aworks :: "new" american classical music

aworks listening log :: #musicandarts

1. Ethernet - Opus 2 (kranky)  
2. Julie Steinberg - Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Music and Arts Programs of American) 
3. Lou Harrison, Mirecourt Trio, Mills College Gamelan, ... - Double Concerto for Violin and Cello / Piano Trio (Music and Arts Programs of American)
4. Dexter Gordon - North Sea Jazz Legendary Concerts (Bob City) 
5. Thelonious Monk - At Town Hall (Jazz Musts)
6. American Contemporary Music Ensemble - Joseph Byrd: NYC 1960-1963 (New World Records) #2013  
7. Sarah Cripps - Change (Sarah Cripps)  #2013
8. Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air 
9. Elmer Bernstein - Airplane! - Music from the Motion Picture (Paramount Music!) 
10. Apparat - Krieg Und Frieden (Music for Theatre) (Mute Artists) 
11. William Basinski + Richard Chartier - Untitled 1-3 (Line)

Music in Similar Motion (1969). Philip Glass @eighthblackbird #cincinnati

Via reddit, Eighth Blackbird plays Music in Similar Motion:

aworks operational note :: peak microsoft

For various reasons, I hate Apple and MacOS. Just to get that out of the way.

Earlier this year, I took a gamble on replacing my iPhone with the Galaxy Note 2 "phablet" running Google Android. Pleasantly surprised that it "just works" on a bigger screen.

<For the record, everyday, I still use a Google Chromebook from the original free Beta 3 years ago (thanks mandeep), But my ASUS Windows netbook and my $1800 Mac Book Air 1.0 are on the computer scrap heap.>

Anyway, this weekend, I took another gamble and bought a Sony Vaio laptop with a touchscreen. As I hoped, touchscreens are good. Switching between keyboard and touching the screen is confusing but it's actually the best of both worlds.

So for the ultimate gamble, tonight, I decided to upgrade the local family Dell desktop from Windows 7 to Windows 8. I ran the Microsoft Windows 8 upgrade utility and it reported some compatibility issues (including a Microsoft product). Despite that caution, I went ahead. My naive mistake.

The email offer I just got from Microsoft is not working. WTF:

Of course, I could pay $120 instead of the email offer of $14.99. Somehow, this is not what I expected for 23 years of Microsoft loyalty. 

Those who know me know I can be stubborn but finally, even I have hit peak Microsoft. Good luck, Steve Ballmer and company.

I hereby proclaim my next computer purchase will not benefit Redmond, WA (nor of course Cupertino, CA).

Mountain View, on the other hand...

aworks listening log :: albums and generated playlists

1. Elmer Bernstein - Bernard Herrmann: Cape Fear (Geffen)
2. Tim Hecker rdio station - Tim Hecker, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Mountains, Taylor Deupree...
3. Junkboy - Three (Enraptured Records) 
4. Del Sol String Quartet - Zia (Sono Luminus). #2013 
5. University of South Carolina Wind Ensemble, Scott Weiss - Bernstein: Transcriptions for Wind Band (Naxos) #2013
6. Philip Glass rdio station - Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, Ravi Shankar, Penguin Cafe Orchestra...
7. Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, JoAnn Falletta - Ellington: Black, Brown and Beige (Naxos) #2013 
8. Rafal Bartminski, Antoni Wit, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choirs - Weinberg: Symphony No. 8, "Tveti Pol'shi" (Polish Flowers). (Naxos) #2013
9. Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years (Legacy Recordings)
10. Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Dirk Brosse - Highlights, Volume 6 (Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia)

Woo Lae Oak (1981). Carl Stone #droneworld

My 2008 self on Woo Lae Oak:

...a string section and Peruvian pipes meet at Drone World

The work is named after a chain of Korean restaurants.

