The Friday Informer: Surviving the Dark Days

The Friday Informer: Surviving the Dark Days

Gossip and post-modernist fun in a time of economic and social uncertainty.

Written By

Molly Sheridan

Gossip and post-modernist fun in a time of economic and social uncertainty.

Photo of the Week

A Meeting of Musical Minds: Milton Babbitt and Stephen Sondheim at the AMC’s annual awards ceremony this year. Babbitt turned 90 on Wednesday, which begs the question: How many ways can you sing happy birthday to a serialist?
Photo by Jeffrey Herman
  • Perhaps in response to Bush’s plans for the Fed Chair, the new music world got a little auction-happy this month. The New York Miniaturist Ensemble is playing a supply and demand game of their own.
  • Meanwhile, the American Composers Orchestra managed to not only turn a profit but also apparently reunited some famously estranged colleagues.
  • I started to get a little carried away with this new Google feature. But playtime turned depressing pretty fast.
  • Scott Spiegelberg muses on people’s resistance to classical music for fear of seeming uncultured. A.C. Douglas helpfully points out, “They are uncultured, and should be made to understand that.”
  • In other high-culture line drawing and related hilarity: the case of Darwin and the provocative libretto. [via felsenmusick]
  • And in the crying so hard I’m laughing category:
    Number of composers having their works performed at the 2006 Proms—106
    Number of those composers who are women—0
    …sigh…
    [via theovergrownpath]