Alex Ross's Blog, page 122

Miscellany

The Berlin Philharmonic, recovering from last month's confusion, has chosen Kirill Petrenko as its next chief conductor. I was less impressed by his 2013 Bayreuth Ring than were many of my colleagues, but I admired his work in Ariadne and Khovanshchina at the Met, and a Digital Concert Hall stream of his most recent Berlin outing, in 2012, suggests a strong chemistry with the orchestra. So far, his involvement in new music seems limited, though he will lead Miroslav Srnka's South Pole in Munich next season....  Harry Lawrence Freeman's long-lost opera Voodoo is revived in New York this weekend, in a joint effort by Morningside Opera, Harlem Opera Theater, and the Harlem Chamber Players. The Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia will mark the occasion with a two-day conference.... Tonight at NYC's River to River Festival, Roomful of Teeth presents Caroline Shaw's music, film, and theatre installation Ritornello.... Read Allan Kozinn on June in Buffalo.... Kyle Gann speaks on Nancarrow at the Whitney today, as part of the museum's Nancarrow Festival.... Tanglewood, on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Tanglewood Music Center, is offering streaming audio from its archives. No fewer than thirty-four celebratory commissions will be presented this summer or in future seasons... Spectrum NYC is hosting a three-concert festival devoted to the restlessly inventive English composer Richard Barrett. It begins tonight and ends on June 30.... At the Luminato Festival in Toronto this weekend, close to a thousand musicians will perform R. Murray Schafer's gigantic oratorio Apocalypsis — a project possibly inspired by Adrian Leverkühn's Apocalypsis cum figuris, that most influential of nonexistent works. Colin Eatock has a preview at Classical Voice North America. The CBC will provide a live broadcast on June 28.... For Music and Literature, Doyle Armbrust has written a discerning introduction to Anna Thorvaldsdottir, whose tremendous piece In the Light of Air appears this summer on the Sono Luminus label. Also coming soon from that source is a Nordic Affect disc called Clockworking, featuring works of Anna, Hildur Gudnadóttir, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, Hafdís Bjarnadóttir, and Thurídur Jónsdóttir.

Riley 80

A happy eightieth birthday to Terry Riley. Just out on Nonesuch is a Kronos Quartet disc of Cadenza on the Night Plain and other pieces, combining older recordings with fresh takes. The Kronos will further celebrate Riley at a three-day festival in San Francisco this week, culminating in a complete performance of Salome Dances for Peace.

For Gunther Schuller

A great force in American music is gone.

His memorable credo, in "Third Stream Revisited": "Third Steam is a way of composing, improvising, and performing that brings musics together rather than segregating them. It is a way of making music which holds that all musics are created equal, coexisting in a beautiful brotherhood/sisterhood of musics that complement and fructify each other. It is a global concept which allows the world's musics— written, improvised, handed-down, traditional, experimental— to come together, to learn from one another, to reflect human diversity and pluralism. It is the music of rapprochement, of entente—not of competition and confrontation. And it is the logical outcome of the American melting pot: E pluribus unum." 

Cadenza for conductor

This is from Alexander Schubert's Point Ones, in which the conductor is augmented by sensors. Enno Poppe performs the solo in the passage above; you can watch the entire piece here, with the Nadar Ensemble led by Daan Janssens.

Silence

Footnote 159 of Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato Si', quoting the Sufi mystic Ali al-Khawas: "Prejudice should not have us criticize those who seek ecstasy in music or poetry. There is a subtle mystery in each of the movements and sounds of this world. The initiate will capture what is being said when the wind blows, the trees sway, water flows, flies buzz, doors creak, birds sing, or in the sound of strings or flutes, the sighs of the sick, the groans of the afflicted...”

A Mario Diaz de León moment

Claire Chase's blistering outdoor rendition of Diaz de León's Luciform was a highlight of the recent Ojai Festival. The Denovali label will release his album The Soul Is the Arena in July; Luciform is one of the selections. Also, in August, Diaz de León will be in residence at The Stone.

From our virtual pages

Adam Gopnik talks to Gerald Busby, who has many colorful tales to tell; John Luther Adams talks about leaving Alaska.

Soundcloud of the day: Victoria Polevá

Via Tim Rutherford-Johnson, via Music and Literature. Alas, the ending seems to have been cut off.

Nancarrow at the Whitney (preview)

Seeing Music. The New Yorker, June 22, 2015.

A schedule for the Whitney's Nancarrow fest can be found here.

Park life

In the New York Times, Will Robin has a short history of the New York Philharmonic's concerts-in-the-park series, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. Follow Will's Twitter for more snippets from the Philharmonic archive.