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Leo Brouwer's El Decameron Negro

13 October 2019
The well deserved fuss about our favorite modernists left other interesting music unexamined, at least by that prideful modernist faction. We do not have to go so far as to say Schoenberg should be deposed and Sibelius or Tchaikovsky ensconced. …
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Forces of Nature

22 January 2019
Kevin Volans spoke at a 2016 IAMIC conference– “If You Need An Audience, We Don’t Need You” “[Morton] Feldman believed, as many generations before him, and some after him, that art was not to be confused with …
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From Terry Riley, With Complements

12 October 2018
….the last bar of Terry Riley’s Y Bolanzero, for guitar orchestra–a wierd 8-note collection with no G#, no F#, no B, no D#…. Austrian guitar virtuoso Yvonne Zehner will be principal player with a crack group of Queens College …
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Bridge Records and Poul Ruders new opera, *13th Child*

1 October 2018
RSF is cooperating with Bridge Records for the production of a CD of Poul Ruders’ opera, The 13th Child. The libretto for the opera was co-written by David and Becky Starobin, the founders of Bridge Records. David & Becky have been great …
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Jonathan Dawe's Nero @ Ballet-Opéra-Pantomime, Montreal

16 June 2018
Christophe Huss’s review in Le Devoir leaves little to add, but I wish to provide a bit of context that Mr. Huss could not know. How does Nero differ from Dawe’s other operas? –Nero’s Baroque moments are far more subtle. In …
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Rap, Hip Hop & EU Attitude Toward Pitch

3 June 2018
Still jetlagged from time in Beijing, 12 time zones away from New York. I wake up at 2am or 3am and start thinking about music. At the moment, it’s rap music. Rap music/hiphop: By eliminating or marginaizing pitch, the hiphop artists allow for …
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Curating New Music: The ISCM Delegates

29 May 2018
In Search of the Obvious Good Robert Levin, master pianist and Mozart expert, was fond of telling his students that Beethoven’s music caused people to run out of the concert hall and vomit. He told us the story of Haydn telling Beethoven to tone …
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A Moment for Chinese Music

28 May 2018
A Triumph for Chinese Music LIU Li — LIANG Nan — Zhang CHUN — Tan Dun Beijing Modern Music Festival Hosts ISCM World Music Days, 2018 in Beijing This is a personal response to the 2018 Festival and does not reflect an official Roger Shapiro …
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