Category: Headlines

Columbia University Honors Jonathan D. Kramer

Jonathan D. Kramer

Columbia University has added a section to its website in honor of composer and theorist Jonathan D. Kramer (1942-2004). The site outlines two funds named in his memory: the JDK Memorial Fund, which will provide commissioning funds to a young composer to write and record a composition; and the JDK Legacy Fund, designated to foster the continued performances and recordings of Jonathan Kramer’s music, and to carry on the publications of his scholarly works.

The site also provides biographical information, a works list, interviews, and photos of the composer, as well as eulogies from friends and colleagues.

Broken Pianos Make Great Art Projects

Artnet.com reports on the “coolest Chinese art party this season,” a.k.a. “The Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art”—basically an island of Kinmen (Quemoy) that has been taken over as the staging ground for exhibitions installed by 18 Chinese and Taiwanese artists and curated by New York-based artist Cai Guo-Qiang. On the talent roster is composer Tan Dun. His installation, Visual Music, has been constructed “inside a large bunker and features old pianos that have been destroyed and reassembled. In the dark spot at the end of the bunker, filled with the music of Beethoven and Bach, a little pyramid made of wooden pieces from a broken piano sits surrounded by three TV sets showing Tan playing and then smashing up a piano.”

“It’s like life, which is a refrain of resurrection,” Tan told Artnet.

Photos of the project are available here.

New Home for JALC Trumpets Jazz Greats

Clark Terry performs at the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame induction ceremony to honor inductee Louis Armstrong Photo by Wire Image, R.J. Capak

The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame has inducted its inaugural class of members. They are: Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Bix Beiderbecke, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum and Lester Young.

Located within the new home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Frederick P. Rose Hall, the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame includes a multi-media installation featuring a 14-foot video wall, interactive kiosks, touch-activated virtual plaques, and the great sounds of jazz.

It was named by Jazz at Lincoln Center Board member Ahmet Ertegun and his wife, Mica, in honor of his late brother and Atlantic Records partner Nesuhi Ertegun.

A 72-person international voting panel, which includes musicians, scholars, and educators from 17 countries, was charged with nominating and selecting the most definitive artists in the history of jazz for induction into the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame. Criteria for nomination include excellence and significance of the artists’ contributions to the development and perpetuation of jazz.

The Hall of Fame opens to the public on October 21, 2004.

Subito Music Welcomes Bill Rhoads & Assoc. as Subsidiary

Subito Music Corp. offices

Bill Rhoads & Associates, founded in 2001 as a promotion and business representation firm, has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Subito Music Corporation, expanding Subito’s range of services to encompass catalog and works promotion for publishers and composers.

In making the announcement, Bill Rhoads noted that “positive results of the complimentary dynamic between our companies will be immediately evident to our clients in form of enhanced promotional activity and a more flexible and efficient array of services offered to composers and publishers.”

Subito Music President, Stephen Culbertson added that the addition “represents the last link in the chain of a wide range of services Subito offers its customers.”

Lenny In Focus

Leonard Bernstein: An American Life, an eleven-part documentary series that considers the life and work of Leonard Bernstein, will air on radio stations around the world beginning in October 2004. This upcoming radio event took Steve Rowland six years to produce.

Bernstein’s career and life will be explored through the words of Bernstein’s own correspondence as well as interviews with more than one hundred people who knew and worked with him.

The series of 60-minute programs is narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon. Alec Baldwin, Broadway star Maria Tucci, daughter Jamie Bernstein, and Schuyler Chapin, NYC’s Cultural Commissioner and Bernstein’s record producer and longtime friend, will voice the excerpted text of letters compiled from some 17,000 pieces of correspondence held by the Library of Congress.

John Adams, Marin Alsop, Betty Comden, John Corigliano, Adolph Green, Bobby McFerrin, Hal Prince, Mary Rodgers, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Stephen Sondheim, are among those interviewed for the series.

