Archive for the ‘New Music’ Category
Women’s History Month in the evenings
(As with last month, I won’t be expressing much of my opinion on the merits of programming music by women here, but I am happy to discuss it with you privately via email. In short, I am very much for it.) Last month, and a little bit late, at that, I made a post with […]
New (and old) opera comes to Bel Cantanti
Bel Cantanti Opera presents the world premiere of Frances Pollock and Robert Misbin’s Briscula the Magician, based on Thomas Mann’s novella Mario and the Magician, at the Randolph Road Theater in Silver Spring from March 3rd to the 15th on Saturdays and Sundays. The opera features many quotes of opera from the 19th century, and […]
IN Series brings their Carmen to Baltimore, and much more!
Tim Nelson of IN Series stopped by to talk about their new take on Bizet’s classic, Le Cabaret de Carmen, as well as exciting new things happening for the company and opera in Baltimore.
Black History Month, as I’ve programmed
A running list of each of the 25 different black composers I’ll be programming this Black History Month.
When Classical Met (and could meet) Pop
Some of the most well-known forms of composition in classical music are of dance music from the pieces’ time. A Bach suite (which he wrote very many of), for example, would contain dances such as an allemande (a French German-style dance), a courante (a triple meter dance often following an allemande in a Baroque suite), […]
The Hopkins Symphony performs unexpectedly tonal works
Jordan Randall Smith, Hopkins Concert Orchestra Music Director and who will be guest conducting the Hopkins Symphony this Saturday at 7:30, came by to have a chat about how the works on the program (Sibelius’s 7th symphony, Prokofiev’s 3rd piano concerto, and a new work by Shelley Washington) are all from times that people don’t […]
First Impression: The Busiest Month of a Musician’s Year
Happy December, everyone! If you are a professional musician, this means you (hopefully) have lots of holiday-related work to do this month. This also means that a lot of the music going on is of the traditional variety, in the holiday spirit, but there is still new music to be heard this month, and there […]
Interview: Kirke Mechem
Kirke Mechem is in town this week to see the staged premiere of his new opera Pride and Prejudice, of course based on the Jane Austen classic. I had a talk with him about how he thinks as a composer.
First Impression: November is apparently New Music Month
Man, is there a lot going on this month. I’m sure not complaining. Let’s get to it! OCCASIONAL SYMPHONY HALLOWEEN SHOW This is tonight at 7:30, which is why I’m posting it a day early (and you may bump into some WBJC folks there!); Occasional Symphony presents a live scoring of the 1920 silent film […]
First Impression: Improvising and Composing
As part of last month’s annual High Zero Festival, a series of performances of improvised music, I attended a talk on improvisation itself. Discussions were had about how improvisation played a role in the panel’s music, whether it was composed or performed. Thinking about how improvisation plays a role in composition, there have been in […]
