Composer and electric guitarist D. J. Sparr draws energy and inspiration from interacting with other musicians. “That’s why I compose,” he says, “to get to the point where I can be actively working with other musicians.” A full schedule of composition commissions, performances of his own music and that of other composers, and educational residencies ensures that he gets his fill of that vitality.

Nineteen American orchestras have been recognized with 2012-13 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming at the League of American Orchestras’ 68th National Conference in St. Louis.

In total, the music included on the disc spans some ten years of compositional activity, and Amy Williams’s experience as a pianist and her work in The Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo has likely contributed to her sensitivity and skill when it comes to composing chamber music.

We’re less than halfway through the year, but by this time next week I will have been in a total of 12 cities in 4 different countries. I believe I have gained many valuable experiences from these trips, but I haven’t had time to completely process all of them.

Ready for nine hours of new music? For those who can’t be in the crowd for the 2013 Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City on Sunday, June 16 (Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts @ Pace University), we’ve embedded intrepid NMBx columnist Rob Deemer to keep you apprised of the goings on. So get ready, get set…

New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras have announced that five orchestras will be receiving financial support for composer residencies through their jointly administered Music Alive Program. In addition, New Music USA has announced that 36 new music organizations will be receiving support through the 2013 Cary New Music Performance Fund.

As more of us understand the new reality and forgo the perceptions of the past, the more we will all be attuned to the various aspects of opportunity, including when it doesn’t exist, how to make sure it does exist, and how best to proceed once that opportunity is available.

One of the common complaints about current pop music is that it’s all hopelessly retro, and that we haven’t seen anything genuinely new in about 20 years. Pop music is eating its own tail. The irony is that this kind of self-aware self-referentiality is exactly what was prized and heralded as a savior of concert music a few years ago.

One seemingly unresolved issue in the realm of field recordings is the tension between authenticity and abstraction. One can view an artist’s work with “the field” as existing somewhere between these two different, though not mutually exclusive, concerns.

The recently released boxed set of electronic music pioneer David Tudor’s work, The Art of David Tudor (1963—1992) on New World Records, charts his transformation from interpreter and co-composer to composer/performer, presenting a selection of full performance recordings of many of his groundbreaking works.