One thing I’m not going to do is take part in the Democrat circular firing squad, wringing my hands about what wasn’t done, or where we went wrong, why our message didn’t get across. Why not? Because I’m from Texas. Unlike most of my New York friends, I don't have to give red-staters the benefit of the doubt. I was raised devoutly in the Southern Baptist Church - in fact, First Baptist of Dallas, the south’s largest Baptist church, and the one Billy Graham belonged to. I know these people who voted for Bush. Some of them are bullies. Some are … [Read more...]

I’m hearing whispers in blog forum conversations that the exit poll percentages match the final vote percentages in areas where voting took place with a paper trail, and do not match in areas where voting was done on paperless electronic machines. I can’t yet find any hard numbers or analysis, but it’s early, and people were up late last night. I certainly hope it’s true, because I am reluctant to think that 58,000,000 hateful bigots whom I am obliged to call my countrymen decided to proclaim to the world that the torture at Abu Ghraib was … [Read more...]

Allow me to scoop all other publications with the results in my home precinct, the Barrytown section of Red Hook, New York: Kerry/Edwards 522 Bush/Cheney 82 Nader/Camejo 20 Four years ago it was something like: Gore 243 Bush 80 Nader 160 Indicates something about how far Nader has descended in the collegiate milieu. … [Read more...]

For my last theory class prior to election day, I took the subtle precaution of teaching a hymn whose words (and also harmonies, as I needed a minor-key piece with a homophonic texture, and they’re rare) were appropriate to this particular election week, Be Glad Then, America, by our founding national composer William Billings (1746-1800): Darkness and clouds of awful shade Hang pendant by a slender thread, Waiting commission from God the upholder to fall, Fall, fall, and distress us. Great God, avert th’impending doom, We plead no merit of our … [Read more...]

The votes are in: in my criticism class, I mean. I have two kinds of student writers. One kind is very good at style and atmosphere. They can talk about music in relation to their lives, tell how certain songs make them feel, relate their likes and dislikes. The other type knows musical terminology, and can describe music in intelligent detail. The first type of writer is entertaining to read, but ultimately merely subjective; the second is more persuasive, but a little dry and lacking in color and emotive effect. Almost none can yet combine … [Read more...]

The November Composer-of-the-Month at Postclassic Radio is, logically enough, William Duckworth, whose elegant musical logic has been a tremendous influence on my own music. I've uploaded two major Duckworth works, The Time Curve Preludes (1978-79) for piano, played on Lovely Music by neely Bruce, and Southern Harmony (1980-81), a choral piece sung by the Gregg Smith Singers and the Rooke Chapel Choir of Bucknell University. The latter work is in 20 movements divided into four books, and I've separated the four books out among other works in … [Read more...]

I was listening to NPR on my way to New York today. I wouldn't believe what I heard if I hadn't heard it with my own ears. Our Potemkin President (as Doonesbury has finally called him - someone had to) was responding to Kerry's charges that he goofed in allowing 380 tons of munitions to be stolen in Iraq. And he shouted, in slow, emphatic words, as though explaining the simplest common sense: "The president... needs to collect ALL the facts... before making politically-motivated statements!" I laughed so hard I nearly drove off the road. I'm … [Read more...]

I have two performances coming up in San Francisco and Berkeley next week - one I’ll be present for, the other I won’t. Red-headed pianists Sarah Cahill and Kathleen Supové - I call attention to their hair color because the title of the concert is “Two Redheads and 88 Solenoids,” although I think of Cahill as more of a strawberry blonde - are playing some music for piano and Disklavier plus piano, dotted with pieces for Disklavier alone. The premiere in my case is Private Dances, a set of dances of which I wrote two in 2000 and four more last … [Read more...]

How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb? None. There’s nothing wrong with that light bulb. There is no need to change anything. We made the right decision and nothing has happened to change our minds. People who criticize this light bulb now, just because it doesn’t work anymore, supported us when we first screwed it in, and when these flip-floppers insist on saying that it is burned out, they are merely giving aid and encouragement to the Forces of Darkness. - John Cleese Q: What's the difference between the … [Read more...]

I’ve had a couple of opportunities to play my Disklavier pieces lately, in New York and at Bard. A Disklavier, just to be very clear since so many get the wrong idea, is an acoustic piano, with real strings struck by felt hammers and vibrating in the air, but operated from a computer (or disc) via MIDI instructions. The keys move, just as though a pianist were playing them. It’s a modern player piano, only the paper piano roll is now replaced by a sequence of digital information. Anyway, the response I get is kind of deadeningly repetitive. The … [Read more...]

