About Freaking Time! Reich wins the 2009 Pulitzer

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced about an hour ago, and Steve Reich was finally awarded the prize in music for his piece Double Sextet written for eighth blackbird and themselves (obviously prerecorded). This is probably not the most stunning Reich piece you will hear, but it is definitely fun. I saw a performance of this last year in Cincinnati at the close of the Music08 festival.

Here's a YouTube clip of 8bb's first rehearsal:



For a more comprehensive in-depth view of the 2009 awards, here is NewMusicBox.org's coverage.

UPDATE: Here is 8bb's take on the award.

Salonen's Last Concert with the LA Phil

Here it is folks: Salonen's last concert at the LA Phil. Program includes Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms. I really wish I could be there.

If you can't be there (like me), KUSC will be broadcasting this concert live 5 PM EDT. Click here for the streaming audio.

If you want a Esa-Pekka Salonen retrospective, KUSC also produced a special broadcast looking back 17 years.

If you want a visual E-P retrospective, check out LA Phil's Celebrate:Salonen. This includes a tribute site, commissions fund, gallery display, and a commercial spot.

YouTube Symphony's Arranged Marriage

On Tax Day, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra gave its first performance with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. How was it? I have yet to buffer my streaming video and watch the performance myself, but I was most interested in Tan Dun's Internet Symphony No. 1 "Eroica." (Wasn't Beethoven's Symphony No.3 the Eroica Symphony? Just asking.)

Anyway, Tan Dun conducted this segment of the concert. If you are curious how the piece sounds like, check this out:

(Tan Dun in rehearsal with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra)



(Tan Dun conducting the London Symphony Orchestra)



What did I think?

Tan Dun + Percussion = always cool
Tan Dun + Cheesy Brass Lines = LAME

I think my favorite quote was from Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times:

Tan Dun conducted the premiere of a piece written for the occasion, his Internet Symphony No. 1 (“Eroica”). This five-minute crowd-pleaser takes riffs from Beethoven’s “Eroica” and folds them into a score teeming with clanking percussion, corny brass chorales and perky passages that sounded as if the Crouching Tiger and the Hidden Dragon had encountered the Lone Ranger.

Hi-ho Silver! Anyway, if you're curious, check it out.

Whoa, Just Play the Piece!

Check out this article: Nathan Currier is suing the Brooklyn Philharmonic because they curtailed the climax of his piece Gaian Variations in 2004.

The Brooklyn Philarmonic's reasoning? They didn't want to pay their musicians overtime.

Countdown to Salonen's Last Day

Esa-Pekka Salonen's last concert is less than a week away. Isn't that nuts? He's been around *forever* (or at least as long as I seriously started going to LA Phil concerts). After him, it's The Dude.

I thought it would be appropriate to now show a countdown clock on my blog. Unfortunately, there's not much variety in HTML countdown clocks if you're going the free route, but at least I tried:

If Joshua Bell Wants One...

I had to post this WSJ article about Jim Stewart, a classical violinist who also made a fortune writing calculus textbooks, asked architects Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe to build a house with curves, glass, and a concert hall. The result? Something pretty dang impressive. Joshua Bell visited the home while it was being built to get ideas for his own concert space.

Something I need to try, like now

As mentioned in NewMusicBox.org by Molly Sheridan,

G. Schirmer, Inc./Associated Music Publishers, Inc. has launched SchirmerOnDemand, an online service that allows registered users to view, and in some case print, select perusal scores from the catalogs of nearly 50 composers. The focus of the service so far is mostly on operas and works for orchestra and wind ensemble by 20th- and 21st-century composers on the Schirmer roster, but the company says its entire catalog of 5,000 works by 300 composers is projected to be online within the next few years.

Molly gives a pretty good commentary about her experience with SchirmerOnDemand. I will sign up for this *right now* and let you guys know how this works.

Hat Tip to Baseball Organists

Happy start of baseball! Yes, I know this is a sad attempt at a new music blog, but I can't let this day pass us by. But here is something to think about:

In 2004, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled "At Dodger Stadium, a Noteworthy Figure Loses Playing Time," (Normally I would link this article, but it's so old that I had to use my student status to link to my library to see a commentary of this article. Bah.) But anyway, the article states that Dodger Stadium organist Nancy Bea Hefley has been losing time to canned pop music during the game, and this forces her to play only before the ballgame and during the seventh inning stretch. Yuck. I guess according to this article, Cubs fans would be rioting if the same thing happened at Wrigley Field. No kidding.

Anyway, I hope that your various teams have a great home opener this week (except for the GIANTS, because the DODGERS are way better).

Can You Twitter An Opera Plot?

Initially I thought, "Cool! Create your own opera in 140 characters or less!" But actually, Miss Mussel has been sponsoring a competition where people Tweet opera plots. (Yes, I found this out via Twitter via the guardian.co.uk via The Classical Beat. Gotta love the internet.)

My favorite Tweet summary?

"I dropped the atomic bomb and it went off. Wait, I feel guilty. Too late. Might as well sing pretentious poetry."

ROLFMAO!!