I’ve been enjoying this 8-hour Classical Christmas themed playlist on Spotify. While it’s not all actually Christmas music, it’s all festive and quite enjoyable, with good performances selected. For the contemporary listeners in you – enjoy Crumb’s “A Little Suite for Christmas A.D. 1979″, complete with score. Check out the other videos on this user’s channel for an incredible selection of recordings paired with scores.
Video
19
Dec 11
Classical Christmas on Spotify & YouTube
2
Oct 11
Hilliard Ensemble + overtone singing
Thanks to Ken Ueno, you can hear a beautiful combination of a few of my favorite things! (So they’re not Tuvan. But it’s still pretty fun!)
27
Jun 11
ELISION Ensemble
I’ve just stumbled across the Vimeo page of Daryl Buckley, guitarist and artistic director of ELISION Ensemble, and among the many treasures to be found there, recommend this recent Liza Lim piece. I had the pleasure of singing the US Premiere of her piece Chang-O and love the timbral detail in her music.
Songs Found in Dream Liza Lim (2005) performed by ELISION ensemble from Daryl Buckley on Vimeo.
13
Jun 11
Aperghis
If you’re not knowing him, I’m here to let you know. Georges Aperghis has developed one of the most distinct styles of vocal writing of any composer, and is rather prolific to boot! Check out his website and blog, do some listening at UbuWeb to his famous Recitations and see below for several YouTube clips of his Machinations.
16
May 11
Non-classical voices
Despite the fact that we work mostly with the voice in its classically trained sense, I still have a deep appreciation and love for many non-classical voices. If you don’t know the following, get to know them.
Alfred G. Karnes, preacher and gospel singer;
Mike Patton, erstwhile frontman of Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, collaborator with Zorn;
Tom Waits, singer/songwriter with the most expressive chronic laryngitis you’ll ever hear;
Demetrio Stratos, Greek prog-rocker, researcher, and experimentalist;
and Roy Hart, South African actor who was the star student of avant-garde teacher Alfred Wolfsohn and for whom Eight Songs for a Mad King was written.
8
May 11
Invisible Cities preview
You’ve got to make it out this weekend to our staged debut with Red Light New Music in Chris Cerrone’s Invisible Cities at the Italian Academy! Preview below.
18
Apr 11
Martin Iddon
I’d like to direct you to listen to some more music by Martin Iddon, the composer of an incredible piece we commissioned earlier this year, hamadryads. Below is an excerpt of his string quartet Mohl ip, as performed by the Kairos Quartett. You can find the score to both the string quartet and the ekmeles commission at this site.
14
Mar 11
Avant Music Festival Wrap-up
We were so glad to be a part of the 2011 Avant Music Festival, and now you can see photos and videos from all the performances at their website. Take a minute to remember the great moments you loved if you were there; if you weren’t there, take a minute to see why you should come to the 2012 AMF! We’ll be premiering a new piece by curator Randy Gibson.
7
Feb 11
Remembering Milton Babbitt
Do yourself a favor: take the time to watch this new Babbitt documentary via NPR.
Read this remembrance of Babbitt by fabulous soprano Judith Bettina.
Read this remembrance of Babbitt by fabulous composer David Rakowski.
Read the lovely comments from a number of students and friends on this Sequenza21 post.
And then go listen to (or better yet, play) some of the man’s fabulous music. And if you’re in New York City, don’t miss Lucy Shelton performing Philomel on March 2nd at the Italian Academy at Columbia!