Composer (and my teacher at New England Conservatory), Malcolm Peyton told us several times that a composer’s metabolism is reflected in his/her music. A brilliant observation — although I remember one classmate at NEC who loved to play late Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel, but when it came to writing his own music, it was like [...]
Composer Steven Mackey was UCLA’s visiting composer yesterday. He gave a 2-hour talk about his music and life. He played a fantastic work for 4 electric guitars, 5 singers and large orchestra called “Dreamhouse.” He stopped between movements and answered questions from students and faculty with great style.
Later, Paul, Mitchell, Susan, David and I went [...]
Last week composer John Adams agreed to fly down to rainy LA and visit our students. It was a big success. There was an hour of John critiquing live performances of student composers’ works followed by an hour and a half where he discussed some recent music. My chairmanly duties did not allow me to [...]
Another one of my heroes: John Williams. This clip was uploaded by karthiktn and explained in her/his notes:
John Williams did the theme music for NBC Nightly News Beat many many years back. Recently in 2006 he recorded it afresh with a 90 piece orchestra at the Sony Studios, Culver City, CA.
I watched the new Tim Burton realization of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” the other day. I found it absolutely thrilling. But I realized that what I mean by “it” is probably different than what others may mean.
We went with Ronnie who looked at it as a musical trying to be a movie, as manifested by [...]
Twice a year Scott Spiegelberg reports the “Top 50 Classical Music Blogs.” He uses two different methods, the first being the google ranking, and the second being the Technorati methods. Each post describes the differerences. I am happy to report that even tho I’ve dropped down in posts on my blog since becoming Chair, my [...]
I was really sad to learn of the passing of Karlheinz Stockhausen.
From 1972 to 1976, he was my hero. I wanted to go to Germany and study with this god of contemporary music. I studied his scores with a Talmudic fervor. I loved his constant ability to reinvent the way music could be made. I [...]
You won’t need your coffee today after listening to this one. Simon Rattle commented in a BBC.co article that Venezuelan youth orchestras were doing the most important work in classical music anywhere in the world. After watching this, you’ll agree. Wow!
[Thanks to Frank Heuser]
Marc Shaiman won both a Tony and a Grammy Award for the score to the smash hit Broadway Musical HAIRSPRAY.
He has been nominated for The Academy Award five times, for the films Sleepless In Seattle, The American President, The First Wives Club, Patch Adams, and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. He has lost each [...]
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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