:20 AM
My thought is that it does not matter why you enjoyed the music, the important thing is that you did.

:)

Quote from: James on October 19, 2013, 03:45:47 AM
Doesn't sound like much of a thought. The experience of music isn't a mindless affair, the experience can be deeper ... inquistive folks, ones who listen deeply will ponder, reflect, think-about what it was that they noticed & liked about the music, and draw conclusions as to what it means & represents to them.

Quote from: James on October 19, 2013, 03:16:11 PM
...it is more about just being human

Quote from: James on October 19, 2013, 02:53:29 PM
Never any critical thinking? Introspection, questioning things NEVER enters into it? Sounds like a total load of bs.

Quote from: sanantonio on October 22, 2013, 12:05:25 PM
Richard Glover (http://richardglover.wordpress.com/biography/)

https://www.youtube.com/v/5KQygxhjWME

Cello with Clarinet and Piano played by Seth Woods (cello), Jonathan Sage (clarinet) and Philip Thomas (piano), from the CD 'Logical Harmonies', featuring seven compositions by Richard Glover.

Richard Glover (b. 1981) grew up in Lichfield and studied at the University of Hertfordshire for his undergraduate degree in Electronic Music before moving to Huddersfield, where he gained a distinction for his MA in Music Composition. He completed his PhD with Bryn Harrison at Huddersfield, investigating perception and cognition within music of sustained tone textures. He is currently working as a Research Fellow in the music department and teaching in composition and music technology.

Quote from: sanantonio on October 24, 2013, 04:44:04 PM
Hans Zender (http://www.boosey.com/composer/Hans+Zender)

https://www.youtube.com/v/a3tTNaFbhCc