Utah Music articles published in 15 Bytes, Utah’s art magazine, including classical, chamber, jazz, world, experimental.
“When I was a student, the feeling was composers were super nerdy, academic, and kind of out of it,” says Christian Asplund. “Composers were the pocket protector guys.” Asplund didn’t see himself in that vein, but he knew he wanted to write and perform music since grade school. […]
Review by David Layton.
The 2016 holiday season brings us a new release by Brevitas, a vocal ensemble directed by Matthew D. Nielsen. Nowell Sing We is their second album, and their first dedicated to Christmas repertoire. Nielsen has curated an excellent program, combining familiar favorites with the new and unexpected, focusing on repertoire of the last 30 years.
Everybody deserves a piano. Or at least access to one. That’s the basic idea behind Mundi Project, a Utah non-profit which is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this month with a live music-and-art-making performance at the Visual Art Institute. Founded by Executive Director Hana Janatova, Mundi donates, repairs, and […]
Like all good ekphrastic pieces of art, Costa’s Refuge has layers. Not only does it exist in the past, with the experiences of the original author of the text, but it also exists in the present with the listeners hearing the notes from the soprano, string quartet, and piano, and it will exist in the future as both a piece to listen to, as well as a small series of poems to read. If that’s not a lovely pot full of kinetic ekphrastic soup, I don’t know what is.
Ask Martha Sargent, director of the Utah Baroque Ensemble, how the group began nearly 30 years ago and she smiles. It’s a question she’s heard often. “The choir really began with Douglas Bush and the Utah Bach Choir,” she says, “but when Doug got too busy to continue […]
Percussionists have all the fun. On the symphony stage, while all the other instrumentalists are usually seated in their assigned chair, the percussionist moves around a playground of drums, symbols, marimbas, chimes, and triangles. Some of those instruments you may not even recognize. For example, the gender wayang. […]
In music, an “intermezzo” is a short composition between main divisions of an extended musical work. It also can be described as entertainment of light character introduced between the acts of a drama or opera. For 15 years now, the aptly named Intermezzo Chamber Music Series has provided […]
The talent of young cellist Matthew Zalkind, who performed a recital on June 29 at Libby Gardner Concert Hall as part of the University of Utah School of Music’s eighth Summer Chamber Music Workshop, comes from equal parts nature and nurture. His father, Larry Zalkind, retired from his […]
On June 25, Jason Hardink will be presented the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Award in recognition of his outstanding talent as Principal Keyboard for the Utah Symphony, and for his role as Artistic Director of the NOVA Chamber Music Series. Jason is much more than a musician. Through […]
The year was 2003. Hundreds of sound designers, composers, and musicians were gathering at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose to network and share ideas on the gaming industry and, specifically, game audio and interactive music. The Game Audio Network Guild was hosting its first annual awards […]
Sinfonia Salt Lake, Salt Lake City’s newest professional chamber orchestra, gave its inaugural concert on January 25 and its second on May 16 at the First United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City. There is certainly a place for such an orchestra in the Salt Lake City area’s orchestral […]
Alyssa Pyper will perform a set of works for solo voice, violin, and electronics at 12 Minutes Max this Sunday at the City Library in Salt Lake City. For Pyper, this particular set of works is about reclamation. “I’ve worked to craft a re-telling of personal narratives through […]