aworks listening log :: #distinctive #2013

1. American Brass Quintet, St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, William Sharp - Chamber Music of Eric Ewazen (Summit Records) #2013
2. Uschi Brüning - Ornette Et Cetera (Jazzwerkstatt) #2013
3. Miles Davis Quintet: Live In Europe 1969 The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 (Columbia/Legacy) #2013
4. Wolf Harden - Busoni: Piano Music, Vol. 8 (Naxos) #2013
5. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II (Jagjaguwar) #2013
6. SCORED! Classic Film Music - Battle (Primary Wave Records) #2013
7. Julia Faulkner, Martha Fischer, Lee Hoiby - Between the Bliss and Me… Songs to Poems of Emily Dickinson (Naxos) #2013
8. Lisa Kirchner - Umbrellas in Mint (Verdant World Records) #2013
9. London Symphony Orchestra - Emma Lou Diemer: Pacific Ridge (Navona) #2013
10. Richard Cornell - Tracer: Recent Chamber Works (Ravello Records) #2013

Some distinctive new releases...The chamber music of Eric Ewzaen nicely combines brass and strings...Ornette Et Cetera is so far, incomprehensible and provocative. Ornette Coleman meets female vocal, except better.

aworks listening log :: goodbye, twentieth century

1. Wire Tapper 13
2. Carl Stone - Woo Lae Oak
3. Paul Hillier - In C
4. Thelonious Monk - Live 1961
5. Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, James Tocco - Corigliano: Phantasmagoria (Remastered)
6. Gaudete Ensemble - Chicago Moves
7. Peaking Lights - Lucifer
8. No-Neck Blues Band - Parallel Easters

I was going to listen to the John Cage album by Christina Fong, Glenn Freeman, and Karen Krummel again. But it appears all OgreOgress albums have disappeared from rdio (and weren't on Spotify to begin with).

Do I care enough to buy the recording in the midst of 137 others that I have queued up on rdio? Dunno. Maybe if it was in stock the next time I go to Amoeba.

Won't buy it from Amazon, though. If I'm going to pay more money for music, I want the full, visceral shopping experience.

 

aworks listening log :: #unsilentnight #wadadaleosmith #100guitarproject

1. Sally Whitwell - Mad Rush: Solo Piano Music of Philip Glass
2. Royal Baths - Better Luck Next Life
3. Phil Kline - Unsilent Night
4. Nicole Paiement: Ensemble Parallèle - Lou Harrison: In Memory
5. Wadada Leo Smith - Ten Freedom Summers
   
6. Mary Ellen Childs - Wreck #2013 
7. $100 Guitar Project #2013 
8. Leon Kirchner - Revelations 
9. Illinois Jacquet- The Hipster
10. Sun Ra - Blue Delight #2013
11. Music of Paul Chihara, Vol. 2

Not sure how I managed to go this long without ever hearing Phil Kline's Unsilent Night...The Wadada Leo Smith recording is long and interesting, with such tracks as Thurgood Marshall and Brown vs. Board of Education: A Dream of Equal Education, 1954, and The D.C. Wall: A War Memorial for All Times...Here's the list of musicians who played the $100 electric guitar:

Alex Skolnick, David Starobin, Elliott Sharp, Mike Keneally, Barry Cleveland, Fred Frith, Henry Kaiser, Mark Hitt, Keith Rowe, Nels Cline, Andy Aledort, Hillary Fielding, John Shiurba, Karl Evangelista, Phil Burk, Ray Kallas, Janet Feder, Thomas Dimuzio, Julia Miller, Chris Murphy, Chuck O'Meara, Marty Carlson, Shawn Persinger, Kai Niggemann, Steve MacLean, Ken Field, Roger Miller, Michael Bierylo, Bill Brovold, Larry Polansky, Biota Bill Sharp, Ava Mendoza, Amy Denio, Bruce Eisenbeil, Caroline Feldmeier, Colin Marston, David Linaburg, Hans Tammen, James Moore, Jesse Krakow, Jesse Kranzler, Joe Bouchard, Jon Diaz, Josh Lopes, Kobe Van Cauwenberghe, Marco Cappelli, Marco Oppedisano, Joe Berger, Mark Solomon, Mark Stewart, Mike Lerner, Nick Didkovsky, Rhys Chatham, Ron Anderson, Taylor Levine, Tom Marsan, Greg Anderson, Han-earl Park, Del Rey, Teisco Del Rey, Matt Wilson, Bruce Zeines, Toon Callier/Zwerm, Juan Parra, and Wiek Hijmanns.