Music outside the box

Living in Boston puts me in the middle of a vibrant stew of music. The greater Boston area has more music venues, more musicians, more music schools than any place else in the world. (I made that up, but it could be true. It certainly feels like it.)

What this shows me about music being made by working musicians is that it defies categories. A great example of this was a concert at Ryles Jazz Club the other evening by the Ludovica String Quartet. The leader, Ludovica Burtone, is an accomplished Italian classical violinist who came here to Berklee to study jazz composition. (Just that combination is an example of this stew I’m talking about.)

The competition for slots in venues like Ryles guarantees high caliber performance, but nothing guarantees magic. For that you have to be lucky. I was lucky that evening.

Or maybe skillful. I was there for a reason. I’d heard the LSQ before and knew what to expect. Burtone’s aggressive mix of tango, jazz, Italian folk song, and her own compositions gave me what I’d come for. Each piece satisfied in a different way, then everything came together in Blazing Sun, a piece Burtone wrote while a student at Berklee, that pours all her influences into deep jazz in 7/4 time. And 3/4. And 4/4. LSQ’s music doesn’t stay still.

Look for them. Then listen. You’ll thank me.

New music thrives

A few clicks around this blog will tell you I’m nuts about new music. I’m fortunate to have a cousin, Elisabeth Halliday, in the thick of it. She introduces me to stuff I might never hear otherwise. She is a soprano, and she sings with Rhymes with Opera, a chamber opera company dedicated to performing experimental vocal music. (RwO is two sopranos, a baritone, and two composers–how cool is it for an opera company to have its own composers? Two of them!)

Aldo Clementi – my new favorite

During the last two or three weeks I’ve submerged myself in the music of Morton Feldman, music so simple and sere that I found it hard to listen to anything else. Old MacDonald was too melodically complex, forget Mozart.

Then I stopped by one of my favorite blogs–Tim Rutherford-Johnson’s The Rambler (linked in my blog list to the right, but until now, with a bad URL – sorry). There I read, “It really feels like we’re coming to the end, Aldo Clementi, the last of that extraordinary generation of post-war Italian composers . . . has died at the age of 86.” I’m embarrassed to say, I’d never heard of him.

The Epicenter of Culture

I apologize in advance for this. It’s one of the posts you probably should skip. It has nothing to do with music and is only here because I want to say it and I have a blog so nyah, nyah, nyah, I get to say it. It smacks of language policing. It’s probably not nearly as amusing as I think it is. And on top of that, it happened because I was reading about the tragic earthquake in New Zealand, so it’s slightly callous as well.

Morton Feldman – the essence

I’ve been gestating a piece about the greatest composer of the Twentieth Century for over a month. I’m still not halfway to understanding what I want to say about him. Since I have to post something to meet my commitment to keep this blog active, I’ve decided to give you some samples of the music I’m thinking about.

Tōru Takemitsu

I find it very hard to define or characterize the work of the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. I spent a long time reading descriptions of it from all over the web trying to find something that fit the music I know that I could share with you here . Then I realized — d’oh! — I don’t need a description. I’ve got the music.

Here’s a taste:

(That was the opening of Notalghia, performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra directed by Hiroyuki Iwaki, Michael Dauth solo violin)

Bach in the background

Even the newest convert to classical music  is likely to agree: Bach rules!

Right now I have the Goldberg Variations on in the background. I feel a little guilty using such great music as the accompaniment to my life, but I often pause and notice particular phrases, stop for a minute and listen to a passage.

Nonetheless, I wish I spent more time actually listening. I regularly resolve to do that (and then forget). But this post gives me an excuse to pay attention right now. And you can do it with me.

The unlikeliness of buses

This is another of those things that I feel compelled to write just because I have a blog. It has nothing to do with music. You should probably ignore it.

Rich, complex, and beautiful — Lamma Bada

Rich, complex, and beautiful — could describe someone to fall in love with. But I’m talking about an Arabic song, sometimes rendered in English as Lamma Bada Yatathanna, an ancient muwashshah, a genre of secular music from Al Andalus, Moorish Spain, which means it’s from some time before 1492 – that’s half a millennium ago!

Why DO we hate modern classical music, Alex Ross?

Alex Ross’s blog is the first  in my list of links over there on the right. That’s because Alex Ross is a god. I never miss his writing in the New Yorker. I’m in the middle of reading his wonderful book The Rest is Noise. I can’t wait to start his next one, Listen To This.

But even Bach nods. And Alex (you’ll never read this so I’ll presume on our slender web relationship and call you by your given name) you’ve taken a nap on this one.