Alex Ross's Blog, page 142

Sonorous spring

The midpoint of Become Ocean.

The final edition of Spring for Music, the four-year festival of inventive programming at Carnegie Hall, unfolds next week. The lineup includes the New York Philharmonic, playing Christopher Rouse's monumental Requiem; the Rochester Philharmonic, presenting a concert performance of Howard Hanson's Merry Mount; the Winnipeg Symphony, in an all-Canadian program of Derek Charke, Vincent Ho, and R. Murray Schafer; the Cincinnati Symphony, giving a rare revival of R. Nathaniel Dett's remarkable oratorio The Ordering of Moses (I reviewed a 1993 rendition); and the Pittsburgh Symphony, with an intriguing combination of Bruckner's Ave Maria, the final scene of Poulenc's Carmelites, James MacMillan's Woman of the Apocalypse, and a dramatized version of the Mozart Requiem, with readings by F. Murray Abraham. Perhaps the most anticipated offering is the Seattle Symphony's: Varèse's Déserts, Debussy's La Mer, and John Luther Adams's Become Ocean, which just won the Pulitzer Prize. The previous night, at 1opm (just after the Rouse), Seattle players will give a chamber program at LPR, featuring JLA's The Light Within. In past years the festival has struggled a bit with sales, despite eminently affordable prices ($12.50-$25), but the good news this year is that the parquet and the first tier are already sold out for all six concerts. I wouldn't be surprised if Seattle plays to a full house; the balcony is open.

Video of the day

Farewell to the Jazz Loft

Over the years, one of the more popular posts on my blog has been "CD shelving tips (with Maulina)," mainly because it ranks high on search engines when someone types in "CD shelving tips" (not to mention "Maulina"). Sadly, the Jazz Loft, from which I've purchased thousands of those space-saving plastic sleeves, is going out of business. Their last orders will be taken on May 5th, and big discounts are being offered for such items as John Luther Adams's For Lou Harrison and the Tubin Second and Sixth Symphonies. The sleeves will, however, still be for sale, on a separate site. As I said back in 2004, they have very nearly saved my life, or, at least, my sanity. Maulina also endorses them strongly; a stray sleeve feels nice against one's teeth.

Miscellany for the end of April

The Munich Biennale for new music theater opens next week with Marko Nikodijević's Vivier, an opera based on the vibrant life and violent death of the French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier. Bob Gilmore's biography of Vivier arrives in June.... IRCAM's ManiFeste festival runs in June and July; Georges Aperghis's Luna Park is among the offerings.... The Birmingham Opera's production of Stockhausen's Mittwoch, in 2012, was an astonishing feat. It seems as though Graham Vick and his company have pulled off another tour-de-force, a Khovanshchina deftly retitled Khovanskygate; Fiona Maddocks reports.... In the Boston Globe, Colin Fleming has an informative piece about life on the church-music circuit.... The Flux Quartet's latest traversal of the Feldman Quartet (II), at the Park Avenue Armory, is available on demand from WQXR — all six hours.... Marina Harss, in The Nation, writes thoughtfully on dance at the Met, with particular attention to Prince Igor.... The Sonnambula viol consort plays Dowland's Lachrimae at Spectrum Saturday night.... Kristin Norderval has a solo event at the New Museum on Friday night.... The Argento Ensemble's next concerts at the Austrian Cultural Forum, on May 2 and 4, will feature world premieres by Erin Gee and Aaron Cassidy. Much more from the same adventurous group follows later in the month, on the theme of "emerging American composers and Viennese masters."

A Roussel moment

Bernstein very close to his best.

The birth of Grimes

From British Pathé's astonishing trove of newsreel footage. Another obvious highlight is Maria Callas at Home.

Invisible Cities on video

Footage from Christopher Cerrone's Invisible Cities, which was a finalist for this year's Pulitzer Prize. Yuval Sharon, who oversaw the production, will direct Cunning Little Vixen at the Cleveland Orchestra in May. The Cleveland has uploaded two video diaries.

The Age of Steve, part 2

A denial-of-service attack on the good people of Typepad knocked my blog out of circulation for a few days, and so I have been unable to celebrate publicly the news that Steve Smith has been hired by the Boston Globe as an assistant arts editor, overseeing music and visual-arts coverage. It's a huge loss for the New York music world, not to mention the New York Times, but I'm tremendously happy for Steve. His successor at Time Out New York will be the excellent Seth Colter Walls.

Liza Lim

Singing in Tongues. The New Yorker, April 28, 2014.

Langfest

In the Goings On About Town section of next week's New Yorker, I look ahead to David Lang's week-long festival collected stories. It's a feast of inventive programming that includes everything from Beowulf to Cage's 27'10.554"—or, at least, quite a few things between those far-flung stations. In the video above, Lang explains a program juxtaposing Arvo Pärt's Passio with Tuvan throat-singing. In another, he talks about Beowulf and Harry Partch. Other videos can be found here.