artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

Daniel Pinkham Some special music had its premiere at Harvard University (in Cambridge, Massachusetts) on today's date in 1980. It was commissioned to honor the memory of Walter Piston, who had taught composition at Harvard for a number of years, and it was one of his students, the American harpsichordist and organist Daniel Pinkham, who composed it.

Pinkham had exceptional teachers. He studied harpsichord with Wanda Landowska, organ with E. Power Biggs and, in addition to Piston, Pinkham studied composition with Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Arthur Honegger.

But Pinkham credits another familiar name for his most important musical epiphany.

In 1939, while still a teenager, Pinkham heard one of the first American concerts given by the Trapp Family, whose sentimentalized story is familiar from "The Sound of Music." The Trapp Family's usual ensemble, which combined Renaissance and Baroque instruments like recorders and gambas with the bright and clear voices of young children, spoke to the young Pinkham as no music had before, becoming "a part of my way of looking at things," as he put it later.

Since then, Pinkham has composed everything from symphonies to electronic music. His choral and organ works are especially admired, and in 1990, he was named "Composer of the Year" by the American Guild of Organists.

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

As she recently told Vulture, her intent isn’t to create separation. She just wants people to wake up.

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

Some 2,300 or so years ago, the great spiritual master Patanjali offered the kind of advice that spoke to me back in 1977. He said, “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds, your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world.”

So, when we step back and examine our limiting belief, we can recognize that nothing can stand in our way of our goals and dreams but us. By remembering that fear is the acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real, we can step past it and become who and what we want to be. The components of anxiety, stress, fear, and anger do not exist independently of you in the world. They simply do not exist in the physical world, even though we talk about them as if they do. Embrace faith and fear will withdraw from our lives.

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.” - William Allen White

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.” - Helen Keller

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.” - Gandhi

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

Sunday, February 26

Symphonies by Bizet and Harris Two interesting symphonies had their premieres on today's date just eight years apart. Oddly enough, they were composed nearly ninety years apart.

The first was the Symphony in C by George Bizet, written in 1855 when the composer was only 17. It was mislaid in his papers, ignored by Bizet himself as a naive youthful exercise, and not revived until 1935. It was performed for the first time on the 26th of February that year in Basel, Switzerland under the baton of Felix Weingartner, who found a copy of the score that had been kept in the Paris Conservatory.

The other work that premiered today was the Fifth Symphony of the American composer Roy Harris. It was written in 1942, during the Second World War, and was reportedly inspired by reports of heroic resistance by the Soviet Union to the Nazi invasion. Harris dedicated this symphony to the Red Army in honor of its 25th anniversary.

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

"Basics" by Koussevitzky and Meyer The double bass is the largest and certainly the most-unwieldy of all stringed instruments, designed to provide the lowest notes of any ensemble. Even so, occasionally the double bass gets a chance to shine as a solo instrument.

On today's date in 1905, a double-bass Concerto received its premiere performance in Moscow, with its composer Serge Kousevitzky as the soloist. Truth be told, Kousevitzky is much more famous as a conductor and musical patron than as a composer, and Kousevitzky's compatriot, the Russian composer Reinhold Gliere, helped arrange and score Kouzevitzky's Concerto, which many suggest sounds suspiciously like concertos for other instruments by Tchaikovsky and Dvorák. Be that as it may, Koussevitzky's concerto remains the most famous of all double-bass concertos, but that situation may change...

The American composer and double-bassist Edgar Meyer has already composed several concertos and chamber works for his instrument. In 1993, Meyer premiered his Bass Concerto in 1993 with Edo de Waart and the Minnesota Orchestra, and in 1995 he gave the first performance of this music, his Quintet for Bass and String Quartet, with the Emerson String Quartet.

The work of composer AND performer Edgar Meyer can also be sampled on the best-selling Sony Classical disc titled "Appalachian Waltz," a collaboration with fiddler Mark O'Connor and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

Thursday, February 23

Deems Taylor and David Del Tredici in Wonderland In February of 1919, members of the New York Chamber Music Society gave the premiere performance of this music-an instrumental suite by the American composer Deems Taylor, titled "Through the Looking Glass." A few years later, Deems Taylor landed a job as music critic for the New York World, and following that, became known coast-to-coast as the radio commentator for New York Philharmonic broadcasts, and as the host of a popular quiz-show titled "Information, Please." His voice was also heard as the commentator for the 1940 Disney film, "Fantasia."

On today's date in 1980, another American composer premiered a musical work inspired by "Alice in Wonderland." This was David Del Tredici's "In Memory of a Summer's Day," first presented by the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin. By 1980, Del Tredici had already composed several successful works inspired by the Lewis Carroll books, but "In Memory of Summer's Day" capped the lot, and won that year's Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Del Tredici was a protégé of Aaron Copland, and recalled how Copland would react to Del Tredici's compositions. "He'd say something noncommittal at first, such as 'It's very nice.' Then maybe an hour or so later, at dinner, he would turn to me, apropos of nothing, and say, 'I think the bass line is too regular, and the percussion should not always underline the main beat and would you please pass the butter.'"

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

Wednesday, February 22

Bernstein conducts Ives On today's date in 1951, Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere performance of the Symphony No. 2 by Charles Ives. Ives was then 76 and living in Connecticut. Heart disease and diabetes left him far too weak to attend the Carnegie Hall premiere. Nicholas Slonimsky recalls once asking the thin and pale Ives how he was feeling, to which Ives replied he felt so weak that (quote): "I can't even spit into the fireplace."

Ives didn't own a radio, so he visited his neighbors, the Ryders, to hear Bernstein conduct the Sunday afternoon broadcast performance of music he had composed some 50 years earlier.

"There's not much to say about the Symphony," Ives said at the time. "I express the musical feelings of the Connecticut country in the 1890's. It's full of the tunes they sang and played then, and I thought it would be a sort of a joke to have some of these tunes in counterpoint with some Bach-like tunes."

Ives' neighbor, Mrs. Ryder, recalled how he reacted to the radio broadcast: "Mr. Ives sat in the front room and listened as quietly as could be, and I sat way back behind him, because I didn't want him to think I was looking at him. After it was over, I'm sure he was very much moved. He stood up, walked over the fireplace, and spat! And then he walked out into the kitchen and said not a word."

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

Happy Valentines Day!

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

If you’ve longed for relief from what feels like a never-ending deluge of political commentary, do not look to New York Fashion Week for comfort in escapism. Unsurprisingly, this year’s event is of no exception, having been the most politically-charged fashion week in recent history. Everyone from emerging designers to industry stalwarts have participated in their own versions of political activism, featuring slogan t-shirts on runways and providing Planned Parenthood support pins to show-goers.

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

At Friday’s MusiCares Person of the Year gala, music’s elite dug deep into the Tom Petty catalog to honor the 66-year-old rock legend and three-time Grammy-winner during a nearly three-hour, star-studded Grammy weekend tribute concert. One of the evening’s highlights was Don Henley’s jazzy rendition

[artsandmusiccompositionforu-blog]

Sean, my son rapping his song..