Come on down

A Band Apart. NewMusicBox, September 21, 2016.

This I know

It seems that this space is destined to be updated only in transit. The last post (five months ago?! yikes) was written in the midst of a change of abode, and now we are preparing to move Soho the Dog HQ yet again. It's like our own Year of the Three Kings, except, instead of monarchs, it's places to live. Which means we're about to start living in the residential equivalent of... Richard III? I think that analogy ran off the rails somewhere.

At any rate: as proof that I have not been completely idle, the list of Score columns over on the sidebar there has been finally brought up to date. That's 141 installments (and counting) of oblique musicological speculation for your summer reading entertainment. I should also link to this article that Molly coaxed out of me for NewMusicBox, which ended up with a pleasant amount of break on its curve, I thought. Plus, there was this Messiaen introduction for Red Bull Music Academy Daily, which led me down the garden path of echoes between Messiaen's idiosyncratic theology and that of the Flemish mystic Jan van Ruusbroec.

Oh, yeah, and this went down, which at least resulted in some flattering sympathies from smart and nice people—thank you! Like I've said before: I have a knack for getting into careers in their categorical twilight. On the other hand, it does leave more time for composing:

Guerrieri: Shining Throne (Prelude on "Jesus Loves Me") (2016) (PDF, 48 Kb)

And a low-fidelity phone recording:



The registration is only a suggestion, i.e., what happens to work on my particular church organ. (I am, now and forever, a sucker for a good—or even not-so-good—celeste stop.)

And with that, it's northern-hemisphere summer. Whatever critical scrapes I manage to get myself into will be duly noted here. Or not—I picked up some Apuleius for a dollar at a library sale today, and, I have to say, it's a better-looking prospect than a lot else that's going on out there. But Apuleius probably always is.

Listen to me, don't listen to me

Digital to Analog: Needle and Thread.
NewMusicBox, June 24, 2015.

Hanging on the Telephone

Digital to Analog: Plug and Play. Connections, made and missed.
NewMusicBox, March 11, 2015.

Schematics

Digital to Analog: Poems and Histories. Andrew Pekler, Vicky Chow, and technologies evident and hidden.
NewMusicBox, February 4, 2015.

The occasions' sound of mirth puts cap on the start of another yuletide song (8)

New Music Boxes: Wring Out the Old. A musical cryptic crossword for year's end.
NewMusicBox, December 23, 2014.

You belong with

This Year's Model (or, That's What They Don't See). On In C, Taylor Swift, Heinrich Heine, Nazarene painters, Duke Ellington, and the canon.
NewMusicBox, December 12, 2014.

Arrival gate

Boston: Passports and Layovers. Reviewing the Lorelei Ensemble and Roomful of Teeth.
NewMusicBox, December 5, 2014.

Back issues

I haven't updated this space for several months now, for a lot of reasons. I've been writing elsewhere. I've been trying to compose. I've been out of town. I've been....

Eh, who am I kidding? This is why I haven't been updating:

Which is not to say I haven't been working, though. So, in a bout of real-work avoidance, I've at least gone back and filled in a bunch of links from the interregnum—Boston Globe reviews, NewMusicBox articles, other appearances here and there. I've also compiled a master list of all the "Score" columns I've written for the Globe over the past couple years. (Links to that list and my NewMusicBox articles are now in the sidebar, too.) Critic-at-Large Moe (pictured above, on left) would like you to know that he, too, has not been idle.

Anyway, a drink. This one is named in honor of Henri Poincaré, since I was reading a biography of him, and full of grapefruit, because I love grapefruit.

3-Sphere

First, make some grapefruit-infused gin: add the peel (no pith) and juice of one grapefruit to 500ml of gin, let it steep for a week, then strain it through a coffee filter.

Then, combine:

2 oz. grapefruit-infused gin
1 oz. grapefruit juice
½ oz. Cocchi Americano
a couple dashes of grapefruit bitters

Stir with cracked ice and strain into the closest thing you have to a non-Euclidean glass.

Reverb and chorus

Boston: A Fight for Love and Glory—Pipeline! at 25. Reviewing Crazy Alice, Quintaine Americana, Kudgel, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, and Bulkhead.
NewMusicBox, October 16, 2014.

Δισσος μυθος

Sounds Heard: Christian Wolff, Pianist: Pieces.
NewMusicBox, October 14, 2014.

Look and feel

Style Points.
NewMusicBox, August 27, 2014.

Spin the dial

Sounds Heard: The Things We Did [This] Summer. Pulitzer Prize Fighter, BMOP, Lewis Spratlan, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, Neil Cicierega, and the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.
NewMusicBox, August 5, 2014.

Book of Judges

Tanglewood: Sessions and Lessons on Successful Composition. Further thoughts prompted by the 2014 FCM.
NewMusicBox, July 28, 2014.

United nations

Boston: SICPP's Love and Geometry. Reviewing the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice.
NewMusicBox, June 26, 2014.

Flip the switch

Boston: Bromp Treb Busts the Matrix.
NewMusicBox, June 16, 2014.

Voice leading

Boston: Caroline Shaw's Common Cause. Reviewing A Far Cry and Roomful of Teeth.
NewMusicBox, May 21, 2014.

Wheel and spoke

Sounds Heard: Meredith Monk, Piano Songs.
NewMusicBox, May 13, 2014.

Magnetic moment

Boston: Practice Sessions. Reviewing Keeril Makan's Letting Time Circle Through Us and Bernard Rands' Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.
NewMusicBox, April 15, 2014.

Boats against the current

New England's Prospect: Beyond the Sea. Reviewing Matthew Ritchie's Monstrance/Remonstrance.
NewMusicBox, April 8, 2014.