‘Dreaming Of Music For There Wasn’t An Instrument’ When you listen to Bryce Dessner’s newly released recording of Music For Wood And Strings, you’re hearing sounds unprecedented in our experience. The “chord stick” is an instrument created by Aron Sanchez, half the team of Buke and Gase. While you might not think that Dessner, widely known… Read More
#MusicForWriters: Brad Lubman — An ‘Explosion Of Compositional Languages’
A ‘Gateway Drug’ In Contemporary Music Daniel Stephen Johnson is right when, in his write-up for Q2 Music’s Album of the Week, he refers to Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians as a “gateway drug for a lifelong addiction to Reich’s aesthetic.” I’ve turned people on to this piece more than than to any other,… Read More
Music For Writers: Playful Andrew Norman
‘Every Now And Then, I Just Want To Throw A Wrench In’ Imagine the orchestra as this sort of complicated 19th-century futurist machine, all moving parts and cogs and gears, and little people. I find that sort of fascinating. But every now and then, I just want to throw a wrench in and see what… Read More
Music For Writers: Martin Bresnick And The Terrible Beauty Of Sorrow
‘We Will Always Sing Such Songs Of Longing’ Each time I visited, my grandmother wept bitterly about the murder of her parents, her brother, her two sisters, and all their children. Can a child comfort a grandmother, a grandfather? I became a witness, a musician, and a composer. Martin Bresnick is a native New Yorker.… Read More
Music For Writers: When Florent Ghys Watches ‘Télévision’
Forget Your Writing Prompts This is the album of the future, and it’s fast becoming a hit. So says a pert, authoritative voice in the opening of the second track on composer-performer Florent Ghys’ new album Télévision from Cantaloupe Music. It’s called a CD. That’s short for compact disc. The music on one of these is… Read More
Music For Writers: Cerrone’s ‘Cities’ Of Ancient Urban Mythology
Turn Off The Lights I have to agree with Tony Frankel at Stage and Cinema on this one: Get into your headphones and shut your eyes. Invisible Cities wants to live inside your head. And the darker that place might be, the better. Never in all my travels had I ventured as far as Adelma.… Read More
Music For Writers: New York Polyphony’s Grammy-nominated 'Nowell'
700 Years Of New Music We start from the Medieval carols from England, those are 14th and 15th centuries. We also have Renaissance music from the 15th and 16th centuries. Then we sing some pieces, actually, from the 19th century and 20th century, America. And then from the 21st century. That’s baritone Christopher Dylan Herbert, talking… Read More
Music for Writers: Krakauer The Klezmer On 'Isaac The Blind'
Boys Who Have Seen Stonehenge Klezmer struck me as the voice of my grandmother in music. So even though I consider myself to be an atheist, I’m deeply culturally plugged in as a Jew. For me the “spiritual” aspect is a sense of this deep cultural connection that goes back thousands of years, and a sense… Read More
Music for Writers: JACK Quartet + Four áltaVoz Composers
‘The Ride Of Our Repertoire’ “What was that term you used? ‘Screechy?’” John Pickford Richards is laughing at me as he takes a question about how reachy — “not at all screechy, John,” I assure him — some of the music on the JACK Quartet’s new album may be for these artists. As personable a… Read More