A Speakeasy of the Mind

Zombie Survival Guide

Eternal Youth

Significance
There are end of decade lists, really? This decade will not end until the end of next year – January 1, 2000 was a great excuse to party and to feel paranoid about some of the strangest things, but, people, the year 2000 was just that, the final year of the previous millennium. Is counting that hard? It’s unfortunate to see that NPR has a problem with counting as well, they think 2009 is the end of this decade. Okay, well, their entitled to their ow

Coherence
“You might believe these things you say!” Generally, one hopes people mean what they say, but there are certain times when generous thinking would mean hoping that people don’t necessarily do so. Take Matt Friedberger, of the Fiery Furnaces. It’s one thing to confuse Harry Partch with Harry Patch, and when I first saw the news about the new Radiohead so

Music, Every Day
No fancy preamble, just a collection of reviews of new and newish music, from classical to jazz, between and beyond: New Bach Bach wrote dance music. His great solo works for violin and cello are made up of different and very specific type of dances, not in the concert sense that is familiar to us but in the sense that groups of people, often in couples, danced to these different beats and rhythms in specific steps. The history of Western Classical music is the history of developing abstraction, but during the 17th Century music was still connected economically and socially to the gathering of people to dine, drink and dance. The differences wi

Institutionalized
A recent rant by classical music gossip Norman Lebrecht makes me wonder just what all his fuss is about. A complaint that the Metropolitan Opera does not produce the most cutting edge work is both absolutely correct and absolutely meaningless. The Met is dedicated to the entire tradition of opera and is already demonstrating that under Peter Gelb’s direction they understand that tradition includes contemporary works as well (an article of mine in the upcoming issue of

I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On
Galina Ustvolskaya is, in her small and unique way, one of the most mysterious and compelling composers of the 20th century, differentiated even from the likes of Harry Partch, Giacinto Scelsi and Karlheinz Stockhausen. We know little of depth about her life, and what we do know, and possibly could know, offers no insight into or explanation of her music, which stands on its own. Last Saturday at Miller Theater, Chicago’s Fifth House Ensemble presented the latest Composer Portraits concert, dedicated to her