I'm late in announcing this - things have been hectic - but there's a memorial concert tomorrow for Jonathan Kramer: Sunday, October 24th at 2:00 PM at Miller Theatre, Columbia University. Several of Jonathan's pieces will be performed, including Imagined Ancestors (of which this is the world premiere), Renascence, Whirled Piece, Remembrance of a People, and Atlanta Licks. All ticket money goes to a fund started in Jonathan's honor to commission young composers, a cause he greatly believed in. … [Read more...]

Today’s headlines: The New York Times: The Year of Fear, by William Safire - "Fearmongers in the Kerry campaign are turning any breaking news story they can into a personal threat" AP: Cheney: "terrorists may bomb U.S. cities" UPDATE: Breaking news: Iran endorses Bush, because Democrats have this pesky concern with human rights. Not our Commander-in-Chimp! I mean Chief. … [Read more...]

You’re not going to believe this, but tomorrow night - Thursday, October 21, at 8 PM at New York’s Cooper Union - I’m going to play Abraham Lincoln in a new work by Gloria Coates. The piece is titled Abraham Lincoln´s Cooper Union Address, and I’ll be reading, in costume, a speech that Lincoln delivered in Cooper Union on February 27, 1860, disputing the notion that the framers of the U.S. Constitution supported the furtherance of slavery. I suppose what qualifies me for this role, beyond my enthusiastic support for Coates's music, is my past … [Read more...]

Less than a month after it went on the air, Postclassic Radio has won an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for internet service to new music. Actually, it’s a co-winner along with Iridian Radio, whose virtual DJ Robin Cox has been doing a fantastic job of coming up with really obscure yet attractive new music, stuff even I’ve never heard of. Thanks, ASCAP (and I’m a member). With my performance in New York last week I didn’t have time to pay any attention to my station for several days, but I’ve made up for it: twelve new works have been added to … [Read more...]

My criticism class got lively today. There are a couple of jazz players in the class, a smattering of classical musicians, and the rest are all destined for the Village Voice, if not worse. I use anthologies by Virgil Thomson, Gary Giddins, and Lester Bangs as my textbooks. And one of the things I’m most interested in exploring is the differences in persona, tone, and expectations among jazz, classical, and pop writing. The students agreed that it can be hip, nonchalant, to profess ignorance in a pop review, but to express ignorance in a … [Read more...]

The “Sounds Like Now” festival coming up this week looks like old home week for the Downtown scene. Microtonalist David First and electronics maven Tom Hamilton curated the festival, and text composer Chris Mann is emceeing. The schedule, running from Thursday through Sunday, October 14 to 17, at La MaMa Etc., 74A East 4th St. in New York City, is as follows: Thursday, Oct 14 8PM "Blue" Gene Tyranny Annea Lockwood Petr Kotik Alvin Lucier Thomas Buckner Friday, Oct 15 8PM "Blue" Gene Tyranny & Jon Gibson Jin Hi Kim David Behrman Muhal Richard … [Read more...]

“I don’t really believe in program notes, I think the music should speak for itself.” Boy, do I get this from composers a lot. I’ve made a living for 22 years from explaining music in words, and I’d say half the composers I meet consider it a dishonest living - justified only insofar as I can praise them in print and help them get future gigs. Music should speak for itself, should communicate what it’s about, and thus the veiled hostility of the statement passes without notice. When music fails to communicate, it can be the music’s fault, and … [Read more...]

I just realized that, on Postclassic Radio, I've been playing my own music theater piece Custer and Sitting Bull with the vocal part missing from the second, Sitting Bull scene. I must have accidentally uploaded that movement from the performance CD, which is a kind of "Music Minus One" version. (Does anyone besides me remember "Music Minus One" records, which would allow you to practice a concerto with a recorded orchestra?) I apologize for the confusion - most of all, to myself. That piece is now followed by a beautiful 1992 work for multiple … [Read more...]

I liked one question Gwen Ifill asked Cheney and Edwards, and was disappointed neither answered it: "What's wrong with a little flip-flopping?" I keep hoping someone will quote Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." A foolish consistency, which is the word missed by many people who quote the line. Of all the faults, misdeeds, and crimes against humanity that can be laid at George Bush's door, for which a special roasting pit in hell is doubtless being prepared for him, what would be easier to convict him of than a … [Read more...]

Of all the slow, stationary, eventless recordings on Postclassic Radio, Elodie Lauten's Harmonic Protection Circle is the slowest, most stationary, and most eventless. And absolutely gorgeous. It features the Elodie Lauten Ensemble: the composer herself on synthesizer, Jonathan Hirschman on guitar, Mustafa Ahmed on percussion, and Mathew Fieldes on contrabass. The brand new Studio 21 recording arrived in my mail last week, and is already up for your listening pleasure. … [Read more...]