The eleven programs break down as follows: (1) Bernstein: The Early Years; (2) Twelve Gates to The City (Meeting the Mentors); (3) New York, New York; (4) Tonight; (5) A New Frontier/The Philharmonic Years; (6 and 7) Bernstein: The Conductor; (8) Crossroads; (9 and 10) Bernstein: The Composer; and (11) A Candle Burned At Both Ends.

John von Rhein wrote in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune that the program is “must-hear radio, essential listening for those who already know what all the fuss was about, but also essential for a younger generation who never saw or heard him and have only his extensive discography to judge him by.”

2004 Classical Recording Foundation Awards

The third annual Classical Recording Foundation Awards have been announced, and two of the five awards were granted to facilitate the release of American music.

Paul Moravec was honored as Composer of the Year. His award will enable the recording and production of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Tempest Fantasy. This world premiere recording was made with musicians for whom piece was written. Arabesque will be releasing this disc in November 2004.

One of two Foundation Awards was presented to the Harmonie Ensemble to underwrite the recording and production of works by Aaron Copland. The disc includes two premiere recordings of Copland works—Arturo Toscanini’s piano transcription of El Salon Mexico and Two Ballads for Violin and Piano—as well as Appalachian Spring and Music for Theatre. Bridge Records released this disc in May 2004.

The Classical Recording Foundation (CRF) was established by Grammy-winning classical producer and engineer Adam Abeshouse, who held the belief that “the economic climate for most classical recording artists was bleak, and therefore many great projects that deserved to be preserved would not be recorded…classical music recording should be supported through philanthropy, following the same model as most live performance organizations.”

Ohio Composer Orianna Webb Wins Sackler Prize

Orianna Webb

Orianna Webb, acting composition department head at the Cleveland Institute of Music, has received the 2004 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Music Composition Prize. The prize, sponsored by the University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts, carries a $20,000 award and is the largest monetary award of its kind from a public institution of higher learning. The annual competition supports and promotes aspiring composers and the performance of their works.

The prize will allow Webb to develop a chamber orchestra work for strings, winds, and brass scheduled for performance in March at the university.

Webb, a native of Akron, holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, and University of Chicago.

Steve Cohen Recognized for Juggernaut

Steve Cohen

Steve Cohen has won the 2004 Composer’s Award of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Museum in the Community (Hurricane, WV). The award, jointly sponsored by the orchestra and the museum, was first given in 1988 to encourage, recognize, and promote composers. This year’s award was for a full orchestral composition and Cohen’s work, Juggernaut, will receive its world premiere at the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra on November 12, 2004.

Copland House Announces Residencies; 2004 Sylvia Goldstein Award to Coleman and Grant

The Copland House has announced the recipients of the all-expenses-paid 2004 residencies during which gifted, emerging, or mid-career American composers are invited to live and work for several weeks at the renowned composer’s historic home. They are: Eric Chasalow, Brian Fennelly, Richard Festinger, Marcus Karl Maroney, Ronald Keith Parks, Dan Visconti, Beth Wiemann, and Ken Ueno. A jury that included Daron Hagen, Jennifer Higdon, Lee Hyla, and Lowell Liebermann made the selection from among nearly 90 applications.

The 2004 Sylvia Goldstein Award, which carries a $5,000 cash prize, was shared by Dan Coleman (L’alma respira for orchestra) and James Grant (Such Was the War for baritone, chorus, and orchestra). Jurors Martin Bresnick, Bright Sheng, and Joan Tower selected the winning works. The award “is intended to help support the performance, recording, or publication of an outstanding new work each year written by a resident composer at least in part at Copland House.”

The Copland House has also announced the creation of the Borromeo String Quartet Award for resident composers. Each year the quartet will select a string quartet written by a Copland House resident for inclusion in the ensemble’s programs in the U.S. and abroad.

Meet The Composer Announces Program Changes

The Meet The Composer Fund has been renamed Creative Connections to reflect recent changes that expand the scope of the program to offer a wider range of award amounts. Awards will now range from$250 – $5,000.

