This is my old website. I’m working on a new one. This one serves largely as an archive of some of my writing, from the old days when I worked mainly as a music critic. There’s also a far more up to date page on my composing.
These days, as I think most people who know me know, I work on projects involving the future of classical music. The most public of these is my blog, which right now is the main place to go for current updates on what I’m doing.
But then there’s also my book Rebirth: The Future of Classical Music, which I’m riffing online in installments. Follow the link to find everything I’ve done so far. When new installments come out, they’re linked on my blog. And you can also subscribe to the book, to get new installments by email. Just email me, and put “subscribe” in the subject line, and I’ll put you on the list. There’s no obligation, the list is completely private, and you can opt out at any time.
Among my projects these days:
I’m artist in residence at the University of Maryland, working with students at the music school to help them create an audience their own age. My partners in this include prominent faculty members and the staff of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
I teach a graduate course each spring at Juilliard, on the future of classical music. Plus one in the fall on music criticism.
I regularly speak about the future of classical music, or serve as a consultant. Recent and current gigs:
two talks in Chicago, one sponsored by the city cultural affairs department, the other by the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago
three days at the Yale School of Music, speaking to students and meeting with members of the faculty and administration
a talk to music staff members from public radio stations, who were meeting at a conference in New York
a talk on the future of classical music at the International Music Council’s annual music forum, held this past fall in Tunisia
upcoming:
a trip to Australia, to give an address at a classical music summit in Sydney (an Australia-wide discussion of classical music’s future), plus radio appearances and talks with classical music and arts professionals in both Sydney and Melbourne
a trip to the Netherlands, to give a keynote address at a conference on the future of orchestras
I’ve given commencement addresses at both the Eastman School of Music and the Longy School of Music, and with my wife Anne Midgette, chief classical music critic at the Washington Post, I’ve been in residence at the music schools at Bowling Green State University and Florida State.
The navigation for my writing archive needs work, to say the least. But here are some highlights from it, as I posted them more than a year ago:
From Symphony magazine, a piece about new music -- and why, in the mainstream classical world, it's a far worse problem than we think.
Some time ago, I was on John Schaefer's terrific "Soundcheck" program on WNYC. I talked about the new music audience, and suggested "alt-classical" as a new name that might get new classical music more attention -- and attention, let's note, from people who might actually like it. (See my column in NewMusicBox, below.)
Recent things in my life…three days at the Orchestra Forum, a twice-a-year retreat for 15 orchestras involved in a long-term funding program…the first of three concerts with the Pittsburgh Symphony, on a series for a new, younger audience. I've worked with the orchestra to conceive and program these events, which I then host. The first one happened on October 23, and you can read about it on my blog…and a talk at Eastman, about the future of classical music. Plus a new Wall Street Journal piece, on Bang on a Can's terrific show at BAM.
A column from the fine NewMusicBox webzine, about why we need a new name for new classical music -- something that speaks to people who don't like mainstream classical concerts. Fine, you don't like orchestras in tails playing Beethoven. But you'll like this! My suggestion: "alternative classical."
I've added more of my past columns on the page where I'll eventually link to all of them. I wrote these columns for more than three years, and to judge from the response I got, they seemed to be widely read, at least in the music business. One highlight is my August 2001 entry, Kitschometer," which won an ASCAP Deems Taylor award, given to the best music writing of the year. Unfortunately, NewMusicBox was short of funds, and can't pay me to write this column any more.
On September 21, 2003, the Fine Arts Quartet played the string quartet I wrote for my wife's birthday. This happened in Milwaukee, at the Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts, a gorgeous concert hall with luscious sound. The performance made me very happy, and the Fine Arts went on to play the piece three more times. You can hear one of their performances here.
An important piece about the classical music audience, from Symphony magazine, the publication of the American Symphony Orchestra League. Why does the classical music world make the audience so passive? This isn't good business, good art, or good manners.
And from a fine website on rock criticism, some comments on classical music critics. Here I join Anthony Tommasini and my wife Anne Midgette, of The New York Times; Lloyd Schwarz of The Boston Phoenix; and Kyle Gann of The Village Voice. It's an interesting and sometimes provocative symposium.
From The Wall Street Journal: that famous, vexed merger, in which the New York Phlharmonic leaves Lincoln Center, and joins with Carnegie Hall. Why do Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonic talk so differently about why they're going to merge? Why do Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic dislike each other so much? And why can't Lincoln Center's constituents cooperate more? [Outdated, of course, by later developments -- the merger never took place.]
