MPR: Music and technology converge in unique piano competition Publish Post
Congrats to all.
Check out the website for the competition. Links to plenty to see and hear (video and audio). You find it here.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
The Man Who Knew Paderewski
It was Paderewski who advised Wladziu Valentino Liberace to bill himself using just his last name. Liberace, a child prodigy and who made his debut with the Chicago Symphony while still a teen, left classical music and became a Vegas icon.
Liberace is also the subject of a new film that's in the works. Nicholas Cage is reported as producing and starring in the film about Liberace's life. Apparently Cage is a big Liberace fan. Cage owns one of Liberace's jackets that he bought at auction.
More about the move can be found here.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Speaking of Modern Music
here's your blog pick of the day. (note site is in Spanish).
Circomper
A production of composers and young musicians in Peru that ranges across a wide range of topics.
Give it a visit. Well worth the time visiting is an experiment that have going with Ligeti's Etude no8 for piano. A collective analysis of the work. You'll find it here.
Circomper
A production of composers and young musicians in Peru that ranges across a wide range of topics.
Give it a visit. Well worth the time visiting is an experiment that have going with Ligeti's Etude no8 for piano. A collective analysis of the work. You'll find it here.
How to Listen to Contemporary Musics
Retroklang points the way to Enrique Blanco remarkable website/blog and thoughts on the mattter.
Link.
Link.
Mauricio Kagel
I'm a huge fan of the composer Mauricio Kagel and so I was excited to see that some (of his many) films are now available online. You'll find them here.
Most tasty is his "Ludwing Van" (An epic meditation on deafness, loudness, musical wallpaper, costumes, and of course Beethoven. ) and "Solo and Duo" (sycho-dramas of musicians, and audiences worst nightmares, a series of absurd scenarios, electric guitar solos on the subway, mannequins hogging bathroom stalls and conductors lost in a melting environment of absolute resistance. )
A remarkable conversation/interview with Kagel can be found here.
Most tasty is his "Ludwing Van" (An epic meditation on deafness, loudness, musical wallpaper, costumes, and of course Beethoven. ) and "Solo and Duo" (sycho-dramas of musicians, and audiences worst nightmares, a series of absurd scenarios, electric guitar solos on the subway, mannequins hogging bathroom stalls and conductors lost in a melting environment of absolute resistance. )
A remarkable conversation/interview with Kagel can be found here.
Looking to Buy A New Piano?
You might find this article in the NYT of interest. This claim caught my eye:
"The only growth in the market has been for grand pianos, of which almost 50,000 were sold last year (including pianos with automatic players), compared with only about 20,000 in 1983."
Why? The article says nothing more about it. But I think it's a point well-worth thinking about. And I'm not sure the answers are necessarily good ones, musically speaking, as concerns the future of the piano.
I sometimes wonder if Robert Palmieri isn't too far from the mark ""We've seen that, as time rolled on, the clavichord faded away, and then the harpsichord. Perhaps in the future, we will attend piano concerts in the same way we attend harpsichord concerts today." Link
"The only growth in the market has been for grand pianos, of which almost 50,000 were sold last year (including pianos with automatic players), compared with only about 20,000 in 1983."
Why? The article says nothing more about it. But I think it's a point well-worth thinking about. And I'm not sure the answers are necessarily good ones, musically speaking, as concerns the future of the piano.
I sometimes wonder if Robert Palmieri isn't too far from the mark ""We've seen that, as time rolled on, the clavichord faded away, and then the harpsichord. Perhaps in the future, we will attend piano concerts in the same way we attend harpsichord concerts today." Link
The Piano Tuner
An interesting interview with Franz Mohr is online and worth checking out. As Steinway's chief piano technician, Mohr tuned pianos for Rubinstein, Horowitz, and Gould. You can find here.
Beethoven's “Hammerklavier.”
MacEvoy-McCullough
Write up of Ryan MacEvoy-McCullough, the 19 year old who took 2nd prize at the recently completed World Piano Piano competition.
Details.
Details.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
thanks !
