Miscellany

An important, dismaying read: Ethan Iverson on Steinway, John Paulson, and Donald Trump.... Earlier this month, a group led by the composer Ashley Fure unsettled the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music with GRID, or Gender Research in Darmstadt, an activist initiative highlighting the severe under-representation of female composers in Darmstadt's history. Fure's essay "Reflections on Risk" is a crucial document. In the midst of the furor, Fure's opera The Force of Things had its official première.... On the horizon: Infinite Now, a major operatic score by Chaya Czernowin, will have its première in Gent next April. Czernowin discussed the project in Darmstadt.... The Carlsbad Music Festival returns Aug. 26-28: the lineup includes two shows by SoCal new-music heroes wild UP, the acclaimed "West" program and a new one entitled "Future Folk" .... Listen on the BBC website to the recent Thomas Adès Prom, with Francisco Coll's Four Iberian Miniatures and the new orchestral version of Adès's Lieux retrouvés.... Tim Rutherford-Johnson writes about Linda Catlin Smith.... On Aug. 27, Rite of Summer will present John Luther Adams's Inuksuit on Governors Island in NYC. Amy Garapic directs more than sixty percussionists.... In Van, David Menestres examines the welcome surge of interest in Julius Eastman, with particular focus on the new Frozen Reeds release of Femenine (also touted by Hua Hsu on the New Yorker website).... Two longtime Noise friends are taking up new jobs: Marc Geelhoed, of Time Out Chicago and the Chicago Symphony, will become Director of Digital Initiatives at the Detroit Symphony; and Steve Smith, of Time Out New York, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe, will be Director of Publications at National Sawdust. Congrats to both! ... I neglected to post a link here to Will Robin's doctoral thesis, "A Scene Without a Name." Will, once my summertime assistant, is now teaching at the University of Maryland. Huzzah!