|| default || § ¶The Necks
Here is a trio from Australia that I find fascinating. They are an improvisational group in the crack between jazz and minimalist "downtown" music. They've been around since the late '80's, and have some 11 or so CDs and somewhat of a cult status in Australia. They haven't performed in the US since 2001, and they've never made it to the West Coast. Which is strange, because I think they would have quite a following here. What I like most about their music is their restraint. Unlike most improvisational groups, The Necks hold back and let things happen slowly. Three CDs, Drive By, Aquatic, and Aether, demonstrate what I mean. You can hear the hour-long improv Drive By on the next Music From Other Minds broadcast; Friday, June 3, KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco, at 11pm (Pacific Time).
|| default || § ¶SF Chronicle Article About Nora's Work In Palestine
The S.F. Chronicle carried a story today about my daughter Nora's work at a refugee camp in Palestine earlier this year. Nora helped train teenagers in how to produce radio programs. Nora is executive producer of Flashpoints on KPFA radio in Berkeley. You can hear some of the radio programs produced by the students on the Flashpoints website. We are extremely proud of what she has been able to do in this very horrible situation. Brava Nora!
|| default || § ¶Wourinen: Symphony Seven
Today I heard on KALW radio the Berkeley Symphony's January performance of Charles Wourinen's Symphony Seven, a work from 1997. I can't say I enjoyed it. In fact, it seemed like a mess of disconnected effects with no center. It sounded like the ramblings of someone with the musical equivalent of attention deficit disorder. Very disappointing, indeed. But I have to take my hat (if I had one) off to the Berkeley Symphony and its associate conductor, George Thomson. It sounded extremely difficult and must have required lots of rehearsal. But what a waste of effort! Here's an excerpt, the ending and most interesting part, off Wourinen's website. There is no rhyme or reason for any of it; the piece spins out of control like a hyperactive seven year old. Midway thru this 30 minute experience I began to worry about Mr Wourinen's state of mind, and wondered if he had gone off his Lithium. Yet, Charles is considered one of this country's most highly regarded composers. Never could see why.
|| default || § ¶1984 - The Opera
The opera world has been churning recently with Covent Garden's production of 1984, the new opera by conductor Lorin Maazel. In a nutshell, Maazel poured a lot of his own money into the production, raising the spector of a "vanity project", considering that Maazel is not known as a composer.
The work got its premier a few weeks ago, and, at best, turned out to be quite a pot-boiler. Some critics called it embarassingly bad. A Google on "1984 The Opera" will show you what I mean.
Well, now you can judge for yourself. BBC Radio 3 will broadcast a performance of Maazel's opus this Wednesday, and it will be available for on-demand streaming from their website for a week. More information on the BBC Radio 3 Opera-on-3 website.
|| default || § ¶What A Beautiful Day!
|| default || § ¶Bill Moyers' Speech
Bill Moyers closed the National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis on Sunday with his first public response to the revelation that White House allies on the board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have secretly been monitoring his program for "liberal bias".His speech is dramatic and riviting. Yahoo news covered it here.
"An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy - or worse."
You can read it here
Better, you can hear it in mp3 here.
1984 is already here!
|| default || § ¶#22 Done!
Just finished putting together Music From Other Minds program number 22. Last night program #19 was broadcast. I'm trying to stay ahead of myself.Program 20 will feature the non-Opera by Morton Feldman called Neither, with words by Samuel Beckett. #21 will drop back to 1911 for The Persian Hours by the iconoclastic French composer, Charles Koechlin. And #22 will feature an hour long improvisation called Drive By by the Australian trio that goes by the name The Necks.
I produce these programs at home on my Mac, and I've been struggling with trying to get the recording of my announcing just right. With program #22 I think I've finally solved a lot of the problems. For one thing, I replaced my iMic audio/USB interface with an M-Audio Pre USB mike and line preamp. It greatly improved the sound quality. Then I switched from using Apple SoundTrack to Logic 7 Express to produce the program mix. The opening couple of minutes of program #22 in Logic Express are shown above. The learning curve for Logic is steep. The manual is 1 1/4 inches thick! But you can do anything. I'm using it as purely a sound editor, laying in tracks for the music and voice announcements. Logic, along with Pro Tools, is one of the primo applications that sound designers use to produce music on CDs, movies, everywhere. It took a few extra hours to get around the interface and retool what I was doing with SoundTrack into a Logic Express workflow. But MFOM program 22 sounds a lot better than any previous one.
Program 22 is going to turn some ears. So are Programs 20 and 21. Friday nights at 11pm on KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco, or via KALW's Real Audio stream.
Click on the picture an you will hear the first 6 minutes of program 22, which will air on June 3rd. It starts, as all these programs do, with the voice of Charles Amirkhanian introducing the series.
|| default || § ¶6800 Miles!
As I was walking in to work this morning, I realized what a truly amazing thing I had just done. Sure, driving the 35 miles up highway 880 from Oakland to Menlo Park was amazing in itself. But when I arrived in the parking lot I gave my two-way radio one more try. So while sitting in my van, I tuned in around 14.227 MHz and heard a station giving the universal amateur radio call "CQ CQ CQ", which means "I'm here; anyone anywhere want to talk to me?" I figured, why not try. I hadn't been able to contact anyone all morning, the noise level was so high, and he probably wouldn't be able to hear me anyway. So I picked up the mike and called "This is KG6EMF, Kilo Golf 6 Electro Motive Force, mobile... do you read?". Much to my amazement, he did! I next heard "Kilo Golf 6 Echo Mike Fox, this is Victor Romeo 2 Xray Mike Tango. You are 5 by 5, 55, here in Hong Kong." There is more to read...