Interchanging Idioms

Recently I posted an article about how many Asians were competing in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Of the six finalists named yesterday not one is an American. This is not necessarily new, as four years ago only one American made it to the semi-finals. Although Joyce Yang is an American (and won the Silver in 2005) she was born in Korea, moving to the US as a child. Jon Nakamatsu was the last American to win the competition in 1997 and again, was the only American who survived the preliminary rounds. Tim Madigan of Star-Telegram.com wrote an interesting article about this recent trend of Americans failing to reach the finals. Much of this decline in American musical talent can be attributed to the decline in music programs across the nation. "It’s been happening for decades, music observers say, as classical music has been cut from public school classrooms and marginalized by lack of government funding and media attention. It follows that fewer Amer...

Mike Heyl, a senior at Upper Arlington High School, is living his dream by creating an electric orchestra with 30 other students. By combining a couple of his bandmates with a couple musicians from another band, then filling out the rest of the ensemble with students in the other high school music groups (the orchestra, concert band and chorus), Heyl's "Electric Orchestra" will perform a collection of rock pieces ranging from Led Zeppelin to Coldplay. "[Classical music] was the building block of what music is today," Heyl said. "We wouldn't have had rock 'n' roll if people didn't branch out and find new ways to make music." The Upper Arlington Electric Orchestra at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 23, in the high school's auditorium, 1650 Ridgeview Road.

There is hardly a week that goes by that doesn't have an article about Gustavo Dudamel and his amazing conducting exploits. Some of this is because he is young and very impressive on the podium. But he is hardly the only conductor on the world stage at the moment. Looking back at the posts on my blog, I've covered conductors Keith Lockhart Jeffery Kahane, Jack Everly, Mario Venzago, James MacMillan, Joji Hattori, Hugh Wolff, James Gaffigan, Kurt Masur, Andre Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Slatkin, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marc Minkowski and John Nelson - and that's just in first half of April. Some of these conductors were mentioned because of their association with leading orchestras: Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Jeffery Kahane and the Colorado Symphony Jack Everly and the Baltimore Super Pops Mario Venzago and the Balitimore Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony (YouTube Symphony) Some are mentioned because they are conducting perfo...

There is an article by Zack McMillin in Commercial Appeal, an online paper in Memphis, which talks about violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR). I love finding gems like this because it gives me an opportunity to listen to, to discover someone news in the industry - and potentially hear new sounds. DBR is all about new sounds. He was named one of "The New Faces of Classical Music" in the May 2008 issue of Esquire Magazine . In February 2008, he was featured Interview Magazine as one of the most "Notable Harlemites" alongside Marcia Gay Harden and others. He appears in the November 2008 issue of ZINK magazine in the article "The Perfect Score." MUSO Magazine, Vanderbilt Magazine, New York Radio WNYC have all feature DBR as well. He's making noise of all the right kinds. Listening to his Voodoo Violin Concerto (below) he is looking at the orchestra and violin and the way they make music in new ways. He starts the performance playing the violin ...

Dave Brubeck is a jazz legend. His sons Chris and Dan (pictured) have followed in his footsteps with the Brubeck Brother Quartet . They have achieved a fair amount of notoriety in the music world heard on Jazz radio all across the US. Chris also writes classical music. He's written for the Boston Pops. His "Vignettes for Nonet", a collaboration with the Imani Winds, is featured on "Classified." He's currently finishing up the orchestration on "Ansel Adams: America" a piece he collaborated on with his father, Dave Brubeck. They composed the symphonic work which will be played while the audience views the breathtaking images of the iconic photographer, Ansel Adams. The premiere is in April in California and then 6 other commissioning orchestras will be playing the work in this premiere season. For a listen to what the brothers sound like live.

Steve Smith of the New York Times reviewed a concert by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. During the philharmonic’s three-evening Nuevo Latino Festival, which ended at the Howard Gilman Opera House on Saturday, orchestra members mingled with progressive Latin American artists of various backgrounds and aesthetic inclinations. In “Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout,” Gabriela Lena Frank used orchestral strings to evoke traditional Peruvian instruments and rhythms. Paul Desenne, from Venezuela, alluded to European cultural strands entangled with native roots in his violin concerto “The Two Seasons,” a cheeky mash-up of Vivaldi and Astor Piazzolla. “Noctámbulos,” the Mexican composer Enrico Chapela’s piece for his rock trio and orchestra, further attested to a radical fusion of styles and temperaments within contemporary Latin American culture. It seems Latin America is taking the Classical Music World by storm. Recent posts here have included everything from Gustavo Dudamel and El Sistem...

