Alex Ross's Blog, page 135

New on the shelf

The latest from Mark Berry.

Two days in Guanajuato

Last week I traveled to Guanajuato, Mexico, a singularly beautiful old city, to participate in a convocation of critics from various disciplines. This was at the behest of the Cervantino International Festival, which, in its forty-second year, remains one of the more imposing arts festivals on the global scene. Unfortunately, I wasn't there long enough to gain a good impression of Cervantino's offerings, although I did catch a concert by the Next Mushroom Promotion Ensemble, from Japan. Tomoko Fukui's Schlaglicht, a grippingly spastic, wild-eyed piece for violin and piano, was the highlight. Performers this year include the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Steve Schick and red fish blue fish, the Arditti Quartet, Les Arts Florissants, and Bach Collegium Japan. I was happy to meet Hilda Paredes, and came away with a list of younger Mexican composers to investigate. Many thanks to Dr. Jorge Volpi, the festival director, for hosting me.

Klinghoffer at the Met

Long Wake. The New Yorker, Nov. 3, 2014.

Protest and counterprotest

In advance of The Death of Klinghoffer at the Met.

The Sellars Passion

Atonement. The New Yorker, Oct. 27, 2014.

In brief: Chaya Czernowin.

Beethoven essay

Deus Ex Musica. The New Yorker, Oct. 20, 2014.

Also in this week's issue, a column on Anna Netrebko at the Met and the NY Phil's Nielsen series.

Miscellany

Geoff Edgers, formerly of the Boston Globe and newly arrived at the Washington Post, has a richly detailed, wrenching piece on the Atlanta Symphony lockout. It seems to me that the conduct of the Woodruff Arts Center, and in particular its murky financial dealings, demand a serious investigation.... A retrospective of the work of filmmaker Bill Morrison, who has collaborated so memorably with John Moran (The Death Train), Michael Gordon (Decasia), and Jóhann Jóhannsson (The Miners' Hymns), among others, opens at MoMA next week. There will be film-concerts with Dave Douglas, Maya Beiser, and Bill Frisell.... Tonight, the Yale Symphony will give what is billed as the North American première of Anthony Philip Heinrich's 1857 piece  The Columbiad, or Migration of American Wild Passenger Pigeons, in the context of a symposium on extinction. Neely Bruce says more about the remarkable Heinrich.... In other Yale doings, Masaaki Suzuki is leading the Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415 in three performances of Jan Dismas Zelenka's Missa Dei Patris, in Boston, New Haven, and New York (Oct. 17-19). Zelenka is a dark master of the Baroque who has been slowly coming to the fore in recent decades; I for the Times back in 1995.... The Stefan Wolpe Society is presenting four concerts this year of Wolpe and his circle, with the Momenta Quartet kicking things off on Oct. 23. The Momenta also has Gordon Beeferman and Elizabeth Brown concerts coming up.... The Gotham Chamber Opera season opens next week with a Bohuslav Martinů double bill.... A tip of the hat to Cedille Records on its twenty-fifth anniversary.... On Oct. 19, the enterprising Metropolitan Symphony, of Minneapolis, will give the world première of Dominick Argento's first symphonic work, Ode to the West Wind.

Two views of a new building

Pittsburgh visit

I spoke at Carnegie Mellon last night, in the Humanities Center's "Music: Mind, Machine, and Milieu" lecture series. Many thanks to David Shumway, Richard Randall, and others for hosting me. This was my first visit to Pittsburgh since 2000, when I saw Mariss Jansons lead the Pittsburgh Symphony in Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. Two strong recommendations: Caliban Books, where I picked up as many books as will fit in my luggage; and Crested Duck, where we ate after the lecture. I'm no professional foodie, but the latter seemed pretty extraordinary. Above, a musical stained-glass window at Heinz Memorial Chapel, with Wagner lurking on the left.

Ann Cleare

The Irish composer, currently a student of Chaya Czernowin's at Harvard, will be featured alongside Chiyoko Szlavnics and Øyvind Torvund at a Yarn/Wire concert at ISSUE Project Room tomorrow night.