However, the change will affect only those states administered by the New York office. Creative Connections guidelines and application forms are for projects taking place in Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Utah. For other locations, composers should check the MTC website to find their MTC affiliate office.

The change in funding is “intended to enable composers to undertake more substantial projects, and to build stronger and longer-term relationships with presenters,” according to the MTC announcement.

PRISM Quartet Celebrates 20th Anniversary Season

The PRISM Quartet

The PRISM Quartet, an ensemble notable for premiering over 75 works since its founding two decades ago, will commemorates its 20th anniversary appropriately enough with the world premiere of Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Steven Mackey as well as Lyric by PRISM’s own Matthew Levy.

In addition, PRISM will debut twenty-two one-minute dedications by composers representing the full spectrum of today’s saxophone repertoire: Tim Berne, William Bolcom, Zack Browning, Robert Capanna, Donnacha Dennehy, Nick Didkovsky, Jason Eckardt, Renee Favand, Jennifer Higdon, Libby Larsen, Alvin Lucier, the Minimum Security Composers Collective (Dennis DeSantis, Roshanne Etezady, Adam B. Silverman and Ken Ueno), Keith Moore, Greg Osby, Frank J. Oteri (editor of this webzine), James Primosch, Tim Ries, Gregory Wanamaker, and Chen Yi.

In making the announcement, founding PRISM member Michael Whitcombe commented, “What better way to celebrate than with brand new works by so many composers we have admired and befriended over the years?”

PRISM—comprising Levy, Whitcombe, Taimur Sullivan and Timothy McAllister—was founded under the tutelage of the classical saxophone virtuoso and pedagogue Donald Sinta at the University of Michigan. Each season, PRISM presents a three-concert recital series in Philadelphia, with repeating programs at New York City’s Symphony Space.

Inaugural Santa Fe International Festival of New Music

Santa Fe New Music has established an International Festival of New Music. The four-day event, entitled “The Pulse of New Voices,” will focus on music for percussion and voice. Meredith Monk, So Percussion, Joseph Gramley and Essential Music, and Santa Fe New Music led by Artistic Director (and AMC Board Chair) John Kennedy will be among the featured performers, in addition to local and regional musicians and performers.

The festival will take place at the Lensic Performing Arts Center and other locales in Santa Fe, from September 23-26, 2004.

Programming will highlight a number of historically important works from the contemporary classical world, including Edgard Varèse’s Ionisation and William Russell’s Made In America, as well as a number of premiere performances including works by Randy Nordschow (production coordinator of this webzine), Santa Fe composer Peter Swanzy, and William Susman. In Santa Fe by the 20th century composer and peerless original, Moondog, will also be read.

Meredith Monk’s Facing North concert event will be her first New Mexico performance in 13 years.

The four-day fest will also leave time for a lecture by Meredith Monk, a family concert and instrument-making workshop at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum, and breakfast with Joseph Gramley and his tales of traveling the Silk Road with Yo-Yo Ma.

This new festival is intended to become a biennial event; the 2006 Festival will focus on Music and Water.

SYMPHONY Magazine 2004-2005 Premieres List Online

SYMPHONY‘s list of 2004-2005 orchestral premieres is now accessible online. Each summer, the trade magazine of the American Symphony Orchestra League compiles a list of world, U.S., and Canadian orchestral premieres scheduled for the upcoming season. The list—searchable by orchestra, composer, and premiere date—includes names of the works, the orchestras premiering them, scheduled premiere dates, conductors, commissioning parties, and soloists.

The 2004 New Works: Creation and Presentation grants have been awarded to John Blake Jr., Cornelius Boots, Billy Childs, Jay Clayton, Marty Ehrlich, Jimmy Greene, Jeff Haas, Lenora Zenzalai Helm, Fred Ho, Vijay Iyer, Matthias Lupri, Edward Simon, Ben Waltzer, Ben Wolfe, and Peter Zak.

