Alex Ross's Blog, page 262

Ligeti sings!

On the happy occasion of the New York premiere of Le Grand Macabre, here is an audio clip of Ligeti singing a bit of Dido's Lament, from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. It comes from a talk that Ligeti gave at the New England Conservatory on March 10, 1993. I was present for the occasion; Ligeti's brilliant meditations on the figure of the lament through musical history inspired the second chapter of my forthcoming book. I'd like to thank the NEC for giving me permission to use the clip (and...

Ligeti sells out...

...or almost. As of this writing, four tickets remain for Le Grand Macabre tonight at the New York Philharmonic. Friday and Saturday are presently sold out, although a few more seats may become available. This bodes well for Alan Gilbert's ambitious operatic plans, which include the long-awaited local premiere of Messiaen's Saint Francis.

Photo: Chris Lee for the New York Philharmonic.

For Yvonne Loriod

Andres, Clyne, Dargel

I first stumbled across the music of Timothy Andres when his teen-age Tango appeared as the closing selection of a 2003 edition of the NPR show From the Top. I wrote about him in 2004 and again at the end of a recent column on Louis Andriessen. This quietly awesome young composer has a major week ahead of him in NYC: on Monday night at Poisson Rouge, he and David Kaplan will give a live performance of Shy and Mighty (now out on Nonesuch), and on Thursday night, at a concert by the

Andres, Clyne

I first stumbled across the music of Timothy Andres when his teen-age Tango appeared as the closing selection of a 2003 edition of the NPR show From the Top. I wrote about him in 2004 and again at the end of a recent column on Louis Andriessen. This quietly awesome young composer has a major week ahead of him: on Monday night at Poisson Rouge, he and David Kaplan will give a live performance of Shy and Mighty (now out on Nonesuch), and on Thursday night, at a concert by the Metropolis...

Weekend video

Alan Gilbert shows a certain comedic flair in promoting the New York Philharmonic's forthcoming performances of György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (May 27-29). More videos are available on the Breughelland channel.

Michael Giacchino

My profile of the film composer is in this week's New Yorker .

Chris Knox and New Zealand rock

In college, I fell in love with New Zealand indie rock, which, in those long-ago days, was at its creative height. In 1995, I wrote an article for Steven Johnson's pioneering Internet magazine, Feed, in which I tried to sum up the New Zealand scene. The archives of Feed are unavailable, so I thought I'd offer the piece here , for whoever might be interested. With its talk of "grunge" and "record stores," it's a rather quaint artifact, but I hope it will lead one or two people to discover the m...

Maintenant disponible

Translation by Laurent Slaars, from Actes Sud.

Maintenant disponsible

Translation by Laurent Slaars, from Actes Sud.