aworks :: "new" american classical music

Empty Words (1977). John Cage /live recorded, streaming performance/

Henry David Thoreau, Wikipedia

Starting at 4pm PDT today:

free103point9 and WGXC 90.7-FM are pleased to present a live broadcast of "John Cage’s Empty Words," a 12-hour, overnight event during which participants will collectively experience a rare recorded performance by John Cage of "Empty Words" (1974), a marathon text drawn from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau. "Empty Words" is one of Cage’s most sustained and elaborate moves toward the “demilitarization” of language, in four parts: Part I omits sentences, Part II omits phrases, and Part III omits words. Part IV, which omits syllables, leaves us nothing but a virtual lullaby of letters and sounds

For those attending in person:

*A simple macrobiotic meal will be served at intervals throughout the night, to Cage's specifications. Dusk & Dawn Music provided by Josh Quillen of  So Percussion, in a program of works scored for amplified plant materials, water, conch shells, and burning pine cones.

Related articles

• Empty Words (1977). John Cage (rgable.typepad.com)
• Quiet Riot (slate.com)
• John Cage at 100 Festival (avantmusicnews.com)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982). Philip Glass /associational form/

Cover of Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance

Film Art: An Introduction has been updated. But I have no idea what this means:

Koyaanisqatsi is now our example of associational form

Update: Michael Harris of The Temp Track explains.

aworks on repeat :: i don't really know...

George Gurdjieff (Photo credit: jwyg)

The current list:

• Anything Goes. Cole Porter - Tony Bennett
• Bodhisattva Vow. Beastie Boys - Anthology: The Sounds of Silence
• First Series - No. 4 Kurd Melody for Two Flutes. George Gurdjieff
• Second Series - No. 18 Song of Aisors. George Gurdjieff
• Cello Concerto No. 20 - II. Moderato. Mieczysław Weinberg 
  
• Old Folks. Dedette Lee Hill / Willard Robison - Dexter Gordon
• Space Drift (Moog Generated Space Shuttle Ambience). White Noise Research - White Noise for Baby Soothing Sounds for Newborn Babies to Aid Sleep
• 'Twas Only Yesterday. Clare Fischer - Thesaurus
• Ten Seconds (Sketches Version). Ane Brun - Sketches 
• Ten Tiny Fingers. Marriages
• White Shape. Marriages
• Pelt. Marriages

I don't really know much about Gurdjieff. 

Dedette Lee Hill and Willard Robison's Old Folks shows up on jazzstandards.com.

Marriages is a new group. The following quote clarifies why I like it: "Formed as a splinter trio from Red Sparrowes - themselves an impressive instrumental group - Marriages' prime concern appears to be creating a sensation of slow movement." 

I now know of Mieczyslaw Wienberg and coincidentally, Q2 will feature his Cello Concerto on The New Canon.

aworks ordered list :: allmusic top jazz albums in the last 20 years

Joshua Redman

1. Joe Henderson – Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn
2. Wynton Marsalis – Citi Movement 
3. Jane Bunnett – Spirits of Havana 
4. Joshua Redman – Wish 
5. James Carter – JC on the Set 
6. Cassandra Wilson – Blue Light ‘Til Dawn
7. Joe Lovano – Rush Hour 
8. Horace Tapscott – Aiee! the Phantom 
9. Don Byron – Bug Music 
10. Tom Harrell – Art of the Rhythm 
11. David S. Ware – Godspelized 
12. Brad Mehldau Trio – The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard 
13. Jason Moran – Black Stars 
14. Grachan Moncur III – Exploration 
15. Craig Taborn – Junk Magic 
16. Roy Hargrove – Earfood 
17. Vijay Iyer Trio – Historicity 
18. William Parker – I Plan to Stay a Believer: The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield 
19. Esperanza Spalding – Chamber Music Society 
20. Matthew Shipp – Art of the Improviser 

allmusic

rdio playlist (a few are missing)

aworks listening log :: motion of varying velocity

Getty Images via @daylife

1. Music in Similar Motion. Philip Glass - Brad Lubman
2. Echoes. Bernard Herrmann - Texas Festival Quartet

---

3. Piano (Three Hands). Morton Feldman - Mats Persson, Kristine Scholz
4. Two Pianos. Morton Feldman - Mats Persson, Kristine Scholz
5. Work for Two Pianists. Morton Feldman - Mats Persson, Kristine Scholz
6. Etude d'un prelude. Richard Beaudoin - Mark Knoop, Kreutzer Quartet
7. Short Ride in a Fast Machine. John Adams - Simon Rattle
8. Pavane Noir. Paul Lansky
9. Two By Two. Paul Lansky
10. PassaKaglia. Paul Lansky