Grants ranging from $10,000 to $14,000 (a combined commission fee and ensemble honorarium) were awarded to the composers and their ensembles. An independent panel of jazz composers and performers reviewed more than 160 applications before making their decision.

A component of the Doris Duke Jazz Ensembles Project, the program is a partnership between Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, administered by CMA and funded by DDCF.

Now in its fifth year, CMA reports that it has given a total of 64 jazz composers “the opportunity to create new works for ensembles ranging from classic jazz trios and quartets to various wind, percussion, and string ensembles.”

Ensembles must consist of a core of musicians who perform original music that includes jazz improvisation, have a demonstrated history of performing together as a jazz ensemble, and range in size from two to ten members.

Meet the 2004 Chamber Music America New Works: Creation and Presentation grant recipients: (courtesy CMA)

John Blake Jr. and the John Blake Jr. Quartet, Philadelphia, PA
John Blake will compose a work incorporating West African and early African American fiddle styles, reflecting the influence of spirituals, work songs, blues, and modern jazz.

Cornelius Boots and Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet, Berkeley, CA
Cornelius Boots will create a multi-movement composition influenced by nature, geography, and literature highlighting the bass clarinet’s role in selected historical styles.

Billy Childs and His Jazz-Chamber Ensemble, Altadena, CA
Billy Childs plans a composition exploring inter-genre symbiosis through harmonic and melodic jazz material performed within European classical structures by a jazz chamber music ensemble.

Jay Clayton and the Jay Clayton Project/Outskirts, New Paltz, NY
Jay Clayton is composing a suite with pre-created electronic sounds for unaccompanied solos.

Marty Ehrlich and Marty Ehrlich’s Dark Woods Ensemble, New York, NY
Marty Ehrlich will create a multi-movement composition exploring collective improvisation within a composed framework for a core ensemble of clarinet/sax, cello, and bass, plus violin and guitar.

Jimmy Greene and the Jimmy Greene Quartet, Hartford, CT
Jimmy Greene will compose a suite based on passages of biblical text.

Jeff Haas and the Jeff Haas Quintet and Guests, Traverse City, MI
Jeff Haas is composing a work scored for tentet intertwining classical and R&B traditions with jazz rhythmic and harmonic structures.

Lenora Zenzalai Helm and The Zenzalai Project, New York, NY
Lenora Zenzalai Helm will create Journey Woman Suite, a five-part work displaying a variety of traditional and non-traditional devices compositional techniques.

Fred Ho and the Afro Asian Music Ensemble, Brooklyn, NY
Fred Ho will compose Suite Sam Furnace, named for the alto saxophonist who was a member of this ensemble for over 20 years.

Vijay Iyer and the Vijay Iyer Quartet, New York, NY
Vijay Iyer will create a suite of ten to twelve modular improvising etudes, which—while based on the same set of structured improvisational possibilities—will never be performed the same way.

Matthias Lupri and the Matthias Lupri Group, Hyde Park, MA
Matthias Lupri plans a ten-movement suite utilizing a variety of electronics and rhythms.

Edward Simon and the Edward Simon Trio, Orlando, FL
Edward Simon will write a Venezuelan jazz suite based in folk idioms (including merengue, joropo, and gaita) in the context of jazz harmony and improvisation.

Ben Waltzer and the Ben Waltzer Trio, Brooklyn, NY
Ben Waltzer is creating an extended suite for jazz piano trio juxtaposing the blues and swing within a framework of bebop, stride, ragtime, and free playing.

Ben Wolfe and the Ben Wolfe Sextet, New York, NY
Ben Wolfe plans an extended composition that goes beyond rhythmic and harmonic progressions to employ different types of improvisation.

Peter Zak and the Peter Zak Trio, New York, NY
Peter Zak is writing a set of compositions for piano, bass, and drums with a quasi-narrative structure inspired by French film director Jean-Pierre Melville.

