Archives for November 2009

David T. Little, the New York City-based composer and percussionist, has won DilettanteMusic.com’s digital composer-in-residence contest — by a huge margin, gaining more than half the votes.

This contest, as I mentioned the other day, was judged first by experts and then by the voting public, who could listen to Little’s music, and that of the other two contenders, Aaron Gervais from Edmonton, Canada, and Chiayu from Taiwan, on the DilettanteMusic.com website.

Little’s entry was called 1986, was written for a string quartet, and, as he described it:

is based on the tune “My Grandfather’s Clock.” ‘I have my own connections to this song, which I must have played hundreds, if not thousands of times as a boy playing in a fife and drum corps in New Jersey.’ 1986 calls on this experience, making use of the snare drum part that he played. The “tune” returns throughout the piece in different incarnations – from silly to serious – giving the listener a sense of a hazy, but fond, memory.

Little, who holds a degree in percussion performance, a Masters in Composition and a Master of Fine Arts degree, is studying for a Ph.D. at Princeton.

 

His victory was announced at a concert Thursday night at Wilton’s Music Hall (above) in London, where the London Sinfonietta performed a program curated by the three finalists featuring their contest entries alongside works that influenced them. Little chose the second movement of Charles Ives’ Trio, for violin, violoncello & piano, S. 86 (K. 2B17), “TSIAJ (“This scherzo is a joke”)” as the work that influenced him.

 

According to the press release, Little

 

now faces a year full of interactivity not only with the fans that voted for him, but with all Dilettante members including fellow musicians and composers. Unprecedented opportunities to connect with Little include “Composer’s Corner”, promoted and directly linked from the site homepage, a podcast series, online master classes, and forum discussions. His residency will conclude with a live performance of his newly-commissioned work, at a date and venue to be announced.

Could be an interesting year.

 

So here’s how the evening of classical music at the White House went. President Obama warmed up the crowd with remarks about not knowing when to applaud, eliciting laughs, according to the transcript provided by the White House.

Now, if any of you in the audience are newcomers to classical music, and aren’t sure when to applaud, don’t be nervous.  (Laughter.)  Apparently, President Kennedy had the same problem.  (Laughter.)  He and Jackie held several classical music events here, and more than once he started applauding when he wasn’t supposed to.  (Laughter.)  So the social secretary worked out a system where she’d signal him — (laughter) — through a crack in the door to the cross-hall.  

Now, fortunately, I have Michelle to tell me when to applaud.  (Laughter.)  The rest of you are on your own.  (Laughter.)

I couldn’t watch it, because of another engagement, but The Washington Post‘s Anne Midgette did, and seemed to share concerns similar to mine: “The day’s message was, “Look, classical music can be fun,” even though this message is also a tacit admission of the widespread assumption that it isn’t.”

Earlier in the day, Michelle Obama had “sold” classical to kids by saying it was exciting because it could be changed. Midgette posted on my post, which asked whether the First Lady was thus sending the right message, partly agreeing without saying what I was questioning…but happy that classical music is being played in the White House.

The New York Times, meanwhile, suggested the importance of classical music by sending music critic Anthony Tommasini down to Washington to review it — in contrast to practice with the country, jazz and Latin events, when D.C. bureau people wrote about it or no one did. Rather a waste, I think: Tommasini offered no commentary, simply playing it straight.

 

I almost forgot, until an email from the White House press office reminded me: tonight is classical music night at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I wrote about it here, and you can watch streaming live here at 7 p.m. (Unfortunately, I will miss it.)  

Desiree Rogers, the Social Secretary, blogged about the music series today, and First Lady Michelle Obama presided over a classical music workshop this afternoon. Here’s an excerpt from her remarks:

…nothing mixes old and new quite like classical music.  Many of the beautiful concertos and sonatas you’re playing today were written hundreds of years ago, long before CDs and computers and MP3 players were ever invented.  The only reason we know what they sound like is because the great composers of history scratched those notes into parchment with quill pens.

But today you can play these same notes on an electric violin.  You can write your own variations of these songs online and e-mail them around the world.  And you can mix and blend your instruments in ways that Beethoven and Mozart never could have imagined.

That’s what makes classical music timeless, because even though it’s been around for centuries, musicians like all of you are always reinterpreting and replaying it in ways that we’ve never heard before — and that makes it so exciting.

I’m not sure she’s sending the right message about the value of classical music here, but…

The President has made personal remarks about his musical enthusiams at the jazz and country music events; it’ll be interesting to hear what he says tonight.

 

Once again New York City Center* has pulled off what so many arts organizations only dream about: attracting new audiences and getting them to return. How? Its annual Fall for Dance Festival — 10 performances, 20 companies — now in its sixth year.

Every year, along with the festival — which offers a sampling of dance by four separate companies on each program — NYCC surveys attendees. The results are now in for the 2009 event — staged between Sept. 22 and Oct. 3 and, as usual, sold out. The ticket price is subsidized by donations, especially from TimeWarner (which has an arts and education component to its philanthropy), and kept at $10.

The survey shows that nearly a quarter of attendees had never attended a performance at City Center, and that just over half had never before attended a Fall for Dance performance.

And of the other half, who had previously seen a program at Fall for Dance, 68.5 percent said they attended subsequent performances by dance companies in Fall for Dance. I’d call that success.

It’s clear, too, from previous surveys that people are coming back.

Take a look at one line in the survey: those who had never before attended Fall for Dance. In 2005, the second year of the festival, that portion was a much higher 73 percent — and in each subsequent year it has dropped, to 72 percent, then 60 percent, then 55 percent and now 51.4 percent.

[Read more…] about Falling For The Fall for Dance Festival

About those Canadian artists, who will be featured in The Automatiste Revolution: Montreal, 1941-1960 at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery next spring, which I just mentioned here: I don’t know their work, and maybe you don’t either, so in the interest of learning — and in procrastinating from my real writing — I’ve obtained some images:

Here is Marcel Barbeau’s Rosier-feuilles (Rose-Bush Leaves), 1946:

Pierre Gauvreau’s Colloque exhubérant (Exhuberant Conversation),1944:

Paul-Émile Borduas’ Composition,1942:

And Paul-Émile Borduas’ Bercement silencieux (Silent Rocking), 1956:

They are all now on view at the Varley Art Gallery near Toronto.

Photos: Courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery