Alex Ross's Blog, page 148

For Alice Herz-Sommer

The Prague-born pianist and teacher, described as the oldest living Holocaust survivor, died today in London, at the age of one hundred ten. I wrote about her late last year.

Laurie Spiegel and the Voyager

The Interstellar Contract. New Yorker website, Feb. 19, 2004.

Another view

Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble, 1880: "...heard an Opera (Carmen) on the Wagner model: very beautiful Accompaniments to no Melody..."

Kristin Norderval

From Norderval's song cycle Nothing Proved, setting texts by Elizabeth I. The Parthenia viol consort performs with the composer, whose website is here.

Kate Soper

In a recent column on the Prototype Festival, I worked in an all-too-brief mention of Kate Soper's remarkable theater piece Here Be Sirens, which had its début at the same time as Prototype but wasn't part of the series. Fortunately, Steve Smith was also there, and wrote a typically comprehensive, perceptive review for the Times. Soper also has a new CD on the Carrier label, devoted to an eight-movement piece called Voices from the Killing Jar.

Agata Zubel

The formidably gifted composer-vocalist, whose website is here, performed Fausto Romitelli's An Index of Metals last night at On the Boards in Seattle. Above is Zubel's own work Not I, based on the Beckett monologue. More on contemporary Polish music in The New Yorker next week.

Erin Gee

Out now on col legno: Gee's Mouthpieces .

Budapest at dusk

Bartók relics

His desk, with the beloved Edison cylinder.

A cigarette found inside his Bösendorfer.

His insects. Pictures taken last month at the Bartók Memorial House, in Budapest.

Sabbatical

Recent work for The New Yorker.