Second Roche Commission to Chen Yi

The second Roche Commission for a musical composition has been awarded to the Chinese-American composer Chen Yi. The work is scheduled for premiere on August 26, 2005, at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center during the Lucerne Summer Festival. A U.S. premiere will follow at Carnegie Hall is planned for October 17, 2005.

The commission, established in 2003 by Roche, a research-intensive healthcare company based in Switzerland, follows the tradition of commitment to contemporary music by Dr. Paul Sacher (1906-1999), a conductor and former CEO and majority shareholder of Roche. Charged to commission one new work a year, an “internationally renowned composer of contemporary music” is selected by Roche based on recommendations by the artistic directors of the Lucerne Festival, Carnegie Hall and The Cleveland Orchestra. The first Roche Commission was awarded last year to the British composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

In announcing Chen Yi’s selection, Roche Chairman and CEO Franz B. Humer praised the composer: “Chen Yi’s music draws together East and West in a unique way. The decision to choose her for this award underscores the spirit of Roche Commissions—we want this cultural project to demonstrate the close affinities between innovation in the arts and innovation in medical research and at the same time build bridges between different cultures.”

Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin at On the Boards, Seattle Photo by Rocky Salskov

Ars Electronica’s 2004 Festival, TIMESHIFT—The World in Twenty-Five Years, is just wrapping up in Linz after a six-day run celebrating the intersection of art, technology, and society, not to mention the festival’s own 25th birthday.

As part of the festivities, the 2004 Prix Ars Electronica (billed as an international competition for the CyberArts) winners were announced and many of the winning projects were showcased at the O.K Center for Contemporary Art.

Among the winners was the digital media instillation Listening Post by Americans Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin in the Interactive Art category.

In addition, several American artists were recognized with Honorable Mentions. In Messa di Voce by Golan Levin, Zachary Lieberman, Joan La Barbara, and Jaap Blonk (NL), custom-developed software transforms vocal nuances into highly expressive real-time graphics that can be manipulated further. In Loops, Marc Downie, Paul Kaiser, and Shelley Eshkar have created a portrait of choreographer Merce Cunningham. Music Intelligences analyzes Cunningham’s voice and uses the result to control a piece of John Cage’s piano music. Alvin Curran and Domenico Sciajno (Associazione Rossbin) where honored for Our Ur, John Duncan (Allquestions) for The Keening Towers, Tom Hamilton for London Fix (Muse-Eek recordings), and Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori (Mego records) for Phantom Orchard.

John Mackey

Composer John Mackey may never have had any grand athletic ambitions, but he’s made it to the Olympics anyway. Later today he’ll be checking in on the Games in Athens to cheer the United States Synchronized Swim Team as they perform their routine to his Damn for clarinet and percussion. The score will accompany the team’s duet technical event. It will air on the cable channel Bravo on Monday at 5 p.m. EST.

In advance of event, Mackey let us in on how he came to be involved in the U.S. Team’s quest for gold.

NMBx: So, how did you end up being selected as an official soundtrack composer for the United States Synchronized Swim Team?

John Mackey: It was just a lucky series of events—it’s not like I had the foresight to send a demo CD to the team! A member of the US synchronized swim team—a swimmer named Bill May—attended a performance of choreographer Robert Battle’s dance company a few years ago. That performance included several collaborations between me and Robert, and Bill liked my music enough to track me down online. He emailed me and asked for a CD. At some point, the CD made it into the hands of the coach of the US Synchronized Swim Team. Bill, as a male, is not allowed to perform with the team in the Olympics. It’s just like that old Saturday Night Live skit with Martin Short hoping to become the first male on an Olympic synchronized swim team. Bill, though, is for real.

I ran into Bill several months ago, and he told me that the team would be performing with my music at the Olympics. He said that somebody would contact me to make the arrangements. Of course, nobody ever did, so the first I learned about it officially was the day before the competition in Athens!

NMBx: What is it about Damn that makes it good to swim to?

