Alex Ross's Blog, page 90

Miscellany: Sorabji in Iowa, Pisaro in Somerville

Parakeet at Chand Baori.

The first American performance of Kaikhosru Sorabji's gigantic Organ Symphony No. 2 — or, indeed, of any of Sorabji's organ music — will take place at the University of Iowa School of Music on Feb. 10. Kevin Bowyer, Soraji's chief organ champion, will undertake the eight-hour marathon. The event helps to inaugurate Iowa's new Voxman Music Building, and serves to introduce the hall's concert organ.... Michael Pisaro will be the featured artist at the Co-incidence Residency in Somerville MA, a week-long gathering of experimental artists, from Jan. 24 to Jan. 30.... My New Yorker colleague Russell Platt has written a string quartet entitled Mountain Interval.... As I noted in my Julius Eastman column, Monday Evening Concerts will present an all-Eastman evening on Monday, Jan. 23. Note also an Eastman tribute at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY, on Feb. 10.... Kate Soper's latest theatre piece, Ipsa Dixit, will be performed at Dixon Place in NYC on Feb. 4, having been seen at EMPAC in December.

Sunset soundscape at the Taj Mahal

Julius Eastman

Guerrilla Minimalism. The New Yorker, Jan. 23, 2017.

Appearance

On Jan. 21, I will be speaking at the Jaipur Literature Festival, in the company of Ruth Padel. This is my first visit to India, and I'm eager to augment my paltry knowledge of the subcontinent's great classical traditions.

Trifonov

Sleight of Hand. The New Yorker, Jan. 9, 2017.

Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves

A review/preview for The New Yorker's Goings On section.

Another Shostakovich Happy New Year

"A blizzard is raging outside the windows as 1944 approaches. It will be a year of happiness, of joy, of victory, a year that will bring us all much joy. The freedom-loving Peoples will at last throw off the yoke of Hitlerism, peace will reign over the whole world, and we shall live once more in peace under the sun of Stalin’s Constitution. Of this I am convinced, and consequently experience feelings of unalloyed joy."

             — Shostakovich, letter to Isaak Glikman, 12/31/43

Callanish

I took this picture in 1985. I would love to go back.

Bach and God

Holy Dread. The New Yorker, Jan. 2, 2017.

Puer natus est nobis