Lost in explanation


Can you imagine music without explanation?

Elmediator is a multi-genre and multimedia performance venue in Perpignan, France. This post is also available via Facebook and Twitter.

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Scott Ross and the paradox of genius

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On that sleeve for his 1985 recording of the Goldberg Variations , Scott Ross is seen standing in the grounds of Château d'Assas in Languedoc. It was here that many of his great recordings were made. Then, as today, the château dwelt in the twilight zone between grandeur and dereliction, and thirty years ago the recording sessions were regularly interrupted by the sound of rats scurrying across the floor. Scott Ross was born in Pittsburgh in 1951, and moved to France with his mother following the death of his father in 1964. He studied at the conservatoires in Nice and Paris, and first came to Château d'Assas in 1969 to give music lessons to the grandson of its owner Mme. Simone Demangel . When an early music academy was established at the château, the harpsichordist gave masterclasses and became a frequent visitor. At first he stayed in a room in one of the towers, but from 1983 he rented a small house across the road from the château. The photos below were taken by me on a
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Berlin Philharmonic's first woman conductor

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In 2005 the appointment of a woman music director by a major American orchestra caused a storm of controversy . So, it is surprising to find that it was back in 1930 that the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was first conducted by a woman, and even more surprising to find she was an American. But the story doesn't have a happy ending. Despite receiving critical acclaim, Antonia Brico found doors closed to her when she returned to the US, and was forced to form her own orchestras to continue her conducting career. She is seen above conducting in New York in 1945. (Image credit Dr. Ralph Weizsäcker ). Antonia Brico was born Wilhelmina Wolthus in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1902, and emigrated to California with her foster parents in 1908. She attended high school in Oakland where she gained experience as a pianist and conductor. She went on to study liberal arts at the University of California, Berkeley , and also worked at the San Francisco Opera as an assistant to the director,
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Untold story of the counterculture's Islamic connection

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Sounds of Sufism

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One of the disciples would start to sing a devotional song in praise of their Sheikh. Many of Abdul Qadir's followers were musicians. There was Richard Thompson who sang with Fairport Convention , Ian Whiteman who was with Mighty Baby ; Roger Powell who was with a group called The Action ; and Peter Sanders, a photographer with a beautiful voice. In fact the Zawiya was a veritable den of stunning voices. In no time, the zihr session would be raised to another, more etheral plane. Then the fuqara would stand up, form a circle holding one another's hands, and be led by a high-ranking member of the Zawiya, standing in the middle of the circle, in chanting La ilaha illa'llah ('There is no God but Allah'), La ilaha illa'llah . The dancing disciples would inhale with La ilaha and collectively exhale with illa'llah . The chanting would start gently but as it gathered pace, the circle would become more of an octagon, and fuqara would begin to sway, throwing
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Music is not a matter of notes, it's a matter of sounds

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In this age of supposed diversity the Egyptian composer, ethnomusicologist and electronic music pioneer Halim El-Dabh is overlooked. While still a student in the 1940s Halim El-Dabh experimented with composing using wire recorders. In 1944 he created one of the earliest known examples of electronic musique concrète . The Expression of Zaar manipulated field recordings of a traditional zaar exorcism ceremony, and predated Pierre Schaeffer's work by four years. In 1950 Halim El-Dabh received a Fulbright Scholarship and moved to the United States, becoming a US citizen in 1961. His composition teachers included Ernst Krenek , Aaron Copland and Luigi Dallapiccola . In New York his circle included Henry Cowell , John Cage , and Peggy Glanville-Hicks , and he composed four ballet scores for Martha Graham  and was an influential figure in the early days of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center .  Halim El-Dabh came from a Coptic-Christian family with ancestral roots in Uppe
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Conductors who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

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In the photo above Simon Rattle is being interviewed by LÜ Jia, Music Director of the Chinese government funded National Centre for the Performing Arts in Bejiing. Below Rattle is seen while on tour at a press conference in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. The Chinese government is guilty of the mass genocide against 1.2 million people  in Tibet and continues with its policy of eradicating the priceless Tibetan culture by Sinicization , while Guangzhou has been singled out as a centre of human rights abuses . In January 2018, the authorities in Guangzhou forcibly disappeared the wife of a US-based journalist. This forced disappearance came shortly after the journalist interviewed a Chinese billionaire fugitive who exposed corruption among China’s ruling elite. Rattle is also a repeat visitor to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. In their 2020 report Amnesty International reports that "Over two dozen prisoners of conscience continued to be detained in the United A
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What the law of diminishing diversity tells us

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While classical music debates nothing changes

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'This magic comes only with the sounding of the music, with the turning of the written note into sound - and it only comes (or comes most intensely) when the listener is one with the composer, either as a performer himself, or as a listener in active sympathy' - Benjamin Britten Recent articles here about whether classical music responds to mass marketing and social media have generated considerable interest. So I thought it worthwhile to create a straw model which summarises the thrust of the articles and that is the purpose of this post. The straw model is remarkably simple and is built around the following four propositions. 1. Classical music engages new audiences most effectively by direct transmission to what Britten describes as as "a listener in active sympathy". 2. Despite this classical music today is characterised by hypermediation, meaning there are more and more intermediary layers appearing between performer and audience. 3. These intermediary la
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Classical musician who opened for Bob Dylan

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