Tag Archives: Music

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PHILIP GLASS, IN CONVERSATION WITH TODD L. BURNS: Red Bull Music Academy Lectures NYC, 2013 1.5hours

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Todd L. Burns hosts Philip Glass at a Red Bull Music Lecture in 2013. 1.5hours

Introductory Notes:

It’s hard to overstate the influence of New York City composer Philip Glass. Along with Steve Reich, his minimalist compositions transformed the world of classical music and, eventually, popular music in general. Glass’ early epiphanies occurred in Paris during his time in the mid-’60s studying under Nadia Boulanger and in New York when he heard Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase.” These events helped set Glass on a course toward the repetitive, dramatic, and conceptually rigorous style that has become his trademark. Throughout the ’70s Glass refined his work, resulting in career-defining compositions like Music In Twelve Parts and Einstein On The Beach. In the process he became a popular sensation, a serious composer who wasn’t willfully obscure or too difficult to understand. Glass’ stunning soundtrack work for films like The Thin Blue Line and The Hours, and a symphony based on David Bowie’s album Heroes, has only elevated his standing as one of America’s most popular living composers. In this talk at the 2013 RBMA, Glass waxes nostalgic on his time spent in Paris, musical tradition, and the art of performance. 

 

ART, Music, Video

TWYLA THARP/ DAVID BYRNE :: THE CATHERINE WHEEL, 1981 >an early artworld cross over into mainstream pop culture

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The Catherine Wheel was a seventy-two minute dance film choreographed and directed by Twyla Tharp to a musical score by David Byrne.The show premiered in 1981 at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York City and a film was made in 1983. The film was part-produced by the BBC .  Continue reading TWYLA THARP/ DAVID BYRNE :: THE CATHERINE WHEEL, 1981 >an early artworld cross over into mainstream pop culture →

Music, Video

PELT :: NEW DELHI BLUES

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From the esteemed drone music band, Pelt.  New Delhi Blues is on their fourth album, Técheöd, released in 2000.

credits:

Jack Rose, Mike Gangloff, Patrick Best:
Guitar [Guitars], Organ [Lowry], Loops [Tape Loops], Shaker [Shakers], Banjo, Electronics [Beat Frequency Oscillator], Recorder [Tenor & Alto], Whistle [Double], Performer [Jupiter Machine]
Fiddle — Amy Shea
Percussion, Recorder [Bass] — Mark Cornick
Tabla [Tablas] — Mick Simmons

ART, Music, Video

ELLEN FULLMAN AND THE LONG STRING INSTRUMENT

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Artist/Composer Ellen Fullman has been working with her Long String Instrument since she developed it in 1981.  The Long String Instrument, an installation of dozens of wires 50 feet or more in length is tuned in Just Intonation and “bowed” with rosin-coated fingers, producing a chorus of minimal organ-like overtones. The instrument combines Fullman’s artistic expressions of everyday activities, such as walking, with a unique performance art sensibility. Fullman has developed a specialized notation system to choreograph the performer’s movements, exploring sonic events that occur at specific nodal point locations along the string-length of the instrument. She has recorded extensively with this unusual instrument and has collaborated with such other luminary figures as composer Pauline Oliveros, choreographer Deborah Hay, the Kronos Quartet and Keiji Haino.

This video features Ellen Fullman and the Long String Instrument in performance at MOCAD (The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) on March 9, 2013. With area musicians Abby Alwin (cello) and James Cornish (trumpet), and visiting musician Theresa Wong (cello).

