aworks :: "new" american classical music

aworks motto :: e pluribus unum /the promise of america/

Me tonight, I'm listening again to the obama video and convention speech, concurrently with, via Chris' tumblr, Radiohead live in Santa Barbara :

Everything in its right place... There are two colours in my head. What, what is that you try to say?..

Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west in search of opportunity.

I knew Obama had white grandparents from Kansas but never really knew their story nor that of his mother, Ann Dunham (who died of ovarian cancer):

Obama noted in the book that it was Ann rather than his natural father who taught him about the heritage of the African American people. She would come home with books on the civil rights movement, the recordings of Mahalia Jackson, the speeches of Dr. King...

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• radiohead in sf photo via foeweel
• via marion, indiana: for most of my life, i was a proud republican...america can't stand more of the same. we need a president who puts barney smith ahead of smith barney...the heartland needs change...
• perfect circle piston plant, hagerstown, indiana. the plant where my mom worked making aircraft parts during ww2.
• another former republican, andrew sullivan: when you absorb the visuals, it doesn't come off like a political convention; it comes off as a mass gathering of ordinary people.
• david sirota: obama himself invoked uprising language explicitly tonight, saying, "change happens because the american people demand it - because they rise up."
• wikipedia: e pluribus unum. narrator of tonight's obama bio

Chunga's Revenge (1970). Frank Zappa /programming the classics/

From the Rehearsal Studio:

If our listening of Lindberg is well informed by past experience of listening to Zappa, when will the San Francisco Symphony program one of Zappa's works on its subscription series?

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youtube: chunga's revenge

aworks shopping list :: current amazon bargains

From the Amazon MP3 download bargain best selling page:

• Bernstein conducts Gershwin. $1.98
• Boult conducts Elgar. $2.90.
• Terry Riley. A Rainbow in Curved Air. $1.98
• Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings Peter Lieberson. $4.95
• Terry Riley. In C. $0.99

And other random items of note.

• Morton Feldman. For Bunita Marcus. $0.89
• MIchael Torke. Blue Pacific. $0.99
• John Cage. Five3. $0.99
• Composed By Miya Masaoka and Performed By Joan Jeanrenaud. For Birds, Planes and Cello.
• Aluminium. Forever For Her (Four Tet Remix). $0.99
• The King's Singers. Thomas Tallis: Spem in Alium
• American Classics Sampler. $1.99
• Phill Niblock. Disseminate Ostrava; Kontradictionaries; Disseminate Q-o2.  $2.97

This is the online equivalent of digging through the Amoeba bargain bin.

Shaker Loops (1983). Jonny Adams /when worlds collide #2/

Ronen Givony, leader of Wordless Music, gave a brief introduction to the Magik*Magik/Benjamin Shwartz/Wordless Music/Radiohead-by-association concert at Herbst Theatre and talked how it was artificial to segregate musical genres. I'd say this program comprised the same genre -- contemporary art  music -- but the listeners came to it from multiple genres (Radiohead, contemporary classical, avant jazz, the Kronos camp, John Adams fan boys, William Winant fan boys, musicians-in-training etc). I represent all but the last of course.

First up was John Adams' canoncial Shaker Loops,played by string septet. Hearing it live was a good reminder it's the long, non-shaken notes that give the work it's poignancy, although I enjoy watching the cellos crank through the fast parts as well.

And speaking of vibrato, this contemporary listener would say he doesn't like it except that as an aesthetic issue, especially in regards to Elgar, performance practice doesn't really matter, maybe because I'm not British. Although, I work for a UK company so I need to careful on this. For the record, the only Elgar I listen to with any regularity are Nimrod (although arranged for saxophone quartet) and some occasional piano music.  Those thousand repeats of Pomp and Circumstances I played at numerous graduations are a pleasantly fading memory.

The Elgar comment is just a reminder that the Wordless Music concert was a collision between contemporary classical music and the world of Radiohead. No legacy classical music was included. Hmm...

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civic center: the performance was a complete treat
the opera tattler: I found the literalness of the piece, the title interpreted as sound, to be quite pleasing
joshua kosman: Adams' brilliant early exercise in similarly patterned writing for strings, opened the evening in a taut, sensitive rendition
richard scheinin: glowing, or gauzy with shadowy buzzings, pulsing and trancelike. A no-brainer for people into Radiohead or Björk (and he reports MTT was in the audience)
lala: original. kent nagano. marin alsop. warren green.
last.fm: original.
youtube: matthew cmiel. dutch narration of weird dance. adams in rehearsal. christian chapel madness.

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edwin outwater: BEHOLD THE YOUNG AUDIENCE FOR ART MUSIC!!!
kenneth woods: why don't we hear more elgar in the us
bookofjoe: nimrod on youtube
aworks when worlds collide: travelogue
openleft: the 2008 election represents a collision of three historical waves with the wall of rightwing hegemony

aworks travelogue :: when worlds collide /#1/

I attended last night's first Wordless Music concert in San Francisco, featuring compositions by various contemporary classical composers as well as Jonny Greenwood, guitarist for Radiohead (who is playing in Golden Gate Park tonight). Since I don't get out of the county often on a school night, I thought it important to document my journey. I'll try to blog about the music later but let me say, it was a fun and interesting night of music and I look forward to more Wordless Music concerts...

Ok, starting the drive from work in San Jose again, I was listening to the audio CD of The Rest Is Noise, the Gershwin section in particular. I'm still thinking through why Gershwin was able to hit the sweet spot between Black American, popular and classical music, without, arguably, compromising any of the three.

KALW had that Canadian radio show where journalists interview telephone newsmakers of the day. In this case, it was a San Francisco resident who was trying to take action against the city's efforts to convert car lanes into bike lanes. The twist is he was not a gas loving SUV driver; rather he doesn't own a car (and does ride the bus). However, his most insistent argument against the idea was that bike people were sanctimonious and wanted to change the world. I suppose they do. Regardless, it's good to see some traditions continue during the drive e.g. the brake-light concert prelude on 101.

Still, traffic turned out to be only bad rather than horrendous so I had time to take a quick walk down Market Street to Rasputin Records. That part of Market Street remains as scruffy as always -- cleaning the sidewalks won't make much of a difference. And Rasputin's matches that scruffy ambiance, including their primary anti-theft device, a manned elevator.

This being the Bay Area, no trip is complete without a protest. This was a Filipino-American group who at first glance seemed to be picketing the temporary Slow Food Nation Victory Garden in the Civic Center. Then they continued their march to Herbst Theatre itself. Maybe Thom Yorke said something stupid during Radiohead's last tour of the Philippines? No, it turned out to be a respectful memorial march for the assassinated politician Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino.

By the way, the concert was general admission. General admission? What is this, the lawn section at Shoreline Ampitheatre? I suppose it gave it more of a rock concert-like atmosphere although the many, many young SF hipsters also contributed to that feeling. That gentlemen relieving himself in the bushes behind the theatre also reminded me of the Shoreline Ampitheatre parking lot, except for the fact he was probably in his seventies and was with his annoyed-looking wife.

Finally, although the concert proved excellent, the drive home was problematic due to some construction work and a truck cutting in front of me. Fortunately, all this took place at 2 miles per hour so I easily resumed listening to the neo-psychedelic/garage/drone music of Wooden Shjips.

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aworks: radiohead invades contemporary music (with streaming)

aworks mix :: the american minimalists

I created a new mix on 8tracks -- the american minimalists. However, I avoided the following, due to reasons of length and/or extremism:

1. Music in Similar Motion. Philip Glass. lala
2. any full version of In C (e.g. the Shanghai Radio Orchestra).  Terry Riley. lala
3. I Was Looking at the Sky and Saw the Ceiling. John Adams. lala
4. Four Organs. Steve Reich. lala
5. Reed Phase. Jon Gibson
6. The Passing Measures. David Lang. last.fm
7. Drumming (Four Tet Remix). Steve Reich. lala
8. Outside the Dream Syndicate Live. Tony Conrad
9. Schlingen-Blängen. Charlemagne Palestine. last.fm clip
10. Trio for Strings. La Monte Young

Hmm, Reich actually had numerous candidates for exclusion. And yes, even I find the music of La Monte Young intimidating at times. Too bad I couldn't find a web stream of it...

aworks mix :: radiohead invades contemporary music

In honor of Thursday's Wordless Music Concert and Friday's Radiohead-led whatchamacallit festival, both in San Francisco, I've created an 8tracks mix -- radiohead invades contemporary music.

Since 8tracks is constrained to be legal, you aren't allowed to know exactly what I've programmed. But the following names could be relevant: John Adams, John Cage, Fred Frith, Jonny Greenwood, Joan Jeanrenaud, Gidon Kremer, Paul Lansky, Arvo Part, Radiohead, Sonic Youth, Edo de Waart, and William Winant

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8tracks legal q&a e.g. An objective of the compulsory license is to ensure that a listener's experience is similar to traditional radio and essentially non-interactive (i.e., you can't hear a specific song when you want it), so as not to substitute for music purchase.

