Subwoofing Is Now

I have written an appreciation of Serhiy Salov's solo piano transcription of The Rite of Spring for Reflections on the Rite, a journal curated by Will Robin for The Rite of Spring at 100, a website created by University of North Carolina in conjunction with Carolina Performing Arts. 

I'm just the latest person to have a go at blogging at Reflections on the Rite. Great posts by significant composers Nico Muhly and Steven Mackey are already up, and Robin's own analyses (1, 2) are also fabulous reading.

And, in case you need a reminder, The Bad Plus is playing our arrangement of the Rite accompanied by visuals by Cristina Guadalupe and Noah Hutton tomorrow night at Lincoln Center Out of Doors (free).

If you want to read more about TBP and the Rite, I recommend interviews with Jason Rabin and Pamela Espeland. My own "Mixed Meter Mysterium" touches on On Sacred Ground only in passing, but I still think it is one of the more provocative and interesting pieces on DTM.

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Will Robin's own Seated Ovation is now added to the blogroll. I really became aware of Will after joining Twitter. Will excecuted one of the great sequences of tweets from within the James Madison Building at the Library of Congress:

Reading the hate-mail that Copland got after the TV broadcast premiere of Connotations is pretty amusing

"On the momentous occasion of a new artistic center in New York last week, your musical contribution was the quintessence of -- NOTHING!"

One lady writes "It concerns the 12-tone scale...and cats," and then describes her Siamese staring transfixed at the TV

Otto Luening wrote:

BRILLIANT PREMIERE. 12 TONE, TONE LADDER POSH-ELEVATOR ESCALATOR DIG. GO GO GO- GO ELECTRONIC. SWITCH SEE YOU LATER ESCA ELECATOR.

To be fair, it was a telegram, so it's not quite as crazy as it sounds (caps are required) 

That's not all Will Robin has been up to lately.  His fascinating piece Moondrunk for a Century: A History of the Pierrot Ensemble was responded to by the father of classical music social media, Kyle Gann.

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Also (finally) added to the blogroll: The Thread, the journal for Duke Performances, which covered TBP and the Rite in-depth over a year ago around the time of the premiere.

Thanks again to Duke for the original On Sacred Ground commision, especially Aaron Greenwald. Thanks also to Bill Bragin, co-commisioner from LCOOD (and an avid tweeter), Cristina, Noah, Darryl Pitt, Chris Hinderaker, and Bradford Swanson -- the last of whom was fiercely fought over between TBP and Secret Society for his services at Newport Saturday! Hey, when you're good, you're good, and people will want you, that's the way it works. DJA, you owe us one...

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DTM will return on Monday with a Forumesque.

08/01/2012

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