|
Trumpeter Rolf Smedvig, one of the founding members of the Empire Brass, has passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 61 of a heart attack. He is survived by his wife and four children.
NPR has the story here.
0 Comments
The Library of Congress Music Division and Q2 Music, the online stream of contemporary classical music presented by New York-based public broadcaster WQXR Radio, today announced a collaboration that will make more than 20 pieces of contemporary classical music commissioned by the Library available to listeners free of charge via general rotation on Q2 Music’s continuously available stream of new music and on-demand at the website www.q2music.org. Works available will be listed on the site May 1.
The Library of Congress has solely or jointly commissioned scores of works in the contemporary classical-music canon since the 1920s. Among the pieces to be listed on Q2 Music are works by composers John Adams, Caleb Burhans, Sebastian Currier, Chaya Czernowin, Mario Davidovsky, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jefferson Friedman, Stephen Hartke, Michael Hersch, George Lewis, Chiel Meijering, Harold Meltzer, Nico Muhly, Marc Neikrug, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Kaija Saariaho, Lalo Schifrin, Simon Shaheen and Ezequiel Viñao and George Walker. In addition, four pieces premiered at the Library will also be made available—by David Bruce, Irving Fine, George Walker and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky. “We are pleased to make these important additions to the classical canon more widely available to new listeners,” said Susan Vita, chief of the Library of Congress Music Division, which oversees the Library’s longstanding program of musical commissions and sponsors the Library’s concert series, which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. “New works keep classical music vital and relevant, and attract new listeners to a genre that has retained its value throughout the centuries and around the world.” “The Library of Congress’s history of commissioning new work is one of the cornerstones of new music in the United States,” said WQXR General Manager Graham Parker. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to bring these top-class, often world-premiere performances to a digital audience via Q2 Music. To capture this music when the ink is still fresh on the scores and share with listeners eager for the newest of the new is really exciting.” The Library’s commissioning of new music grew out of its relationship with Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953), a donor and aficionado of chamber music who provided the funding for the Library’s acoustically famous Coolidge Auditorium and also provided funding for works by world-famous composers that premiered there. In 1925 she established the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation at the Library for the promotion of chamber music through commissions, public concerts and festivals. The Coolidge fund still provides for new commissions. The Library has also been graced by the establishment of several funds for the creation or promotion of music, including the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the McKim Fund, the Dina Koston and Roger Shapiro Fund for New Music, the Kindler Foundation Trust Fund, the Anne Adlum Hull and William Remsen Strickland Fund and others. More works commissioned by the Library of Congress are to be added to the Q2 Music live streaming library and on-demand playlists in coming months. Q2 Music is WQXR’s online music stream dedicated to contemporary classical composers, innovative ensembles, and live webcasts from New York City’s leading new-music venues. Q2 Music, a live 24/7 music stream, including immersive festivals, insightful commentary from hosts and composers, full-length album streams, in-depth interviews with trend-setting artists and special live events at The Greene Space at WQXR. Q2 Music is also available via the free WQXR app. Brooklyn Rider – “the string quartet from Brooklyn that everybody talks about” (Washington Post) – will perform live on A Prairie Home Companion this Saturday, April 25, broadcast from New York’s Town Hall to some four million listeners on more than 600 public radio stations via American Public Media. The group will appear on A Prairie Home Companion alongside iconic host Garrison Keillor and the show’s company of performers, as well as a fellow musical guest, folk trio the Wailin’ Jennys. Few classical groups would fit in to this institution of Americana as well as Brooklyn Rider, which has toured extensively across the country with Grammy Award-winning banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck on behalf of their recent collaborative album, The Impostor. As the Seattle Times pointed out: “Brooklyn Rider … has been called the future of chamber music, with their embrace of new compositions and envelope-pushing collaborations with other global artists.”
The current Brooklyn Rider tour features music from the group’s latest album, Brooklyn Rider Almanac, a collection of new commissions from a variety of composers, each inspired by an artistic muse of relatively recent memory – from Igor Stravinsky to “Godfather of Soul” James Brown, and from Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner to iconic choreographer Mark Morris. The album’s composers are typically best known for their work outside the classical world, in genres ranging from jazz to indie-rock. George Washington university reportedly is cutting its music department by around 50 percent. The explanations they are offering to me seem less than forthcoming, and a little contradictory.
Pianist and professor Jessica Krash, who has been teaching there 28 years, tells the story here. |
AuthorI'm a classical radio announcer, blogger, and musician. Archives
April 2022
Categories |
RSS Feed
