Musicology
Wagner’s Moments versus Motives
Due to the fact that recently I have spent a considerable amount of time driving, I decided that there could be no better opportunity to revisit the Ring Cycle.
Read the rediscovered libretto of…
Read the rediscovered libretto of Hadyn’s puppet play “Der Hexenschabbas” online at http://ping.fm/zhNRH
Bodily Expression in Electronic Music
The University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz announced a three-day symposion on Bodily Expression in Electronic Music. Speakers include Isabel Mundry, Georgina Born, Federico Celestini, Andreas Dorschel, Deniz Peters, Alva Noe, Simon Emmerson, Pauline Oliveros, Gerhard Eckel, and Kendall Walton.
Un-Music Conference @ Harvard this Week-End
An exciting program with speakers from the US, Canada, Turkey, France, and Italy! Keynote by Jonathan Sterne from McGill University: “Is Music a Thing?” Composers’s Roundtable with Lou Bunk (Brandeis University), Maxwell Dulaney (Brandeis University), Davide Ianni (Boston University), and Adam Roberts (Harvard University). Moderated by Jean-Francois Charles. Details at http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/gradmus/program.php
A Conversation with Erik Spangler and Brian Sacawa from Mobtown Modern
Matthias Röder speaks with the founders of mobtown modern, saxophonist Brian Sacawa and composer Erik Spangler, about recliners and drinks at New Music concerts, how alternative listening environments and video projections create remixes of well-known repertories, and what’s coming up next in Baltimore’s most innovative New Music series.
The Operatic Canon: Forgotten Chestnuts and Poisoned Violets
As a genre, opera is not a high earner. Indeed, the amount of money that must be invested to produce one is staggering: the costs are high and possibility for success unpredictable. Thus the question of programming has been a primary concern since the start of public opera. What will audiences want to hear? How can balance be achieved between the composition and its execution? Which works will keep the reliable patrons coming and draw in new audience members to the performance?
To Widen the Spectrum of Possibilities: An Interview with Marios Joannou Elia
The young Cypriot composer Marios Joannou Elia talks about his compositions for unusual performance spaces, the challenges of working outside of the opera house and concert hall, and his upcoming projects. Elia, who has studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, is the recipient of the Witold Lutoslawski Award and the Kazimierz Serocki Prize in Warsaw, the Edison Denisov Prize in Moscow and the BMW Patronize Award of the Musica Viva in Munich. He received numerous commissions and his music has been performed in prestigious performance venues such as the Staatsoper Stuttgart, the Berliner Philharmonie, as well as the Staatsoper Hannover.
Opera, or the under-doing of women
Today I attended the Metropolitan Opera broadcast at my local movie theater in a performance of Puccini’s La Rondine (like La Traviata, only minus the tuberculosis and judgmental father). I cannot thank the Met enough for getting these performances out to a wide audience because for many of us here in the US, it is virtually impossible to see good opera live.
Shostakovich during the Second World War
This photo graced the cover of the July 20, 1942 issue of Time Magazine. The story discussed the upcoming radio broadcast by the NBC Orchestra of Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony (‘Leningrad’), a piece that had been brought via 100 feet of microfilm from Kuibyshev to Teheran, then to Cairo, and finally to New York. Time considered this work to be the most highly anticipated American debut since the 1903 Manhatten premiere of Parsifal, a piece that was apparently so lofty as to be devoid of political ideology or national origins.
CFP: Un-Music, Harvard Graduate Music Forum Conference – March 7, 2009
The Harvard Graduate Music Forum announces its sixth graduate student conference, “Un-Music,” taking place on March 7, 2009. We invite graduate students from all disciplines to interpret this theme broadly and creatively. Historical, ethnographical, analytical, and compositional approaches are welcome.
“Crosscurrents” Conference Coming Closer
Mark your calendars for “Crosscurrents,” a conference on “American and European Music in Interaction, 1900 – 2000.” Speakers include Michael Denning, Celia Applegate, Tobias Bleek, Giselher Schubert, Brigid Cohen, David Schiff and many more. Sessions will be chaired by Andrew Shenton (Boston University), Felix Meyer (Paul Sacher Foundation), Wolfgang Rathert (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität), Joseph Auner (Tufts University), […]
New Stockhausen Piece “Balance” Premiered in Cologne
Since his untimely death last year, several new pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen have been premiered posthumously. Yesterday night, the newest of these premieres was given in the Klaus-von-Bismarck-Saal at the WDR in Cologne. The composition is part of the larger cycle KLANG which was to contain 24 pieces for each hour of the day. “Balance” is the piece for the seventh hour of the day.
The Ideal eReader
Following up on a comment by Myke Cuthbert and a previous post at TechCrunch, here is my wishlist for an ideal eReader / Internet tablet. This list is compiled from a research / academic perspective, so I guess that basically everyone who is in academia or research will be a potential customer. Hopefully academic publishers […]
Raum und Zeit: Orgelfeierstunden im Kölner Dom
Cologne Cathedral Betrachtet man die Situation nüchtern und als Aussenstehender, so sollte man als Musikbegeisterter die sommerlichen Orgelfeierstunden im Kölner Dom aus rein musikalischen Gründen meiden. Die Akustik in der riesigen Kathedrale des 13. Jahrhunderts ist einem differenzierten Musikgenuss ebenso abträglich, wie ein komplett verdunkeltes Museum dem Betrachten von Gemälden. Der exzessive Nachhall verwischt jeden […]
The SCRIBE Project is online
Dear colleagues: It is my pleasure to invite you to SCRIBE, an interdisciplinary and open research group that develops a software system for searches of music manuscripts by handwriting similarity. The group is designed as an open collaboration between individuals, which means that anyone is welcome to join. At the moment the project is seeking […]
Recent Comments