And also from the Journal: René Jacobs's wild opera recordings (the new one is the most exciting music I've heard for quite a while). Plus Daniel Barenboim's supreme self-assurance, and a fabulous concert for teens.
The first act of my Frankenstein was performed a while ago at the New York City Opera's VOX showcase. Find out more...hear excerpts, or the entire act…read the libretto…hear the rest of the opera.
Other updates…my Wall Street Journal review of Christopher O'Riley, a fine classical pianist who played an entire recital of Radiohead songs, and (at least in my view) turned them into blank romanticism. And a piece about conductors, as they're shown in two wonderful but frustrating videos.
Other Journal pieces (or look at all my Journal writing):
· Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasión Según San Marco. A very nice piece of music, but hardly the new millennium in music some people seem to think it is. (Golijov, by the way, said in a recent public appearance that he liked this review better than some that had praised him much more.}
· Matt Haimovitz at CBGB, a cellist playing at a rock club, a somewhat bungled attempt to do something good
· Glenn Gould, and Sony's wonderful reissue of Gould's two recordings of the Goldberg Variations -- a marketing coup as well as a musical triumph. Also a bargain, and, for people who'd like to get into classical music, the ideal first classical CD. (I've added audio excerpts from the two versions, so you can compare them yourself.)
· Dinner music at restaurants: what it ought to be, and why restaurants should ask composers to write some.
· Vivendi, the unfortunate, failed media conglomerate. Nobody much mourns its fall, but what will happen to the classical record labels that are part of its tottering empire?
· Lorin Maazel's debut as music director of the New York Philharmonic. Although his first performances were pretty cold, he just might be more unpredictable than some people think.
· Kurt Masur's troubled tenure at the New York Philharmonic, on the occasion of his final subscription concerts as music director.
· WNYC, New York's public radio station, and why -- in spite of desperate outcries from the classical music world -- it didn't really betray classical music when it cut back on its classical broadcasts.
A Wall Street Journal review of Billy Joel's classical album, which is better than I thought it might be. But why can't he write classical pieces as tough-minded as his pop stuff?
Again from the Journal, a piece about James Levine and the Boston Symphony. Why does Levine's reputation for orchestra-building particularly suit him for his new job? (If you've browsed this site, you probably know the answer already! Or you can read my thoughts on Seiji Ozawa.)
Meesun Hong, one of the graduate students in my Juilliard course "Classical Music in an Age of Pop," made her very strong violin recital (Prokofiev, Bach, Schnittke) wonderfully human, with two things I've never seen before. First, she gave out a "thank-you" list of acknowledgements, something routine for novelists, filmmakers, and pop stars, but not yet for classical musicians. Second, and best of all, she incited her audience to react:
"Please feel free to whoop, holler, applaud, say "Amen Hallelujah'' or "Bravo" or "Aah.." or even "Boo" or "Hiss" or "Yuck" (I can take it—anyway, a response is better than no response), or whatever tickles your fancy, after pieces, between movements, during movements, and/or whenever you feel like responding. PLEASE! Respond! Interaction is absolutely encouraged! Drop all the uppity associations you may have with classical music concert etiquette and have fun. This is supposed to be fun, right?"
Meesun says her teacher loved this -- which is important when a student tries something new. Her audience didn't whoop or scream as much as they might have…but what a wonderful beginning! If anyone knows of anyone else who's suggested anything like this at a classical concert, I'd love to hear about it, and I'm sure Meesun would, too. (Thanks, Mees, for letting me post this!)
On a related note, I'm happy to say that my class-by-class account of this course has been printed -- at nearly full length -- in the new issue of the Journal of Popular Music Studies (Volume 9-10, 1997-1998), published by the U.S. branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. This is a special double issue, which concentrates on teaching, and you'll find numerous course descriptions in it. I'm proud to be involved. Credit this website, which brought my course to the editor's attention.
That class-by-class description shows how I taught the course two years ago. You can also read this year's course overview, and the class schedule and list of assignments. Plus, of course, the overview and assignments for the "Music Criticism" course I teach in the fall.
More Wall Street Journal pieces:
Why I love Webern (with audio examples)…Why John Cage and Stockhausen seem newer than most of the music being composed right now…Christa Ludwig's master class; why can't anyone sing lieder any more?…How major orchestras pick music directors (plus a review of two candidates at the New York Philharmonic)…Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Yuri Temirkanov, and the courageous politics of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony.
Liner notes for Caught by the Sky, a wonderful recording by Maya Beiser and Steven Schick, on the OO Discs label. I wrote these about a year ago, and defined what I think contemporary art music really is. It doesn't have much to do with the concert hall.
