Indeed, Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir. Sending in separate tracks from all over the world, here is the first round of participants singing his piece Sleep:
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is one of my absolute favorite music events in the U.S. every year. The programming is consistently great and engaging, and they're really learning how to open themselves up to the community with each year. You can listen to excerpts from previous programs here, but even better, they have made a number of full recordings from past programs available on Instant Encore here. Have fun!
"Music moves, and can be understood just by listening. But a conventional musical score stands still, and can be understood only after years of training. The Music Animation Machine bridges this gap, with a score that moves -- and can be understood just by watching."
This is pretty terrific, master juggler Michael Moschen performing. I love that he uses juggling to drum, the last bit of the routine is especially great:
The British music site Dilettante is hosting a Virtual Composer-In-Residence competition.
The
aim, they say, is to redefine the composer-in-residence for the digital
age. He or she will win a modest prize of £1000, and a year-long
residency on the website, allowing them to engage with web-site members
through a Composer’s Corner blog, a podcast series, online forums, and
masterclasses. It will culminate in 2010 a live event with a
performance of a new work.
You can read the article from which the above quote is excerpted here, and hear music and interviews from the three finalists here. While the Virtual-Composer-in-Residence is a cool idea, especially the interactive elements of the residency, as Stuart and I continued to peruse Dilettante it became clear that the site, despite its revolutionary claims, still exists squarely within the framework of the "classical music world," as evinced by the preponderance of content generated by the marketing departments of large, traditional institutions like orchestras, artist management firms, and record labels (Lorin Maazel's "blog" for example).
Greetings everyone! It's great to be here and I look forward to regular contributions to the greatness that is the Loose Filter Project. Much thanks to Stu and Dustin for the invitation. Feel free to reach me via twitter (millerasbill) or via email.
In starting a new position at Texas Tech University, I've been seeking ways to engage my students in a more significant and meaningful way. Rehearsals go by too quickly and there often isn't time or means to delve deeply into the music itself: compositional techniques employed, critical thinking about the piece itself or the wide ranging musicological connections of a composer or specific piece, etc. These aspects of the music aren't merely academic--understanding these aspects is fundamental for the future performers and educators I'm helping to train.
Though it's not a new documentary, The Merchants of Cool is now available in its entirety, FREE, online from PBS. Resonating well beyond the initial Frontline reportage, PBS has built a terrific site around the ideas and issues presented in the doc--from PBS:
They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They
conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools,
and the malls, hot on the trail of the "next big thing" that will snare the
attention of their prey--a market segment worth an estimated $150 billion a
year.
They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who
have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are
they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those
desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far
in their attempts to reach the hearts--and wallets--of America's youth?
The Score is NYT-hosted blog where"composers discuss their work and the issues involved in creating music in the 21st century. The writers offer an inside look at this large and continually evolving branch of American culture, in which the traditional notion of the "classical" continues to be reconsidered, revised, rejected and reimagined."
In addition to reading some very cool composers' thoughts on their music and the music of others (something I love to do), you can also check out some of their work.
Formally, the piece has more in common with Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, in terms of its unusual instrumentation, archipelagic structure and morbidly sacred subject matter. And just as the Quatuor
drew heavily from “world” influences—the irregular rhythms of Indian
talas, Slavic dance melodies, etc.— Bettison’s requiem assembles a
broad range of traditions, all converging on the theme of death and
transcendence, and knits them together as a single distillate.
The essay has sound clips, and is an excellent introduction to this piece. (Of course, we like Oscar's music lots here at LF, if you haven't listened to Dustin's Ear Tease on Bettison, go here.)
The Loose Filter Project went live in March 2007 with a concert at the beautiful State Theater in Modesto, California. The concert featured the incomparable Mason Bates as composer and DJ, the CSU-Stanislaus Scratch Band, and a very enthusiastic crowd. Good times.
On April 4, 2009 the CSUS New Music Ensemble performed at Deva Cafe in downtown Modesto, CA. The concert was a co-production of the Off The Air Productions, CSUS Music Department, and The Loose Filter Project.