A note of thanks to David Mattison for his kind mention of this humble little blog in his article "Music to Soothe the Savage Searcher: Classical Music Databases and Web Resources". Check it out! The article is a treasure trove of online resources for music lovers. Some familiar. Some new. You'll find it here.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Book Note
Summer reading. I'm not sure of the why-and-what for the popular association between reading and summer. Vacation. Leisure. Perhaps that's it.
But if you're a piano lover and looking to do some reading, you might give consideration to James Barron's "Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand" out just this month. Here's the amazon.com link .
Until then, there's always Ms. Marple.
Or The Piano Man in Love comic series.
But if you're a piano lover and looking to do some reading, you might give consideration to James Barron's "Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand" out just this month. Here's the amazon.com link .
Until then, there's always Ms. Marple.
Or The Piano Man in Love comic series.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Website of the Day
Take a cyber trip over "musikethos.org" and enjoy the wide range of classical music they've put online for your enjoyment.
Link.
Link.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Easy on the Fingers
The BCMI-Piano. BCMI stands for "Brain-Computer Music Interface"
You can see it in action here:
You can see it in action here:
John Cage Times Any Number Equals
A new work by composer/artist David Cunnigham. A different sort of take on Cage's 4'33.
" A piano sits in the middle of an empty gallery. All the sound in the room is amplified and the sound passed through loudspeakers which resonate over the piano strings which vibrate into the room in a continuous cyclical process." What makes it intersting, at least for me, is the aspect of the "instrument" responding to the environments and the "audience.
Check it out here.
and for the record.. I'm still looking forward to "retroklang"'s post on Cage's mythical work.
" A piano sits in the middle of an empty gallery. All the sound in the room is amplified and the sound passed through loudspeakers which resonate over the piano strings which vibrate into the room in a continuous cyclical process." What makes it intersting, at least for me, is the aspect of the "instrument" responding to the environments and the "audience.
Check it out here.
and for the record.. I'm still looking forward to "retroklang"'s post on Cage's mythical work.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Name that Tune
A classical music search engine that's designed to identify a melody. Using an on-screen keyboard and your mouse, you input snip of melody, and then enter "search". Seems simple enough. Give it a go. Link
Tech Support
Does your computer randomly play classical music?
It could be a sign of serious problems. Just ask Microsoft.
It could be a sign of serious problems. Just ask Microsoft.
web widget of the day
Check out the Grotrian piano website (they make one of the most beautiful sounding instruments), follow the link "game". It's well worth at least five minutes of your day. They call it the "pianolina" and you manipulate the sounds. Check it out here.
Monday, July 10, 2006
World Piano Competition
The grandly titled "world piano competition" has announced the winners. Details here.
Noteworthy is second prize winner "Ryan MacEvoy McCullough 19, who attends Humboldt State University in California." Details and more. You can find out more about this promising pianist via the "From the Top" website, including audio clips. Find it here.
Humboldt State seems pretty far off the beaten path, but they do have a pretty snappy webpage for the piano program.
Congratulations to all !
Noteworthy is second prize winner "Ryan MacEvoy McCullough 19, who attends Humboldt State University in California." Details and more. You can find out more about this promising pianist via the "From the Top" website, including audio clips. Find it here.
Humboldt State seems pretty far off the beaten path, but they do have a pretty snappy webpage for the piano program.
Congratulations to all !
Composers Expo
If you've a fancy for film music then you might find the Turner Classics' "Composer Expo" your slice of goodness.
The event is described as a: "12-hour symposium of seminars, panel discussions, networking and learning opportunities will bring together the best and brightest composers, music supervisors and other industry professionals." Link.
The event is described as a: "12-hour symposium of seminars, panel discussions, networking and learning opportunities will bring together the best and brightest composers, music supervisors and other industry professionals." Link.
Some Things
Just need no further comment:
""I really needed to soul search and put myself in Billy Joel's shoes," he said in an interview from Indianapolis."
Link
""I really needed to soul search and put myself in Billy Joel's shoes," he said in an interview from Indianapolis."
Link