Doctor Atomic

Doctor Atomic, the opera composed by John Adams with a libretto by Peter Sellars, closes this weekend in Chicago. Premiered in 2005, the current production has been tweaked slightly, and has met with excellent reviews in the NY Times. I’m hoping to catch it in its current incarnation next year in Atlanta.

The opera focuses on J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Trinity Project, which led to the first test of a nuclear bomb in New Mexico during World War II.

Adams burst onto the opera scene with his 1985-7 work, Nixon in China. He now has composed six operas, and is arguably THE major contemporary force in American opera.

Marin Alsop, Gender and Race Politics in Music

Alex Ross has written about Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony, in The New Yorker. The hire has been hailed as the first woman to conduct a major orchestra in the United States (with “major orchestra” meaning one that plays year-round).

Alsop is a big supporter of new music. Ross writes that “in previous appointments [she] has shown a knack for charming both players and audiences into enjoying music that they think they won’t like. She has become a star, in part, by making composers the stars.” After recent years of financial struggles, Baltimore has gotten on board with the idea that modernizing the repertoire, along with aggressive marketing, can lead to a bigger audience.

It’s noteworthy when Ross writes that orchestras aren’t necessarily sexist in not hiring women conductors. He says that “the classical business is temperamentally resistant to novelty, whether in the form of female conductors, American conductors, younger conductors, new music, post-1900 concert dress, or concert-hall color schemes that aren’t corporate beige.” While Ross is probably correct about the situation today, it would be wrong to think that it never existed.

That last paragraph warrants a whole post (or more) at some point. Also on the burner is a reaction to Ross’s writings on race in The Rest is Noise. Pointing out that racism virtually excluded the participation of blacks in classical music in the U.S., blacks developed their own art form - jazz. After establishing an art of their own, many saw no need to try to gain access to the white world of classical performance. Now, music schools, symphonies and the like are wringing their hands over what to do about their institutions that hardly resemble the rest of American culture.

New Year’s Resolution

If there is anyone still out there reading this, I’m making another run at restarting my blog. In fact, I’m making it my New Year’s Resolution, which almost insures its future failure. Right now I’m starting up a new semester of teaching (2 sections of music theory-20th century, one section of computer music-max/msp, and some composition students). I’m reading The Rest if Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross. It’s wonderful so far. I’ll post something more resembling a real review once I’m done.

Along the way I’m trying to attend to my lagging compositional output.

Happy New Year!

It’s Grammy Time, eighth blackbird style

The nominations for Grammy Awards were announced last week. While the classical category nominations get lost amid the pop hoopla, major kudos go out to eighth blackbird for their nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance! Their album, strange imaginary animals, was recorded at Ball State University in the summer of 2005.

Two other people related to the project also received nominations. Jennifer Higdon received a nomination in the Best Classical Contemporary Composition Category for Zaka, and Judith Sherman was nominated for Classical Producer of the Year. In the producer category, each person had 4 or 5 CD’s noted. In addition to Sherman’s work on strange imaginary animals, she also produced releases by the Kronos Quartet and the Ying Quartet.

The members of eighth blackbird are understandably exuberant.

Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1928 - 2007

From the Stockhausen Verlag:

PRESS RELEASE

The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away on December 5th 2007
at his home in Kuerten-Kettenberg and will be buried in the
Waldfriedhof (forest cemetery) in Kuerten.

He composed 362 individually performable works. The works which were
composed until 1969 are published by Universal Edition in Vienna, and
all works since then are published by the Stockhausen-Verlag.
Numerous texts by Stockhausen and about his works have been published
by the Stockhausen Foundation for Music.

Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer, who have performed many of his
works and, together with him, have taken care of the scores, compact
discs, books, films, flowers, shrubs, and trees will continue to
disseminate his work throughout the world, as prescribed in the
statutes of the Stockhausen Foundation for Music, of which they are
executive board members.

Stockhausen always said that GOD gave birth to him and calls him home.

And for those of us who know the “age of aquarius” Stockhausen, the release goes on:

for love is stronger than death.

IN FRIENDSHIP and gratitude for everything that he has given to us
personally and to humanity through his love and his music, we bid
FAREWELL to Karlheinz Stockhausen, who lived to bring celestial music
to humans, and human music to the celestial beings, so that Man may
listen to GOD and GOD may hear His children.