John Mackey: I don’t know about swimming specifically, but the piece is meant to be danced to—on land. It was originally commissioned by Robert Battle. It was our first collaboration. It’s very loud—which probably helps underwater—and drummy, and mixed-metered. Of course, since I haven’t heard what they’ve done with the recording, it’s possible they’ve edited out all of the meter changes and added synth drum loops.

NMBx: Do you swim well yourself?

John Mackey: To quote Martin Short from the formerly mentioned SNL skit, “I’m not that strong a swimmer.” In fact, I can’t swim at all. I don’t like getting water in my ears. I’m a wuss. Who would have thought, watching me in gym class in high school, that I could ever make it to the Olympics? Well, take that, Westerville South football players who always picked on me!

David Raksin

David Raksin, who composed more than 100 scores for movies such as Laura, Forever Amber, and The Bad and the Beautiful in addition to music for some 300 television series, died on August 9, 2004, at his home in Los Angeles. He was 92.

• READ the New York Times obituary by Aljean Harmetz
• READ Alex Ross recalls a lunch he had with the “one of the great inspirations in film-music history”.
• READ “David Raksin Remembers his Colleagues,” his thoughts on film composers such as Max Steiner, Erich Korngold, Alfred Newman, Miklós Rózsa, Franz Waxman, Aaaron Copland, and Bernard Herrmann.

Paquito D’Rivera, special guest with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra at the music of Benny Goodman concert on 12/12/02.

Ever wish you could go back in time and relive (or at least re-hear) a Jazz at Lincoln Center performance, say the world premiere of Wayne Shorter’s Dramatis Personae perhaps, with Shorter on tenor and soprano saxophones? Well, jazz fans and researchers take note: more than 1,000 recordings of concerts produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center at home and on the road since 1987 have been handed over to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the two Lincoln Center constituent organizations have announced.

The lengthy catalogue of performances is notable for its representation of a wide range of talents and compositions, from legends such as Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Brubeck to younger artists including Dianne Reeves and Maria Schneider, and history-making compositions like Wynton Marsalis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood on the Fields.

Beginning in September 2004, the recordings will be gradually catalogued and made available to the public in the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at Lincoln Center. It is expected that the entire span of concerts from 1987 to 2003 will be accessible within three years. Performances from future seasons will be added on an annual basis.

The recordings will be an added resource to the thousands of jazz photos, scores, books, commercially released recordings, and videotapes that the NYPL currently houses.

Art of the States, a production of WGBH Radio Boston, is celebrating its 100th program this month with a collection of recent works by young U.S.-based composers. Art of the States has presented new and lesser-known contemporary music from the U.S. to audiences worldwide since 1993.

The seven pieces receiving their international broadcast premieres on Program #100 were all written over the past five years by composers under the age of 35. They include:

• Divergence (2001) by Huang Ruo (b. 1976), for chamber ensemble
• Flute Concerto (2004) by Derek Jacoby (b. 1978), for flute and chamber orchestra
• Scrabble (2002) and To Wait (2002) by Taylor Ho Bynum (b. 1975), for saxophone/clarinet and cornet duo
• Rodeopteryx (1999) by Mason Bates (b. 1977), for accordion and electronics
• After the Summer Rain (2000) by Hideko Kawamoto (b. 1969), for amplified piano and electronics
• AVOIDANCE TACTICS #1 (1999) by Curtis K. Hughes (b. 1974), for piano and percussion
• Beyond the Translucent Veil (2003) by Joshua Penman (b. 1979), for four double basses and piano

A recipient of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Broadcast Award in radio for 1997, Art of the States has made a large selection of the featured works available on www.artofthestates.org, the broadcast service’s online component since fall 2002. Many of the recordings on the 100th program, and in the history of the project, are not available commercially but can be heard in their entirety in high-quality streaming audio, accompanied by extensive notes on the music and artists as well as links to related websites.

Composers are invited to submit music to the program at any time. You can check out the details on their site.