Post classic Planets

'Art arises where the arbitrary and the predictable are superseded by unpredictable inevitability' - Hans Keller
Today's technology should provide the perfect environment for unpredictable inevitability. Decreasing acquisition costs coupled with ever increasing bandwidth and memory have the potential to make the dream of serendipitous access to the arts a reality. But that potential can never be realised while access is controlled by gatekeepers whose trade is the arbitrary and predictable. John Cage's view that "there is no room for the policeman in the arts" is the sub-text to my technology-driven adventures with Chance Music. Unpredictable inevitability brings together Gustav Holst's and Kyle Gann's Planets in my latest podcast. More on Hans Keller here.

Photo (c) On An Overgrown Path 2010. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

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Classical music's biggest problem is that no one cares

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These photos were taken by me in 2008 at independent record retailer Prelude Records in Norwich. Jordi Savall's impromptu viol recital and signing session preceeded two performances at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. One was a solo recital by Jordi in Peter Mancroft Church ; the other was an immensely moving performance of his visionary Jerusalem multicultural project at the Theatre Royal*. As reported here Prelude Records closed earlier this year; it was a victim of predatory online retailing, and today its premises stand empty awaiting occupation by a mobile phone or E-cigarette retailer. The Norfolk and Norwich Festival has been the victim of savage funding cuts , but continues in a more modest form due to the dedicated work of its small management team. A few days ago I wrote about a two-thirds empty Snape Maltings concert and proposed that classical music's heartland is facing a perfect storm caused by the convergence of the shifts in consumer tastes and the r...
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Pie in the face for a dangerous buffoon

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A Philippa Schuyler moment

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Walking with Stravinsky

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Lizzie, I am sorry that this article didn’t appear last year as I had planned. 2006 was the centenary of your birth, but the year passed with scarcely a mention of your work, or a performance of your music. It was my plan to rectify that in a small way, and I wrote a very nicely turned appreciation. I am sure you would have approved of it - all about the myth of Elisabeth Lutyens, the mother of British serialism, ‘Twelve-tone Lizzie’ - the outspoken eccentric shunned by the musical establishment whose compositions were rejected by the BBC, and the composer who struggled for commissions and performances. The myth is perpetuated in your Wikipedia entry which says you 'worked in isolation and neglect, creating a personal style of serialism and eventually gaining some recognition for her ability to set text. Lutyens' work was exposed to the public at large through her scores for horror films.' In your autobiography the Goldfish Bowl you made much of the tensions with your ...
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He thinks completely with his body

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David Munrow - more than early music

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Male American pioneers

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Happy birthday to the paradoxical Dalai Lama

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The Accidental Pilgrim

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