Horizons

Industry ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 47-74
Author(s):  
William Robin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
New Music ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Symphony Orchestras ◽  
American Composers ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Bang On A Can ◽  
The Relationship

The downtown marathons of Bang on a Can might seem worlds away from the American symphony orchestra, but in the mid-1980s they shared a common context: David Lang worked for the New York Philharmonic in this period as an assistant to composer-in-residence Jacob Druckman. His assistantship was part of the granting organization Meet the Composer’s Orchestra Residencies Program, which placed American composers in residencies with symphony orchestras and fundamentally reshaped the relationship between new music and the marketplace. The program’s most high-profile success, the Philharmonic’s 1983 Horizons festival, captured an unprecedented audience for new music via its heavily publicized theme of “A New Romanticism?” And Lang’s subsequent work with the Philharmonic provided him with experience and connections, as well as a growing ambivalence toward the orchestral sphere that shaped the maverick mindset of Bang on a Can.

Sir Thomas Beecham—Some Personal Memories

Tempo ◽  
1961 ◽  
pp. 2-3
Author(s):  
Richard Arnell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
New Age ◽  
Symphony Orchestras ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
Virgil Thomson ◽  
Carnegie Hall

I first met Sir Thomas Beecham in New York and in the Green Room at Carnegie Hall after a concert. Although I cannot remember which orchestra he was conducting, it was possibly the Rochester Symphony Orchestra. Due, I was told, to various feuds with important managements, Sir Thomas never conducted either the New York Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony Orchestras, at least not during the period I knew him there, from 1941 until his return to London in 1944. I had been introduced by his assistant John Barnett and was also armed with the encouragement of critic-composer Virgil Thomson, a friend and admirer of Sir Thomas, who had heard John rehearsing my overture, The New Age. This work was later rejected by the committee of the New York City Symphony, a group of unemployed musicians working under the W.P.A., a kind of dole. Partly from anger at what he thought an unjust decision, Barnett arranged my introduction to Sir Thomas.

Transformations (1979–1984)

Wendy Carlos ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 123-150
Author(s):  
Amanda Sewell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Advisory Board ◽  
Professional Relationship ◽  
Symphony Orchestras ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Digital Synthesis ◽  
First Time

This chapter addresses the first few years after Carlos returned to the public eye, which included high-profile projects such as the soundtracks to the films The Shining and TRON. She also gave interviews to the New York Times and Keyboard magazine, the latter of which also installed her on its advisory board. This was a period of several changes in Carlos’s life. She and Rachel Elkind ended their personal and professional relationship, she began what would be a lifelong relationship with Annemarie Franklin, she began using digital synthesis instead of analog, and she worked with symphony orchestras for the first time.

The Light and the Dark: contrasts in the Music of Jacob Druckman

Tempo ◽  
1994 ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
Bret Johnson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
Expressive Power ◽  
American Composers ◽  
20Th Century Music ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
The Future ◽  
To Come ◽  
Artistic Director

Among established American composers, Jacob Druckman's music remains unique in the breadth of its range, the mastery of its orchestration and the totality of its expressive power. There is little point in spending too much effort in drawing comparisons with some of his closest contemporaries and, in any event, such comparisons are hard to come by. He has had a remarkable career: as an academic, as composer-in-residence to the New York Philharmonic, as a conductor (he has conducted a number of his works with the BBC Philharmonic), as artistic director of many festivals, and as lecturer and administrator. He now devotes as much times as he can to composing, but whatever the future brings, there can be little doubt that he has already made a major contribution to the growth and development of 20th-century music.

