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Greg Sandow on the future of classical music

Post-classical playlist

July 13, 2005 by Greg Sandow

This came from Molly Sheridan, managing editor of NewMusicBox, the American Music Center‘s new music webzine. It’s her response to the fabulous pop music playlist I posted here a while back. Many readers of the blog won’t know the music Molly picks, but check out how she presents it. Molly’s in her late 20s, and knows more about reaching a young audience than most of us. Her approach reminds me a bit of The Ring and I, the lively and engrossing introduction to Wagner’s Ring that WNYC (New York’s public radio station) broadcast a year ago. (More on that elsewhere.)

Here’s Molly:

My mix tape request: My favorite genre—since it doesn’t really have a name—suffers from a serious identity crisis. I need a mix to show people that even if you can’t program it properly into an iPod playlist, it still should get an invite into your six-disc CD changer.

Who says you can’t dance to it? I’ve never had much coordination anyway.

     “Acrobatic Dancers” from The 23 Constellations Of Joan Miró: Bobby Previte

     858 Quartet-4: Bill Frisell

     No Crime: Elliott Sharp

Hey, I hear vocals. I thought this was all violins and shit.

     As We Know (Three Rumsfeld Songs): Phil Kline

     “Frozen Warning” from Kiss: John Cale

     Gotham Lullaby: Meredith Monk

Actually, can I get more violin in the monitor.

     Fog Tropes II for String Quartet and Tape: Ingram Marshall

     Lost Signals And Drifting Satellites: Annie Gosfield

     Lachen Verlernt for solo violin Esa-Pekka Salonen

Wait, I think I saw that guy with the composition degree play the Knitting Factory.

     Stereo Music for Serge Modular Synthesizer: Keith Fullerton Whitman

     The Ice (Feels Three Feet Thick Between Us): Aarktica

Bonus tracks: Damn, I think I’m addicted. You call this “challenging”? Bring it on.

     Superscriptio: Brian Ferneyhough

     Workers Union: Andriessen

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Greg Sandow

Though I've been known for many years as a critic, most of my work these days involves the future of classical music -- defining classical music's problems, and finding solutions for them. Read More…

About The Blog

This started as a blog about the future of classical music, my specialty for many years. And largely the blog is still about that. But of course it gets involved with other things I do — composing music, and teaching at Juilliard (two courses, here … [Read More...]

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