After listening to Morton Feldman, the music of Richard Beaudoin sounds like Morton Feldman in fast forward mode.  The work is from another interesting album from New Focus Recordings. Although, I probably need to listen to it again in a context different from the ultra-sparseness of Feldman and the ultra-mesmerization of Glass. Context matters...

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Time Perspectives (1991). Pauline Oliveros /what harmony is, via john cage/

(Wikipedia)

Here's a quote I hadn't read before from the normally harmony-averse John Cage:

Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening I now know what harmony is. It's about the pleasure of making music.

Found in an Important Records page describing the new 12-disc collection  PAULINE OLIVEROS REVERBERATIONS: TAPE & ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1961-1970. I covet said collection.

Related articles

• Alien Bog (1967). Pauline Oliveros /crazygravy/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• Pauline Oliveros 80th birthday celebration @ EMPAC 5/10/12 (timesunion.com)
• Oliveros at 80 at EMPAC (avantmusicnews.com)
• Music Review: Pauline Oliveros Tribute at Darmstadt Institute (nytimes.com)
• Crone Music: A Woman Sees How the World Goes with No Eyes (1988). Pauline Oliveros (rgable.typepad.com)

Alternative Energy (2012). Mason Bates /broad and inventive/

(Getty Images via @daylife)

Joshua Kosman hails Mason Bates' Alternative Energy as the most exciting work played by orchestras visiting San Francisco:

...Mason Bates' broad and inventive "Alternative Energy," for Chicago, was by far the most exciting new work of the series. I wasn't as taken with the pieces written for Los Angeles by Enrico Chapela and Esteban Benzecry, but they did give evidence of Dudamel's coherent tastes, just as the Boston performances of music by Elliott Carter and John Harbison attested to Levine's commitment to the patrician modernists. At the other end of the spectrum was Philadelphia, whose sole contemporary offering - a brief, bland curtain-raiser - was so feeble and begrudging that it seemed almost an insult. 

More from the February premiere in Chicago here.

Overture for 2012 (2012). Philip Glass /a substitute for/

(Wikipedia)

Tim Smith's first reaction to Overture for 2012 by Philip Glass:

As soon as it was over, I thought: At last, a substitute for John Adams' "Short Ride on a Fast Machine" when orchestras want to spice programs with a dash of minimalism.

Ekhlas (pure) (2004). Amy Wurtz /best of access contemporary music/

An upcoming Best of Weekly Readings concert coming up in Chicago by the access contemporary music group... 

aworks on repeat :: temporarily interrupted by sports

Ane Brun

The only new item on my rdio repeat playlist is a movement from the Cello Concerto of Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg. There's been a wealth of interesting sports events this week -- the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, Matt Cain's perfect game for the SF Giants, and the US Open in San Francisco this weekend -- so a little less focus on new listening. And the new Jimmy Fallon album was silly but not particularly repeat-worthy.

The current list:

• Cello Concerto No. 20 - II. Moderato. Mieczysław Weinberg 
  
• Space Drift (Moog Generated Space Shuttle Ambience). White Noise Research - White Noise for Baby Soothing Sounds for Newborn Babies to Aid Sleep
• 'Twas Only Yesterday. Clare Fischer - Thesaurus
• Bodhisattva Vow. Beastie Boys - Anthology: The Sounds of Silence
• Vier Lieder op. 2 (Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm). Susan Manoff - Evocation
• Ten Seconds (Sketches Version). Ane Brun - Sketches 
• Music in Twelve Parts - Part 3. Philip Glass

Weinberg via Jeff Meshel's World:

Two months before his death in 1996, dispirited by Russia’s disregard for him and weakened by a long battle with Crohn’s disease, Weinberg converted to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Weinberg: “Many of my works are related to the theme of war. This, alas, was not my own choice. It was dictated by my fate, by the tragic fate of my relatives. I regard it as my moral duty to write about the war, about the horrors that befell mankind in our century.”