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Showing posts from September, 2007

The day the music died

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For four weeks in France my appetite for music was met by France Musique , a wide ranging selection of CDs and books (see above), and much fine live music . When I drove off the cross-channel ferry last Monday I retuned the car radio to BBC Radio 3 . Within an hour the presenter had plugged the BBC's New Generation Artists Scheme so many times that I concluded she was earning a bonus for every mention. Between the plugs there was much other useful information, such as "the violinist was born in 1983, which means she is now 24". And later in the afternoon Sean Rafferty fawned over every act a desperate record company or concert agent sent along to the In Tune studio. The next day the morning presenter helpfully explained to me why I should appreciate Jordi Savall's Bach, while in the evening classical-jock of the week Tom Service started the network's birthday tribute to Sir Colin Davis by leaving studio guest Mitsuko Uchida's microphone closed for the

Valery under-rehearsed

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They may have been queuing for returns for Gergiev's Mahler. But ....... Let's be thankful. At least he caught his plane . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Leipzig 1989 - Rangoon 2007

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Wisest words of the week from Henry Porter in today's Observer . Now read more about Leipzig in 1989 here . Photo taken by me outside Nikolaikirche, Leipzig - copyright On An Overgrown Path . Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

New music is not a Nono in the Guardian

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The Guardian is doing a fine job of exploring the long tail of new music. Yesterday it was Stockhausen , and today it is Nono . Now read about Luigi Nono's music at new music's Woodstock . Photo of Nono from Rolling Stone. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The long tail of blogs

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Are my jokes really that diffficult ? Elsewhere it is good to see Rudolph Dunbar having a great innings , while in the paid for media Karlheinz Stockhausen is in to bat , and here's a classical blog aggregator that's worth a look (and a wait). But the trouble is aggregators ignore the long tail of blogs, such as Le Regard de James , which is the blog my header photo comes from. But who cares? - their nutritional value is lower than a bag of crisps . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Classical music's long tail reaches out

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Joshua Nemith's blog explores the long tail of new classical radio - Bob Shingleton (whose contemporary classical radio program was the subject of a recent post here ) wrote to me the other day: "The kind words in your post are very much appreciated - as you realise I'm simply trying to leverage new media to create a radio 'long tail' that reaches music currently being neglected by the ratings driven high profile stations.The very positive response from you, and many others, is prompting me tog o further down the 'tail'.On this week's programme (Sunday Sept 30) I will be playing two full length pieces from young European composers, Rebecca Saunders (England) and Bernard Schweitzer (German) commissioned by the period instrument Freiburg Baroque Orchestra with funding from the Siemens Arts Program. This will probably be the first broadcast of these two works, and they will bookend Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 6." I think it is always helpfu

Happy new ears in an ancient monastery

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My photos here were all taken at a remarkable event which brings contemporary music to a historic venue in the South of France. L'Académie de musique de chambre contemporaine (Academy of Contemporary Chamber Music) brings together young musicians from France, Germany and Switzerland to perform contemporary and specially commissioned works in the 14th century Carthusian monastery at Villeneuve les Avignon in Provence. The Chartreuse du Val-de-Bénédiction (above) was formed in 1352 by a gift from Pope Innocent VI (who is buried there), and over 450 years became the largest and wealthiest charterhouse in France. After the 1792 Revolution the monastery, with its magnificent cloisters which can be seen in my photos, was dissolved, and fell into disrepair. In 1973, with funding from the French Ministry of Culture, the charterhouse was restored to house La Centre National des Ecritures du Spectacles . This is a cultural centre offering artist residencies, and has become a creative l

Music festival is given upright piano

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Today's Guardian reports a happy ending to the tale of the inverted Bösendorfer (above): After the last one fell off the back of a lorry with a crash heard around the world of classical music, a very grand piano heading for a remote corner of Devon will be handled as delicately as a newborn babe. An £85,000 hand-built Bosendorfer Imperial Concert Grand is being presented by the firm to the eclectic Two Moors festival , a feast of classical music scattered among dozens of parish churches and halls across 1,000 square miles (2,590 sq km) of Exmoor and Dartmoor, where at many events soup and sandwiches are supplied to an audience turning up in hiking boots. The piano will replace the Bosendorfer which the festival organisers bought second-hand at a London auction after fundraising for years. It made the journey safely to Devon, and was being unloaded at the home of festival founder Penny Adie, when it slipped, toppled sideways down a bank and landed upside down in splinters among th

The great mandala

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My photo shows a Buddhist monk creating a sand mandala at the recent Free Tibet event which we attended in Malaucène , France (poster below). Buddhist monks and nuns have fought for human rights in Tibet since the Chinese invasion in 1950, and today are demonstrating against the military junta in Burma. Our thoughts are with them, here is a playlist for this disturbing time: * Le Boudha de la Compassion from La Montagne de la Grande Pureté played by Alain Kremski on sacred percussion instruments collected from Tibet, Burma, Nepal, India and China. Composer Alain Kremski (below) studied with Darius Milhaud and has been influenced by Igor Stravinsky , Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen . Kremski is best known for his percussion works, but is also a noted pianist who has transcribed the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony for piano, has recorded the piano music of G.I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann , and orchestrated Gurdjieff's sacred dances for Peter Brook's

Holocaust opera as university assignment

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Nice, and topical , to see my January 2006 article on Viktor Ullman's (right) holocaust opera The Emperor of Atlantis being set as an assignment by Louisiana State University's music department. Also good to see that nothing changes with students. They are all arriving On An Overgrown Path just a few days before the assignment deadline. Now here is an opera for study at Columbia University. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Happy birthday Sir Colin

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Sir Colin Davis is 80 years old today. The following post, which I first ran last October, says it all. Difficult to find the superlatives to describe last night's concert at Snape Maltings with Sir Colin Davis (left) conducting The Combined Orchestra of The Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music . This brought together the top players from two of London's (and the world's) leading music conservatoires in a vast orchestra (14 cellos and 12 basses!) that filled the Maltings capacious stage and scarcely left Sir Colin room to make his way to the rostrum. Sir Colin revels in working with young players (his 2005 Prom with an orchestra drawn from the Royal Academy and Juilliard Schools was a highlight of the season ) and he has worked regularly at both the Royal Academy and Guildhall. The programme was Berloz's Overture Béatrice et Bénédict (a Davis speciality), Tchaikovsky's Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet, and in the second half Elgar's magni