On December 5th he ascended with JOY through HEAVEN¹S DOOR, in order
to continue to compose in PARADISE with COSMIC PULSES in eternal
HARMONY, as he had always hoped to do: You, who summon me to Heaven,
Eva, Mikael and Maria, let me eternally compose music for Heaven¹s
Father-Mother, GOD creator of Cosmic Music.

May Saint Michael, together with Heaven¹s musicians in ANGEL
PROCESSIONS and INVISIBLE CHOIRS welcome him with a fitting musical
GREETING.

On behalf of him and following his example, we will endeavor to
continue to protect the music.

Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer

Although it was easy to caricaturize late Stockhausen, he was one of a small handful of electronic music giants. He influenced not only those in the high art circles, but also The Beatles (his image shows up as part of the Sgt. Pepper’s cover, top row, left, partially obscured by W.C. Fields), Björk, and numerous sample and hip hop artists.

I’ve included a couple of pictures: one from the early 1960s, and one from the 1970s, as well as the above-mentioned cover.

something new

I don’t usually write about myself. Often, whenever I have something new that I’m finishing, the blog goes quiet. But a little self-promotion is in order, especially since readership of my blog recently spiked to double figures. (I’m still trying to figure out if there was a reason, or just mass hysteria.)

This coming Monday, November 12th, I’ll be performing a Bent Metal, a new work for laptop performance. The concert, EM | Two, is at BSU’s Sursa Hall at 8 pm, and listed as part of SEAMUS’s ElectroAcoustic Music Month. Laptop performing is a relatively new area for me, and so far I’m still wrestling with software right up to performances. It’s easy to notice how un-relaxed I look in this photo taken by Matthew McCabe while I did my soundcheck for the premiere performance at the Third Practice Festival in Richmond, Virginia.

The nice part: McCabe was running the FOH sound at the time. He was clearly struggling to keep up with me.

So if you’re in the area, stop by for the latest refinements in my laptop technique. Some guests from a little school to the south will be up as well.

Third Practice

As my handful of loyal readers already know, process_sound goes silent around times when I’m pressed to finish a new piece and perform it away from home. It would be more interesting if I could balance things better, and maybe even blog from the event, but that’s what wish lists are for.

This recent journey took me to the Third Practice Festival, at the University of Richmond (VA). Ben Broening started this festival in 2001, and quickly carved out an interesting niche in the EM festival calendar. Ben has always had a good ear for programming a variety of interesting music, and since 2004 the festival has benefited greatly from having eighth blackbird as their ensemble in residence. But 3p07 moved a step further, with a range of concerts and performers that one rarely sees at an EM Festival.

While a more complete review will appear in an upcoming SEAMUS Journal, it is worth highlighting 3p07’s book-ends: an opening concert featuring So Percussion and Trollstilt; and a closing concert featuring eighth blackbird and I Gusti Putu Sudarta (shadow puppetry). The opening concert consisted of the hour-long performance of Five (and a half) Gardens, music by Dan Trueman, with texts by Jennifer Trueman and animated paintings by Judy Trueman. The percussion battery presented by So ran the gamut from resonant tubes to wheel barrow. More striking than their instrumentation was their ability to shift and meld a widely diverse range of styles and musical ideas. Trollstilt expands the musical realm even further, incorporating folk-inspired (Norwegian and American) new music into the already extensive landscape. This was a fascinating work and performance, and I found myself constantly impressed by how easily the piece and performers shifted among musical styles. It went beyond the basic ideas of postmodernism into something truly new.

The closing concert featured eighth blackbird and I Gusti Putu Sudarta in a presentation of experimental Balinese Shadow Theater. The merging of the western classical tradition with traditional gamelan was a starting point, but the most fascinating elements were the merging of traditional shadow puppetry with virtual shadow puppetry. Working with technology developed by Semi Ryu and Stefano Faralli, Sudarta could combine leather shadow puppets with virtual counterparts controlled by a Nintendo Wii-mote.

My own contribution to the festival consisted of a new work, Bent Metal, for live laptop performance. It’s still very much a work in progress, with another performance upcoming on the 12th here at BSU. Perhaps I’ll keep the blog sounding and share some reflective thought about working in this new (for me) domain.