Music, Video

Wadada Leo Smith :: “Martin Luther King, Jr.”, from the album Ten Freedom Summers

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On May 5, 2012, Jazz trumpeter and visionary composer Wadada Leo Smith released Ten Freedom Summers, a large-scale work 34 years in the making, comprising a four-disc box set.  The monumental 5-hour work is Smith’s meditation on the civil-rights movement and other related topics and is organized as 19 fully developed suites for various music ensemble configurations. Continue reading Wadada Leo Smith :: “Martin Luther King, Jr.”, from the album Ten Freedom Summers →

Farewells, Music

Jean-Claude Risset, computer music pioneer has died, aged 78

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* this article-respectfully republished from The Wire:( http://www.thewire.co.uk/news/44612/french-electronic-music-composer-jean-claude-risset-has-died)
11.25.16
 French electronic musician Jean-Claude Risset has died, reported Exclaim!. Risset passed away on 21 November in Marseille, aged 78. Cited as a pioneer in computer music, he worked with Max Matthews at New Jersey’s Bell Labs where he experimented with sound synthesis and psychoacoustics. Risset also created a version of the Shepard scale called the Shepard–Risset Glissando, a type of auditory illusion that gives the impression a sound’s tone is either rising or descending, an effect he also created for rhythm and tempo.

Risset was a composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, piano and electroacoustic works. Born in Le Puy-en-Velay on 18 March 1938, he studied composition and piano at École Normale Supérieure de Paris from 1957–61. He also studied mathematics and physics and earned a Doctorat ès Sciences in 1967. He started work at the Bell Labs in 1965 and from 1967–69 he worked on brass and timbre synthesis as well as pitch and sound processing and development. There he met F Richard Moore, John Pierce, James Tenney, Vladimir Ussachevsky and Edgard Varèse. He went on to work at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Marseille from 1969–72, and on computer sound systems at the Faculté d’Orsay and the Université de Paris in 1970–71. He was also chair of the computer department at IRCAM from 1975–79.

Risset’s albums including Mutations (1978), Songes – Passages – Computer Suite From Little Boy – Sud (1988), Invisible ‎(1996) and Elementa (2001). In 2014 Editions Mego released Music From Computer, which reached number 12 in The Wire‘s Top 50 Chart of that year. Describing his work in The Wire 363, Philip Clark wrote: “Risset sculpts his found objects into plastic forms – birdsong stretched out of melodic alignment, high pitched insects heard as basso profundo drones… [his] music has a poetic backbone impressively all its own.” Risset was the author of An Introductory Catalog Of Computer Synthesized Sounds (1969).

ART, Music, Video

CLARE ROJAS’ Geometric Abstractions (and sometimes music)

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Bay area based, internationally-shown artist Clare Rojas works in a wide variety of media: painting, installations, video, street art, and children’s books. Her work has been considered to have been emblematic of San Francisco’s Mission School, “a loose group working in San Francisco in the nineties who shared an affinity for old wood, streetscapes, and anything raw or unschooled. They take their inspiration from the urban, bohemian, “street” culture of the Mission District and are strongly influenced by mural and graffiti art, comic and cartoon art, and folk art forms such as sign painting and hobo art. These artists are also noted for use of non-traditional artistic materials, such as house paint, spray paint, correction fluid, ballpoint pens, scrapboard, and found objects.”-clare rojas, wikipedia; mission school, wikipedia; dana goodyear, a ghost in the family, the new yorker

Rojas’ work referenced: “…West Coast modernism, Quaker art, Native American textiles, Byzantine mosaics, and Outsider art, Rojas tells stories through painting, installations, and video. Often her narratives concern relationships between the sexes and among humans and animals, in their struggle to find harmony and balance. Many works quietly celebrate the traditional strengths of women, depicting them like Russian nesting dolls in conventional roles without critical undertones or hints of sexual exploitation. Quilt-like patterns in vivid colors accentuate the folk art-inspired scenes present in some works, while simple geometric forms and stark interiors evoke Bauhaus design in others.” -clare rojas, biography, artsy.net

Over the past 8 or so years, her figurative, folk art-toned work has given way to pure geometric abstractions.  Her paintings are made with oil paint on both linen and paper.

Rojas also plays guitar and banjo under the stage name Peggy Honeywell. As Peggy Honeywell, she wore a long wig and flouncy calico dresses, and sometimes, because she was shy, a paper bag over her head. She has released two albums: Faint Humms (2005) and Green Mountain (2006)