New Music: Blending styles, audiences and technologies

By -

Allan Kozinn of the New York Times wrote an article, "For New Music, Cross-Pollination and Big Crowds" which is about "young composers who are equally at home in classical music, rock, jazz and world music and whose work speaks to audiences with similarly unbounded interests." This is the same sort of sentiment I've often touted on this blog, new music needs to look at those composers who are blending styles of rock and jazz into classical mediums, pulling rhythms or flavors from world music and elements from minimalism or atonality into something new, fresh and listenable. That last bit is probably most key, the music is enjoyable to listen to.

In another article from the New York Times, this one by Anthony Tommasini, "Classical Music That Dared to Be Different" it speaks about pieces performed this year that broke boundaries. One of the most prominent in my opinion was the internet broadcast of the New York Philharmonic's performance in North Korea. "Along with millions around the world, I watched the concert streamed live over the PBS Web site at 4 a.m. New York time. (The concert was later televised in an evening broadcast.) Somehow, sitting at my desktop computer and seeing the Philharmonic play live in North Korea, where the Internet is banned, seemed tangible evidence of barriers falling."

Add to that the simulcast performances of operas from New York, London, Berlin into film houses everywhere and we begin to see how technology is spreading the wealth of classical music to areas that previously only longed for it. These new mediums are also creating new revenue streams for classical performers.

What all this means is classical music is far from dead. There is a new explosion of talent, technique and technology that is exploring new worlds of music and exposing new people it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more