Update: 8tracks may have solved the legal problems but there may still be some operational bugs -- I can't seem to play through the entire mix.

Update #2: It is working now for me.

Woo Lae Oak (1981). Carl Stone /touring the bay area/

After work last night, I drove from San Jose to Berkeley...

• With the new hybrid, I watch the miles per gallon gauge closely. Intellectually I have a good idea what it takes to consistently get 40 mpg on the highway. But even if I drive in the right lane, I feel compelled to go at least 60 else I start to replay my being rear-ended this spring (even if it did finally spur me to buy a new car).
• I also make good use of the GPS. For something new, I routed myself through San Lorenzo on the way to Oakland and Berkeley. Who knew San Lorenzo had a real downtown?
• The Berkeley Hills are incorrectly called the Oakland Hills. Nice highway, though.
• The usual melange of happenings in Berkeley: a Free Tibetan protest (with the Tibetan marchers carrying Tibetan flags and candles and led by someone carrying an American flag), a belligerent homeless woman, a well-dressed French family walking along the always scruffy Telegraph Avenue, someone soliciting me in the middle of the sidewalk asking if I like hip-hop (presumably to buy some), and a young panhandler calling me "father" and "pops" (and I think he meant it in a good way).
• Rasputin's had the Wooden Shjips CD I was looking for.
• Amoeba was particularly fine. Downstairs, it was a DJ set by Afrika Bambaataa with thirty dudes standing and watching. Upstairs in the classical music attic, they were playing opera. I wasn't enamored of either music but the juxtaposition was promising.
• Moe's had David Thomson's The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood for $8.00. This is one of my favorite books of the decade but until I finish Nixonland: : The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America on my Kindle, I'm trying not to splurge on more. By the way, Nixonland is interesting and disturbing and a reminder of Republican politics prior to this century.
• Half Price Books had Thomson's The New Biographical Dictionary of Film but I already own it.
• Finishing my tour of bookland, the new and ill-fated Cody's was having a 40% off closing sale. Alas, I ended up buying some books after all, including Gershwin: His Life and Work by Howard Pollack. Whether I will really read 800+pages of this is unclear but I feel I should since Gershwin is America's favorite semi-serious composer. Actually, what I'd really like to read is a good biography of Stephen Foster so I can learn how his life turned out so poorly in the end.
• I decided to return home via San Francisco so I could see the sunset. However, I was a little late and missed the color. And as I was driving over the Bay Bridge, the fog obscured much of San Francisco starting at the Ferry Building. But by the time I got home, the sky was clear and the moon was hovering over Menlo Park.
• Most importantly, I listened to Carl Stone's long Woo Lae Oak on the way up and then back. It's like a string section and Peruvian pipes meet at Drone World. Such exquisite timbre. Music from Other Minds describes the work:

Woo Lae Oak is a continuous electronic work crafted out of loops of the sound of a rubbed string and a bottle played by blowing air over the top.

Mild und Leise (1973). Paul Lanksy /rock meets contemporary via idioteque/

As San Francisco prepares to be invaded by Radiohead next week, I'm listening to Paul Lansky's Mild und Leise. I had forgotten how Idioteque directly lifts a chord sequence from it.

Here's the Radiohead video with the repeated chords (unlike the original which doesn't depend on pop-like repetition):

And here's a cover of Idioteque made by someone who sampled the original Lansky piece, maybe in a bid for authenticity:

Paul Lansky provides an MP3 of Mild und Leise and comments on it:

It uses FM synthesis, which had just been worked out at Stanford, and later became the staple of Yamaha's DX7 series of synthesizers, and also a special purpose filter design program written; (in Fortran IV) by Ken Steiglitz.; Oh yes, the harmonic language of the piece is related to George Perle's 12-tone modal system.  George and I had been collaborating for the past four years or so on theoretical developments in this system.; The piece is based on the 'tristan chord' and its inversions, hence the title.; I worked out a multi-dimensional cyclic array based on this chord as the harmonic basis of the piece, but that's the boring part...; I still (sort of) like the piece.

I (sort of) like it as well.

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• lala.com stream of Lansky's smalltalk album on New Albion, which I would recommend, including the piece Not So Heavy Metal with fellow Princetonian composer Steven Mackey on electric guitar.
• Numerous versions on lala.com of Mild und Leise from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
• My prior post on Mild und Leise linking to the New York Times article where Lansky says he is returning to composing for traditional instruments.

Rhapsody in Blue (1924). George Gershin /united airlines, again/

For those watching the Olympics in the United States, be prepared to see the United Airlines ad "Sea Orchestra" (over and over and over):

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aworks: prior rhapsody in blue posts