I am nowhere man. If you are here you are indeed nowhere. The music in this collection has nothing in common, other than the fact it comes right out of nowhere.
"His music can be harrowing to listen to," Robert Lwevin said in a recent phone interview. "It shatters and transforms us. Leon gave us self-portraits without any mercy to himself. He showed the anguish within and did not flinch from it. The number of composers who are able or willing to do that is not large."
(Yes, the gentleman in the first row with the cane is La Monte Young.)
From Michael Harrison's website, the composer describes the concept of "just intonation" (a system of tuning which is subtly different from the standard equal temperament of modern Western instruments):
“ 'Just intonation,' or 'pure' tuning, is the universal foundation for harmony which is constructed from musical intervals of perfect mathematical proportions. Pythagoras and other ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians discovered that musical harmonies arise from mathematical relationships based on whole numbers. The most consonant harmonies are created when two strings or other musical bodies vibrate in simple musical proportions. For example, the two notes comprising an octave have a 2:1 relationship, where the higher note is vibrating exactly twice as fast as the lower note. A perfect 5th is a 3:2 relationship, a perfect 4th is 4:3, a major 3rd is 5:4, a minor 3rd is 6:5, a “septimal” minor 3rd is 7:6, a whole step is 9:8, and so on. Every different set of whole numbers corresponds to a different set of musical intervals. My music uses many of these simple combinations, as well as more complex relationships such as the “celestial comma,” or extremely minute interval of 64:63, which forms the nucleus of my work Revelation..."
Mr. Harrison makes use of an extensively modified grand piano to realize his compositions.
Krzysztof Penderecki (born November 23, 1933 in Debica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these works exhibit novel compositional techniques. Since the 1970s Penderecki's style has changed to encompass a post-Romantic idiom.
Long Island composer Vincent Russo is representative of a new generation of musicians completely at home in a wide range of musical styles. Russo, like many other composers of new music, doesn't rely on commissions from orchestras or performance ensembles. Instead he works with a variety of like-minded musicians to perform and record his music
Delayed memorial: Chas Smith
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Researching another piece of writing, I discovered today with great sadness
that the American composer and instrument builder Chas Smith died earlier
this ...
Contemporary classical music guide round-up
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Choosing just 50 composers to tell the story of the contemporary classical
music scene has been a rich and rewarding experience, but I'm only too
aware of ...
If You’re Happy and You Know It
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The next time I’m annoyed with the world, I’m going to try and remember to
stop what I’m doing and watch this video. And if I’m still annoyed, I’m
going to...
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