Composer of the Week

Ah, high noon approaches on the east coast and I find myself ready to face a worthy adversary:  the concert hall.  It is a truly strange place, the concert hall.  For all its glory and the millions of patrons whose musical palettes have been satisfactorily expanded, it is a discriminating structure when it comes to [...]

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I regret my trip to New York did not yield a new post.  Mostly due to exhaustion between the city trip and roof work the following day, I decided to ponder this week’s composer and also the impact of Steve Reich’s music on society.
Regarding Reich, I think it is safe to say that the accessibility [...]

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Tomorrow morning I will travel to the source of many of the great developments in art and music since the early 1900’s:  New York City. I am planning my day around the Metropolitan Museum of Art, taking in everything I missed upon my last visit some 5 years ago (which is likely about 80% since [...]

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Throughout history, music has typically been defined by the art and architecture of the era in which it is written. Baroque, classical, romantic, impressionist, expressionist, minimalist, modernist — these are all categorizations of art, music, dance, architecture, and style.
To take this into consideration, we should look at what might broadly define minimalism.

Precise. Jackson Pollack, while [...]

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Reich’s writing often incorporates the use of canon, a compositional technique familiar to most.  What he refers to as phasing came from an experiment he conducted attempting to get two tape recorders to play back as identically as possible.  Sure enough, they played back almost in unison, prompting him to consider the chances of the [...]

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To many, Steve Reich is known as one of a few notable minimalist composers of the twentieth century. He is often referenced in conversation with Philip Glass, Terry Riley, or John Adams, yet there is an unmistakable aspect of Reich’s music that continually heightens a listener’s sense of musical color and motion, imposing a [...]

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A master of both music and the written word, Ned Rorem has become one of America’s most honored composers.
Known primarily for his art songs (which number over 500), he has been the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his Air Music for orchestra, as well both a Fulbright (1951) and Guggenhiem (1957) Fellowship. He [...]

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After much thought, I have decided to make the blog more of a true blog than an impetus for getting my newsletter out.  I will still write the newsletter, but will post its contents here as a regular entry, not a PDF link.  Hopefully this will keep things flowing smoothly and make the site a [...]

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Composer of the Week, Vol. I, Issue V – February 18, 2008
Name:  Elliot Carter
Born:  1908, New York
Current post:  Full-time composer
Previous post:  N/A
Publisher:  Boosey & Hawkes | G. Schirmer
Suggested listening:  Eight Pieces for Four Timpani
Quote:
Talking about a materialistic thing, I get about 13 times more royalties from Europe than I do from America.
-Elliot Carter

Elliot Carter’s “Canaries” [...]

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Composer of the Week, Vol. I, Issue IV – February 4, 2008
Name:  Michael Colgrass
Born:  1932, Chicago area
Current post:  Composer and lecturer
Previous post:  N/A
Publisher:  Carl Fischer
Suggested listening:  Winds of Nagual
Quote:
I’m not trying to pull any tricks or dazzle anybody. I’m trying to make a music which convinces me, and which is interesting to me. It’s as [...]

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