Conversations in Leningrad, 1988

Tempo ◽  
1989 ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Claire Polin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Choral Music ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Children's Theatre ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
The Third ◽  
Violin Music ◽  
The Many

Certainly it was the year to visit the USSR, as one rubbed shoulders with pre-Summit reporters awaiting Reagan/Gorbachev, and pilgrims celebrating the millennium of Christianity in Russia. Wandering up the Nevsky Prospekt, you saw musicians hurrying with instrument cases in hand; and whichever way you crossed the Neva or the canals, the babel of language sounded like a session at the United Nations. As Tikhon Khrennikov (still Chairman of the Composers Union 40 years after its notorious 1948 Congress) pointed out in his welcoming address at the opening concert, the Festival's purpose was ‘for building spiritual bridges between nations using music as the unique and indispensable means of communication’. Stylistic restrictions were withdrawn so that listeners would get an unusually broad idea of the ‘many-sided panorama of modern musical art’. Thus, not only ‘serious’ music but also pop, jazz, folk, and traditional musics were performed. Having attended the previous two Festivals, it was very interesting to observe the progressive attitude of the Third. Not only was there more of everything, but more variety: not only symphonic, chamber, and choral music events, but also organ recitals, modern violin music, opera, children's theatre, a song evening, and even one for light music. Not only did the best Soviet conductors and performers participate, but also the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, jazz groups of the USSR and elsewhere, and the British avant-garde vocal group ‘Electric Phoenix’. Although the concerts were heavily weighted with Soviet works, still almost 40 countries were represented (from Cuba to Mongolia) with works by more than 150 living composers.

Watershed

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Crist
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
International Travel ◽  
The Other ◽  
Creative Project ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Time Out ◽  
Enormous Amount ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
Cover Art

1959 was a watershed for the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Not only was it the year of Brubeck’s most famous creative project, Time Out, but it also marked the midpoint of the “classic” Quartet with Paul Desmond, which was formed in 1951 and disbanded in 1967. This chapter discloses the specific factors involved in the production of Time Out. These include early concert performances of the repertoire, the recording sessions, and decisions concerning the album’s title, cover art, and liner notes. The other trajectory followed here concerns several important matters that were uppermost in Brubeck’s life and career at that time. Chief among them were an enormous amount of domestic and international travel, a high-profile stand against racism and segregation in the South, an all-out effort to finish his musical and see it produced on Broadway, and a series of performances with the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall.

The British symphony orchestra and the Arts Council of Great Britain

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Cultural Economics ◽  
Symphony Orchestras ◽  
Artistic Value ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Limited Support ◽  
Successful Execution ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the relationship between British symphony orchestras and the Arts Council of Great Britain. Combining archival research with institutional sociology and cultural economics, it describes how the Arts Council’s demands changed between 1946 and 2000, and how financial and ideological constraints prevented the successful execution of some of these demands. Between 1946 and 1980, symphony orchestras were encouraged to focus on professional performances of the ‘fine arts’ and the performance of music by living composers. Subsequently the 1980s and 1990s witnessed a collapse in traditional ideas of artistic value and a growth in bureaucratized management, with symphony orchestras undergoing time-consuming appraisal procedures, expanding their educational activities and demonstrating limited support for the arts of ethnic minorities. Overall, the chapter suggests that the ideologies of subsidised support were in tension with each other, leading to only partial achievement of the goals that were set out by the Arts Council.

Violin Forum: Intonation and Speed

1986 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 70-71
Author(s):  
Theodor H. Podnos
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
New York Philharmonic ◽  
Boston University ◽  
Boston Symphony Orchestra ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Subject

Theodor Podnos has authored four articles and two books on the subject of intonation. He has twenty-five compositions to his credit and has lectured in Ireland and at Columbia University. Mr. Podnos received his formal education at Peabody and Curtis Institutes, Boston University, and with Richard Burgin, long-time concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has played as concertmaster under Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood and Paul Whiteman in New York. In 1984 he retired as a member of the first violin section of the New York Philharmonic, with which he was associated for nineteen years.

Introduction

Industry ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
William Robin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
New Music ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Bang On A Can ◽  
History Of

This introduction outlines the starting point for this study: the rise of Bang on a Can, a large-scale contemporary music organization that started as a marathon concert in downtown New York overseen by composers David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe in 1987. Bang on a Can’s success in the 1980s and 1990s was a product not only of their individual ingenuity, but also a broader marketplace turn in new music: an ideological project, driven by institutions and musicians who contended that in order for contemporary composition to survive and flourish, it must reach a broad, non-specialist audience. This chapter surveys the postwar history of American composition through the lenses of uptown academicism and downtown experimentalism, describes how this book grapples with Bang on a Can’s institutional practices, and briefly outlines subsequent contents.

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