Another virtuoso performer, Chris Thile, performing here with the Punch Brothers, is into blending music. His specialty is mixing bluegrass and classical music into an exciting new taste of American Classical Music. Jaime O'Neill had an interview with Chris about this new phenomenon prior to their concert in Chico California on Feb 13th during which Chris made a great statement about great performers, "There are no bests in music. Everything is subjective. One day, I'll want to hear Sam Bush's chop, and the next day, I'll want to hear David Grisman's tremolo, the next, John Reischman's tone, and the next, Bill Monroe's fire." Mary Colurso of The Birmingham News calls the Punch Brothers "bluegrass for the brainy. Thile's compositions bear strong influences of classical and jazz music. He's created a distinctly modern sound that can be dramatic or lighthearted, solemn or joyful, rollicking or dissonant." "First, stellar...

Richard Nilsen of The Arizona Republic wrote an interesting article on Feb 1st, "Classical music fights for relevance." The point of the article is discussing ways in which to rethink the way we approach the classical music concert. It approaches the concept based on the the thoughts of Phoenix Symphony Orchestra's Music Director Michael Christie (pictured). Ideas like event programming - new music that ties in with more established pieces, "Keeping Score" - visiting artists attempt to help audiences understand the music, new means of expression - alternate styles of playing music. Yet, not every innovation has worked. An early attempt to display a televised picture of the conductor above the stage, for audiences to see, left many seasick when the technology left the TV picture out of synch with the music. Or And a "glow-in-the-dark club" that encouraged students to bring their laptops to certain concerts and access a symphony Web site that pr...

There are a number of articles out today talking about musicians, composers or organizations that are blurring the lines of Classical and pop music. This is hardly a new topic. Pretty much everywhere you look, classical musicians are breaking into the pop world, recording albums that show off their classical skills on pop styled music, or pop musicians who try and gain status by performing something classical. Even the term pop has so many varieties that the term "cross over artist" covers just about everyone in the industry - and if you're not a "cross over artist", what's your problem? Truly, the problem isn't artists trying more than one style of music, but rather someones need to define, to classify, to somehow separate our music from someone elses. I remember reading about a rapper the other day saying his form or rap music was a blend of soul, funk and R&B. He gave it a name (which I don't recall) because I was thinking, soul and funk are...

Getting an audience into a classical music concert isn't always about play Beethoven or Mozart (although these are pretty standard crowd pleasers). Sometimes it's about taking a new look at music, playing something that we may not think of as classical music, but doing it in a classical format. Pop orchestras have been doing something like this for a while, but the attitudes about what a pop orchestra should play is changing and so are the arrangements. Peter Brennan, a Canadian musician and arranger for Jeans ’n Classics brings together a classic rock music with orchestral arrangements. His band plays music that was popular in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. A traditional orchestra pops concert presents music that was popular in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. Other composers (myself included - see below) are using modern styles and hip-hop beats in their original work, incorporating video or dance to expose a broader audience to the orchestra. Groups such as Jeans ’n Classics br...

I don't consider myself a pianist (and neither does anyone who's heard me play), - but I do spend a fair amount of time at the piano working on my compositions, improvising themes, variations, counter melodies and chord progressions. Much of what I like is influenced by jazz musicians of the 60's, 70's and 80's, so improvising seems to be a natural extension of this style of music. My wife, Eddie Louise, grew up listening to Country music, and so her own particular style is influenced with more of a traditional folk feel. If you listen to our classical compositions you definitely get a sense of folk influences on Eddie's music, while mine tend toward jazz influences (as you might expect). Both of us also are influenced by classical music, Eddie tends to enjoy Mozart and Debussy as I veer toward Shostakovich. Our mutual love of Aaron Copland is one place where our classical sides mesh. His folk/Americana stylings appeal to my wife, for myself (like the jazz...

John Cale blogged on the Guardian today about crossing over from Contemporary Classical to Contemporary Pop music. He made a pop album. This doesn't mean he's given up on Classical music, quite the contrary. His blog is all about how the two need to come together; it's a natural transition. Now, to be fair some already considered Cale a rock musician - but classically trained and steeped in music of all sorts he really can't be pinned down to any particular genre - and that's the point. Classical music needs to move beyond a narrow scope of high brow aristocracy and move into the main stream pulling the genius of numerous musical styles together. If the divide between the two still exists then thank heaven for musicians like John Cale willing to bridge the gap.

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 No...

Miami Ballet is turning to recorded music for the second half of their season to save money. Yet, university programs, such as Boston University , are turning out some truly top rate classical musicians. I have applied to several places to continue my education in music composition(Juilliard and Yale - with strong consideration given to Manhattan School of Music and the Eastman Conservatory). The purpose is to ultimately work in the field, to compose music for a living. While I may turn to teaching future students, the goal is to make my living through the music I write, whether it be for film, opera, ballet, orchestral or chamber performances. In order for me to succeed, I need performers who are willing to perform this music. For that to happen these performers need to be able to live, to work, to earn money as musicians. And one way for them to do that is to play in ensembles (orchestras) that provide live music for performances, like ballet. Broadway musicians shut dow...

