From the monthly archives:
Hats off to Clint Eastwood’s brave production, STRAIGHT NO CHASER(1988), about jazz musician Thelonius Monk. After watching this, I realize that Thelonius is as important as Schoenberg or Webern in terms of modernist composers.
It’s just he always has a rhythm section going so classical snobs can never truly accept him as an equal to [...]
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Just released on Atomfilms.com, Possum Death Spree, Episode 2!
4:48
Directors: Michael Horowitz, Gareth Smith
Music: Roger Bourland
Atomfilms.com
AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central
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Flight into Egypt (2006)
A Chamber Opera
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Workshop performance, UCLA, Schoenberg Auditorium (Feb.22, 2007)
Music by Roger Bourland
Text by Thornton Wilder
Juliana Gondek, mezzo soprano (Hepzibah, the donkey)
Angel Blue, soprano (Mary)
Michael Dean, bass (Joseph)
Lorenz Gamma, violin
Maggie Hummel, cello
Judith Palanca Hansen, piano
Daniel Cummings, conductor
Commissioned by Tappan Wilder
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While attending the premiere of my FLIGHT INTO EGYPT at the Union Theological Seminary, I couldn’t help but see the enormous canvasses surrounding me. They were commissioned under the theme of the black madonna. I didn’t copy down the names or painters but had to share my cellphone snapshots.
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Here is a press release for the premiere of my little chamber opera, FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. Wish me luck!
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Fri Oct 5 07:09:53 2007 Pacific Time
ADVISORY for Wednesday, Oct. 10
Musical Feast at Union Theological Seminary Features Premiere of Bourland’s ‘The Flight into Egypt’
[...]
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UCLA starts later than most schools; our first day was September 27. Although I’ve been Chair of the Music Department since July 1, that was all just practice. With students and faculty back everything is much busier.
I decided that I wanted to create a better sense of community in our department. To that end, [...]
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And just to balance things out, here is young Glenn Gould playing an excerpt from the Bach Partita No.2 originally shown on the documentary television program “The Art of the Piano.”
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A late and thrilling performance by the master wizard pianist Glenn Gould. For those who don’t know this work, it was Bach’s last work and was a collection of Fugues based roughly on one theme, or “subject.” The instrumentation was never specified but is traditionally played by keyboards, and is sometimes arranged for chamber ensembles.
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One of the “joys” or habits many of us newspaper readers have is reading the obits, learning of someone’s passing, and offering up a personal sigh of appreciation of how they touched our lives. One such man showed up in today’s paper: Mahlon Clark, who died at age 84 in Los Angeles. Doesn’t sound familiar? [...]
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We had a big music department party at our house on Saturday. What fun. One of my colleagues, Vladimir Chernov, was there. I put this video on our new UCLA blog, and liked it some much I had to share it with my readers. I showed it to him. He had no idea it had [...]
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