The New Challenges of New Thinking

The blog responses to Justin Davidson’s provocative piece, “The New New York School” from March 20, 2011 in New York Magazine—an appraisal of the music of several young New York composers—are so far coming down almost unanimously against Davidson’s thesis that our contemporary inclusiveness gives young composers nothing to rebel against, leaving their energies scattered and ultimately diluted, no matter how much energy the pieces exude on their surfaces. He is called out as being an old school modernist, entrenched in a decrepit idea—that making something new requires rejecting the formerly new.

Humans and Machines: An Interview with Composer Marios Joannou Elia at the Royal Festival Hall in London

I am delighted to have Marios Joannou Elia with me here at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Marios, an internationally acclaimed composer for his pioneering and visionary works, composes not only for concert halls and opera houses, but also for large-scale multimedia events.

“Von Sternen, Nebeln und Galaxien”: Peter Oswald über das Arcana Festival für Neue Musik

Am 24. Juli öffnet im steirischen Gesäuse das neugegründete ARCANA Festival für Neue Musik. Zeitschichten.com sprach mit dem künstlerischen Leiter, Peter Oswald, über Konzeption, Programm und die Bedeutung von Musikvermittlung für den heutigen Konzertbetrieb.

Berlin School Kids Compose for Renowned New Music Festival MaerzMusik

It is common knowledge: a school class makes a noise all the time. How annoying! But what does happen if this school class consciously deals with exactly these noises and sounds? The project Querklang – Experimental Composition at School reveals precisely that. It has seized this question and encourages pupils of various schools to create […]

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

Air Fencing on the Viola: Garth Knox plays Barroso

When I wrote my enthusiastic review of Daniel Panner’s performance at the first Fromm Concert Series on February 21, I should have mentioned, that the other great violist of our time, Garth Knox, was performing in the very same hall just one week prior to the Fromm concert.

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.

Insects in a Tarkovskian Landscape: The Manhattan Sinfonietta at Harvard

I just returned from a great concert at Paine Hall and my ears are still resounding with the fabulous music I heard a few hours ago.

The program was part of the Fromm Foundation Series that always forms the high point of the concert season at the Harvard Music Department for me. This year, Hans Tutschku, the curator of the series, invited the Manhattan Sinfonietta under Jeff Milarsky to perform two programs of contemporary music that couldn’t be more exciting.

Robert Helps Festival: Piano Extravaganza

The University of South Florida’s School of Music is in the midst of the fourth annual Robert Helps International Composition Competition and Festival. Each year, this event pays homage to Robert Helps (1928-2001), composer/pianist, who was a faculty member at USF and one of the key promoters of new music during the second half of the twentieth century. His music is best described as belonging to New Romanticism and he had a particular fondness for piano pieces. Each year there is a $10 000 prize awarded to the most promising composition by a young composer, as well as a performance of the winning work (this year’s winner was Lyudmila German, whose Piano Sonata No. 1 we heard played excellently by USF faculty member Svetozar Ivanov as the second half of tonight’s program).

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.

We are listening to Istanbul

Istanbul is going to be European Capital of Culture in 2010 and in preparation of the big festivities zeitschichten.com is going to explore with you the New Music scene of Europe’s largest city. Over the next year or so we will introduce you to some of the most exiting new music that is being composed, improvised, and performed in Istanbul today.

HYDRA @ Harvard (Tonight and Tomorrow)

HYDRA @ Harvard Friday, December 12 and Saturday, December 13 at 8:00pm in John Knowles Paine Concert Hall Harvard University The concerts will feature new work by students of Hans Tutschku’s _Electronic Composition_ and _Electronics: Music and Space_ courses, plus performances of Iannis Xenakis’ Legende d’Eer (Friday), Bernard Parmegiani’s Capture Éphémère (Saturday), and Hans Tutschku’s […]

Johannes Brahms and Jean-Francois Charles

Listening to some Brahms piano quartets and trio in the morning, I felt the increasing need for something more contemporary. After a short browse in the web, I found this wonderful quartet for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano by my colleague Jean-Francois Charles. You can listen to a superb recording featuring Rane Moore (clarinet), Gabby […]

Medienkunstnetz.de

It is a pleasure to be writing for Zeitschichten!  Ironically, when I was asked to contribute by Matthias, I specifically said, ‘Sure, as long as I can write about something other than Stockhausen!’  Oh, the irony. One of the disadvantages of teaching music post-World War Two can be difficulties in bringing recordings to class.  If […]