Nearly every week there is an article about Gustavo Dudamel, which eventually leads back to Venezuela's il Sistema, the programme devoted to teaching young kids to play classical music rather than belong to gangs and such. Today, there was an interesting article in Asia Times by Spengler about China and how much it is spending to raise a nation of classical musicians. 'Thirty-six million Chinese children study piano today, compared to only 6 million in the United States,' is just one of the many tidbits from this article. It goes on to talk about how influential music is in other disciplines, like medicine and law. There are bit tossed in about how studying music raised the IQ level of children, and how much Chinese parents are willing to sacrifice inorder for their kids to get a musical education. All of this culminating what will someday be a musical force, with more and more musicians reaching virtuoso calibre from Chinese origin. And yet, right now, most of thes...

Musicians need to be able to make a living and in order to do so we need to be able to sell tickets. Symphony orchestras are painfully aware of their success of failure dependent on how full their halls are during performances. While ticket sales do not make the lion share of their balance sheet, sponsors, patrons and angels are not likely to fund an orchestra that only half fills auditoriums. So, music is looking at new ways in which to market old music. At Boston.com Jeremy Eichler wrote an article about the Russian Composer, Gennady Rozhdestvensky (pictured left), who pulled out of conducting four concerts for the Boston Symphony Orchestra because he was not properly listed in the marketing material. 'Rozhdestvensky discovered that his name had been omitted altogether from a list of "Distinguished Conductors" in the BSO's season brochure. He was also upset that the week's cello soloist, Lynn Harrell, had been featured in a large photo and given top billing o...

There seems to be a theme to today's posts, broadening horizons. Reading the news today I came across an article by Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times about the conductor/pianist Daniel Barenboim. While the article is interesting in terms of illuminating who Mr Barenboim is, what Mr Barenboim says about modern musicians was far more poignant. “Rubinstein read Cervantes in Spanish, Dostoyevsky in Russian, Voltaire in French,” Mr. Barenboim said. “Music has become specialized today. There used to be a different notion of musical culture. I believe that Furtwängler genuinely felt — maybe he was naïve, but he felt that he personally could save German culture from the Nazis. He wrote about the introduction to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony in relation to the Greek idea of chaos and catharsis. How many musicians think that way today? “A century ago the same people who knew Schoenberg’s music knew Kandinsky’s art. There was no separation. Rubinstein used to say that at the turn of...

Ok, calling new music non-musical is not really fair, there are musical elements to the most atonal pieces by Webern, clustered conglomerations of Lutosławski, or the intense complexity of Ferneyhough. And (truly) I admire all of these composers... However, I do find it interesting that some composers and critics find music that doesn't push these kinds of boundries, that somehow 'returns' to tonal roots to be slushy neo-romantic and therefore tired and boring. Stravinsky, one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century explored numerous different styles and yet it was his neo-romanitic period which was contains his largest output. Messian explored a number of different styles as well, but felt his one serial piece was a failure (I agree) and eventually moved back to a more tonal style (although to call it neo-romantic is pushing the definition). Krzysztof Penderecki, who wrote "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" (1960), a thoroughly modern piece of mu...

If Boris Johnson , the Mayor of London, considers pop music the dumbing down of our youth, then he really needs to take in more concerts like the one held at the MATA Festival . Founded in 1996 by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa, MATA presents pieces by young composers on a week-long festival, held each spring in New York City. The result is a blend of pop, classical, fusion, rock, electronica... et al. Allan Kozinn of the New York Times goes indepth in reviewing a recent performance by violist Nadia Sirota and the guitarist Andrew McKenna Lee. The festival is so successful this performance was actually an interval performance, one done outwith the festival's normal schedule and speaks of the popularity, the demand for this sort of concert. 'Mr Lee closed the program with “Sunrise From the Bottom of the Sea” (2005), an effects-heavy electric guitar work that paid homage to Jimi Hendrix, with passing nods to Jimmy Page and in a series of glittering trille...

It's nothing new to hear all about the new special effects for a major rock concert. U2 was filmed (in 3D) and the concert was over the top in terms of lights, effects, video and the like - and for what - music. Opera has a tradition for incorporation new effects techniques, from way back when and Weber wrote Der Freischütz incorporating demons from Hell to accompany his diminish seven chords. Well, another satanist story, Faust , hit The Met this week and, according to David Patrick Stearns of Philly.com, "The stage was loaded with technology that's not unusual in France but is just now finding its way into U.S. opera houses." Earlier this year, The Fly opened in Paris with huge special effects, and then there was Robert Lepage's The Rake's Progress which was transferred to the early days of Hollywood and incorporated video screens and elaborate effects to set the scene. Doctor Atomic was also at The Met last month with less of the high tech splendor,...