A recent discussion with my friend Robert Carl has me pondering the ways we think of epochs in art. As many are quick to point out, there aren’t hard-and-fast beginning dates for various periods – Classical, Romantic, Modern – these are trends that gather steam over time. Armchair musicologists like to play the game of spotting antecedents -- compositions that anticipate features that would … [Read more...]
Archives for September 2016
Interim
In 2003-04, I served as Interim Dean at the North Carolina School of the Arts. It was quite an education, an introduction to the niceties and nastiness of arts administration. I made a good-faith effort to set aside my personal needs to work for the greater good. Ate way too much finger food because I was seldom sure when I’d be able to have a sit-down meal. Was the Answer to questions from … [Read more...]
Big Brothers
A dreamy child, I was given to extravagant fictions, imaginary journeys that scattered my mind and dimmed my perceptions. The benefit of these fanciful excursions was that I was never bored: there was always something fascinating to engage me in even the dreariest surroundings. The drawback: a tendency to drift, disconnected from the world of physical objects and human interaction. But there … [Read more...]
In chains
At some point in my younger days, I got it in my head that a musical composition, like a chain, was only as strong as its weakest link. That meant that the final stage of the compositional process was a meticulous search for those weak links, to remove them or strengthen them, making the entire composition as sturdy as could be. More recently, I considered whether a musical composition might … [Read more...]