The iPod wins a Nobel Prize (not really)

Not the iPod, nor Steve Jobs, but the two physicists who discovered the process that led to the vast shrinking of the hard drive won the prize. As covered in a New York Times article, iPods and other small devices that carry large amounts of digital information would not be possible without this discovery.

Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg, both working independently in 1988, discovered “giant magnetoresistance,” an effect in which tiny changes in magnetic fields can produce a huge change in electrical resistance. Note the discovery date: 1988! Unlike the Grammies, which might shower awards on “one-hit wonders” that quickly drop off the map, the Nobel Foundation spends some time reflecting on the true significance of the development.

And don’t feel bad for Fert and Grünberg having to share the cash prize. Dividing US $1.4 million two ways provides a significant amount of party money for both.

Radiohead charts a new course

Musically speaking, Radiohead explores new territory as constant practice. But with their new release, In Rainbows, Radiohead is shaking up the model for selling and distributing music. In a bold, and perhaps Utopian experiment, the band is releasing a downloadable version of the entire “record” for whatever price each individual purchaser wishes to pay. Listeners can choose to pay nothing at all, or as much money as they want. There is no negotiation, just a bid. All bids accepted.

Of course lot of musicians have sold their music online, but this is different. Radiohead has never offered its music through iTunes, mainly because it wants to sell entire albums - not individual tracks. (Other groups, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, stayed out of iTunes for a a long time for similar reasons.) But almost everyone puts a price on their music, whether it is the iTunes one-size fits all price, or some other variant. In an article in the New York Times, one record executive called it “variable pricing to the extreme,” a dig at iTunes.

While the Times talks about the challenge to iTunes and the monolithic structure of the music recording industry (four global corporations dominate the industry), Radiohead is also making a direct challenge to the notion of copyright. In fact, the two things go together. In a dramatic change from the 70’s and earlier times, pop artists make little if any money from their record releases. Concerts provide the real financial windfall. Why? Record corporations charge exceedingly high costs back to the groups, so on paper at least, there aren’t a lot of profits to distribute back to the artist. At the same time, major corporations have been successfully lobbying the U.S. and other governments to extend the copyright period to such great lengths that the original intent of “securing exclusive rights for a limited time” becomes a joke.

And this takes us to what might be the best thing to happen to the music industry, from pop to (especially) classical. If strategies such as the one Radiohead is employing can lead to a greater emphasis on making music, rather than preserving it and re-releasing it, then music could find a new model for economic survival not pegged to the rise and fall of CD sales.

Alex Ross, among many, has blogged about the record release, calling it “the death of popular music (as we know it). He also has a substantial previous post about the band and one of the very interesting artists, Christoph de Babalon, that often opens its shows.

Artistry + New Music = Excitement in Baltimore

A short time ago I talked (locally, in person) about the need for real talent - artistic and managerial - to revive the mostly moribund state of orchestral music in this country. And also that contemporary music could use a bit of both as well.

Today, Anthony Tommasini writes in the New York Times about the revival of the Baltimore Symphony under its new artistic director, Marin Alsop. The article notes that during the two years Ms. Alsop was director designate, the orchestra returned to recording, and has pushed its attendance levels from a low in the 60% range, to the upper-70% range.

She also opened the season with a pairing of John Adam’s “Fearful Symmetries” with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Neither work is easy listening. The Adam’s work is not one of his concert-opening crowd pleasers (see “A Short Ride in a Fast Machine”), with Tommasini calling the 30-minute(!) work “harmonically gritty,” and most symphony-goers really don’t want to put in the effort to follow the long trajectories of a Mahler symphony, no matter what they say about the beauty of Mahler.

Some notable quotes:

Paul Meecham, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, has said Ms. Alsop was the impetus for the turnaround, proving that dynamic artistic leadership is the obvious answer to the troubles facing American orchestras.

[....]

Starting her tenure with Mr. Adams’s work was a statement of purpose for Ms. Alsop and an invitation to adventure. Before the performance, an older woman sitting in front of me sounded dubious about “Fearful Symmetries.” After the performance, she was on her feet, shouting and waving her program in the air at Mr. Adams and Ms. Alsop.