A none-too-favorable review of a 21-CD retrospective of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, a baritone so famous that, when I was young, many people (and I was one of them) hadn't ever heard anyone else sing German lieder.
From my archives: The Secret of the Silver Ticket, written for the Village Voice in 1986, and still one of the most far-reaching pieces I've ever done about the state of classical music. Can we look at the ceremony of a classical concert, and discover what the music means to us? (One of the assignments for this semester's Juilliard course.)
Also from my archives: A 1980 review of a Morton Feldman string quartet:
"The players pick, poke, and peck their instruments, making tiny, scant, repeated squicks and squecks, gestures so vague that at times they might he little more than the rustling of dead leaves. Single chords are repeated ten, twelve, fifteen times.…The seconds, minutes, quarters of a hour pass: the niggling sounds grow dull, then tiring, then annoying; finally by persistence alone they begin to draw blood."
And a discussion of John Cage performances, with comments on how Cage should be played:
"With performances like these as the standard, you can see from the lesser ones how radical Cage’s music is, and how pitiless. Musicians are always themselves when they perform Cage, which means that they’re always performing Cage no matter what else they may be playing; we’re always immersed in the current, whether we know it or not. Without a classical or even a contemporary score to hide behind, the song a Cage performer always sings is joyfully but mercilessly exposed."
My remarks on a panel at the American Symphony Orchestra League's convention this past spring. Can new works ever become a normal part of classical music. Only if the classical music world stops thinking it has to like them!
Features:
My Rach 3 Comparisons (you can hear six pianists play the same passage from Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto).
Plus my consumer guide to Rach 3 recordings, as published in the Village Voice, and my defense of the concerto, written for the Los Angeles Times.
The Boston Symphony fracas:
· my original review (a severe criticism of Seiji Ozawa, and how the orchestra plays under him)
· the piece in the Boston Globe about it
· letters I and the Wall Street Journal have received
· near-hysterical attacks on me in the Globe, and my letter in response
· Lloyd Schwartz of the Boston Phoenix defending me, while offering (in two reviews) his own unhappy thoughts about Seiji Ozawa
· and finally my last two mentions in the Globe, one of which was truly delicious. Bernard Holland, chief music critic of the New York Times, wrote a dubious review of a Boston Symphony concert in New York, and the Globe did an item on it, citing my own critiquue.
From the New York Times…is there a distinct audience for contemporary classical music? And if there is, how can the music world reach it?
My article for Symphony magazine, the publication of the American Symphony Orchestra League, on why classical composers don't sound more like rock & roll.
The Classical Color Line …on African-Americans in classical music, with transcripts of in-depth interviews.
Also from the Los Angeles Times: An appreciation of the wonderful composer Gorecki (there's much more there than just the Third Symphony), and an amused look at the Russian National Orchestra, featuring the CEO of Aetna, who says there's not an altruistic bone in his body -- and including
a picture of me with Sophia Loren!
A Meredith Monk anthology: my contribution to a recent book about her …an essay on her music…and a review of one of her theater pieces.
Three radio commentaries, broadcast several times on New York's public radio station, WNYC, late in 1997.
A Fine Madness…Milton Babbitt is supposed to be a respectable academic, but the truth about this pioneer of serial music -- a great composer, by the way -- is that in many ways he's crazy.
Behind the Tuxedo Curtain…About new ways to market classical music and how the New York Philharmonic just doesn't get it.
My panel in Cleveland…I chaired a discussion of classical music and rock, sponsored jointly by the Cleveland Orchestra and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
More writing:
On the future of classical music:
Why Classical Music Needs Rock & Roll…Beethoven Howls…The Shock of Contemporary Opera…Liner Notes for Schubert's Trout Quintet (a new way to write them).
Other classical (or more or less classical) subjects:
Cage Speaks Faster When the Street Gets Noisy…A Biography of Henry Threadgill
Pop music:
Rocking Chair's Got 'Re, James B (why Aretha Franklin doesn't have hits any more)…plus an appalled look at Barbra Streisand's Back to Broadway ("She reaches heights of self-involvement that, maybe luckily, no other singer may have ever attained.")…and my review of John Mellencamp's 1989 album Big Daddy. Some of my best writing, I think -- with some friendly thoughts on the redeeming power of rock & roll.
And, for classical music beginners (lively pieces, unpredictable, completely accessible, but with more about the inner depth of classical music than you'll find in most introductory writing):
updated 6/24/2010