Rolling Classical 2022

Apparently this thread had not been created yet!

21st Century Guitar conference/festival starting today, going to be livestreamed as well as in person in Indiana: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k9JcqPAuQhqvlaly4xF3Hq6Cuit7moZw/view

I’ve been plowing other furrows for most of the year so far, some exciting shit I am looking forward to going back and dive at into though

Was heartful to see that Alexei Lubimov was instrumental (no pun) in getting Silvestrov out of Ukraine a couple of weeks ago

Went to this last night, having got free tickets as part of a promotion: https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/29947

Shostakovich 9, the piece I was most interested in, was amazing live! The audience was surprisingly boisterous, no doubt excited to finally be out and seeing concerts again; maybe the Glass piece drew a younger crowd as well? A lot of clapping between movements, which the conductor and orchestra were fine with, and whooping at the ends of pieces. Korngold and Glass were, well, Korngold and Glass and got standing ovations (though not from grumpy me, esp after Shosty didn't get one.)

Clapping between movements seems more common these days. In the past it usually was concerts where the audience was less likely to frequently attend classical concerts (big names like Yo-Yo Ma, etc). Fortunately I don’t mind it. It’s nice if people feel moved.

No, and, honestly, the thematic connection between movements isn't so strong in many to most symphonies and sonatas to make it indefensible. More like Zep IV, side 1 than "Close to the Edge".

My experience is people get the hint if the movements flow into each other or the conductor still has his arms up, etc.

Yeah they did that stuff after the second movements of pieces.

https://wildup.bandcamp.com/

the 2nd Julius Eastman volume by Wild Up is out today

That sounds fantastic. have to decide if I can stand to shell thirteen quid postage (maybe I could get it sent to my mother in law in the US and just put up with the dl for however long it takes for me to get back over there).

#NowPlaying @nickzinner
'41 Strings' (2022, @brianchase123)

I like the @YYYs just fine but am not an obsessive fanboy by any means. I know shit about classical music. Yet this lovely release got my attention and I had to pick it up. pic.twitter.com/3Ozb8W2H8h

— Brian O'Neill (@NYC__Native) August 14, 2022

Have been enjoying Éric Tanguy's In a Dream set of pretty chamber music compositions and Ensemble Alternance's On the Move, a disc of new chamber pieces by NYC-based new music composers.

Big month for fans of Danish classical music: Bent Sørensens Grawemeyer-winning triple-concerto L'Isola Della Città is finally out on disc! By Trio Con Brio and Danish National Symphony Orchestra. It's sparkling and shimmering and very good.
https://open.spotify.com/album/0CKeDaqN137dJQ0PnSBELk

I just listened to L'Isola Della Città on NML. It's excellent, sweeping in scale while being very tightly crafted. New Battle Trance (Green of Winter) also very good.

A new-to-me composer is the Ukrainian Boris Lyatoshynsky (1919-1966). I listened to his second symphony recently. It's also quite powerful. The 2nd mvt is esp fantastic - starts with that beautiful lyrical theme, then disrupts it with the darker dissonant material, and then returns to the theme but in a way that's been altered by what came before.

Other new-to-me stuff: Trois-Rivières-based Bernard Piché (1908-1989) - a straightforward but nice little organ piece here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JsHlTfR22s

Been enjoying this bracing string quartet by a young Toronto guy: https://soundcloud.com/parsa-noroozian-519463551/parsa-wav?si=9e04e372c30543989a7dd9663145a365&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Caught this concert on the weekend: https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/30522 . It was nice to see Become Ocean live, experience it in a more immersive environment and watch something close to ambient music being constructed on acoustic instruments - also much easier to see how everything ultimately snaps to a 4/4 meter when it's being conducted. Outi Tarkiainen's Songs of Ice was good too, some nice melodies that built to an intense climax with violin harmonics.

Not much on this thread this year, but I have to say that this is great: https://armbruster.bandcamp.com/album/masses

Solo fiddle and electric violin in the resonant space of an old church. Really gorgeous!

I’ve been listening to almost nothing but classical music for about three months, as i do a good portion of every year, but I tend to be burrowed into older repertoire (composers from the 1790s through say the 1960s) rather than new music so I don’t post much about it here.

E.G. neck deep in Liszt for several few weeks now…

The Armbruster reminds me a bit of Mark O'Connor, but more indebted to deep listening and music of resonant spaces than traditional string instrumentation, Copland, etc.

Did we ever start a new thread?

Listening to this right now nice new tape from Séance Centre, the Guadeloupian pianist Allan Gilbert Balon.

https://allangilbertbalon.bandcamp.com/album/so-lo-piano-works-vol-1

I recommend the "current" format as used in Current bobbins

what's in a year, rly

enjoying the piano, thanks

The portative organ! My phone wants me to call it the potatoes organ. I’d never heard this instrument before today, and wow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk4iVold0eU

all I want for christmas

What’d I learn on wiki today? I learned about Fach!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fach

oh man don't get opera stans started on that

Everything they touch they destroy—(gift article about coming gutting of Kennedy Center based on the belief they should profit from ticket sales alone, and not tickets sales plus donations like every other arts organization. Also features the trumpian disdain for the press by spokespersons in our most prestigious arts venue)

https://wapo.st/4l8WsJH

I don't know if this link works outside Denmark, but Bent Sørensen has written a new opera with a libretto by Jon Fosse, and it's recorded for radio already: https://www.dr.dk/lyd/p2/p2-operaaften/p2-operaaften-2025/nyskrevet-opera-over-nobelpristagers-roman-12422566216