This week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEO brings us a "classic" - a piece we've probably heard a hundred times without realizing what genius there is in it. "As with almost all his other compositions, Leroy Anderson wrote The Typewriter (1950) for orchestra, completing the work on October 9, 1950. The Typewriter received its first performance when Anderson conducted the short piece (only a minute and forty-five seconds long) for a Decca Records recording session on September 8, 1953. Since then The Typewriter has been used as a theme for numerous radio programs and television shows, but the classic performance appeared in the 1963 film Who's Minding the Store?, where Jerry Lewis pantomimes playing the typewriter part in mid-air." [from PBS's "Once Upon a Sleighride: The Music and Life of Leroy Anderson"] ... ENJOY!

Composer Gary Kulesha is one of Canada’s most active and visible musicians. Although principally a composer, he's often seen in his other roles as pianist, conductor and teacher. His music has been commissioned, performed and recorded by musicians and ensembles across North America, as well as in Europe and Australia. Listen to him speak about music and the art of composing in a "NACO-cast" (National Arts Centre of Canada in Ontario) with Chris Millard - this week's PYTHEAS COMPOSER PORTRAIT. And hear a performance of his Symphony No. 3 (2007), featured as this week's PYTHEAS EARFUL.

A native of Turin, Italy, Ezio Bosso is a world-renowned double bass player, performing as guest soloist with orchestras around the world. He is also very busy writing music for theaters throughout Europe, film soundtracks for silent and feature length films (I'm Not Scared, 2003), operas, concert works and music for contemporary dance. His Symphony No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra (2008) is the basis for Rafael Bonachela's latest dance piece We Unfold (2009), our current DANSES PYTHEUSES.

And finally, relax and enjoy Leo Brouwer's lovely guitar piece un dia de noviembre (1963) - this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES, performed by Peo Kindgren.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

Born in Wilmington, North Carolina and now teaching at Columbia College in South Carolina, Meira Warshauer is a composer whose music, in the words of Ina Ester-Joost, "comes from a place which is beyond music. It's like a prayer ... from deep within the soul". This week Warshauer's music is part of a "double feature" at Pytheas: her recent recording, Like Streams in the Desert (Albany Records) is our FEATURED RECORDING, and her new video, featuring the title track from the CD, is one of our NEW MUSIC VIDEOS. The video, produced by Mike Bregman, uses images by Shoshannah Brombacher, whose art is featured in the CD's booklet - a very effecting combination ... ENJOY!

Our other FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEO brings us a unique arrangement and performance of Alfred Schnittke's Gogol Suite by the Scherzo Quartet, a Balalaika quartet from Russia. Well done, and a feast for the ears and eyes...

Kyle Gann (PostClassic weblog), in two musings entitled Declining Literacy (here and here), poses the question, "Why has classical music fallen off the cultural literacy menu?". Join the discussion - this week's FEATURED THOUGHT AND IDEA.

And lastly, FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES this week brings us a bit of Elia Kazan's classic film On the Waterfront (1956) with an inspired and moving score by Leonard Bernstein. If you've never seen the whole movie, get out and do it! You'll be very glad you did.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

"Alban Berg’s opera, Wozzeck, first performed in 1925, is a work of such enormous musical complexity that few people can hope to understand it all, even after repeated listenings. Like those enormous Gothic cathedrals that command our respect and awe, Wozzeck contains lovingly crafted details that will forever remain beyond our ken. Even conductors who pore over the music repeatedly discover new things each time they open the covers of the score ..." [note thanks to David Gregson @ Opera West]. Take in a part of this monumental work - one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

The New Music Connects project enabled three young Irish composers to compose a new string quartet by collaborating with an ensemble in a number of workshops. The composers selected to participate in the project were EdBennett, Rob Canning and David Flynn. The new works were performed by the Con Tempo quartet at two concerts in Galway and Dublin in December 2007. Read, see and hear all about it at this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC WEBSITE . . .

The Pytheas Center's DANSES PYTHEUSES, bringing you New Music for Dance, this week features Relief, a 2006 dance piece - choreography by Erin Tisdale, music by David Morneau.

The flute was French composer Albert Roussel's favorite instrument, and he composed a number of chamber works featuring it (Serenade for Flute, Strings and Harp; Trio for Flute, Viola and Cello; Andante and Scherzo for Flute and Piano; and Joueurs de flute, four pieces for flute and piano). FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES this week brings us a fine performance by flutist Bruce Tabb and pianist Nathalie Fortin of Roussel's Joueurs de flute, "Flute Players". The four movements are fashioned after famous flute players of literature: Pan, the shepherd-god, known for playing the pan-pipes; Tityre, one of the shepherds in Virgil's Bucolica; Krishna, the Hindu god, who played the flute in his youth; and M.de la Pejaudie, the hero of the novel La Pecheresse by Henri de Regnier. ENJOY!

... and just a jaw dropping WOW! for Philippe Quint's performance of John Corigliano's The Red Violin Caprice (1999).

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

Leslie De’Ath writes of composer Nikolai Kapustin, "[He] has made a minor flurry in the classical music world in recent years, largely through the championing of his music by pianists Steven Osborne, Marc-André Hamelin and Nikolai Petrov. His musical training was traditional, with a good exposure to the Russian virtuoso piano repertoire. Jazz became a big influence during his teen years, and has remained so throughout his career. From the late 1950s he immersed himself in the Russian jazz world, forming a quintet, and playing with Juri Saulsky’s Central Artists’ Club Big Band in Moscow. Later, he toured with the Oleg Lundstrem Jazz Orchestra throughout the Soviet Union. Kapustin’s piano music is technically formidable, and as a pianist he possesses a technique to match. His style of writing is crossover, in the best sense of the term, and belongs to the ‘third stream’ trend of the later 20th century. Does his music sound more like jazz than classical? That probably hinges upon the ears doing the listening ..." Check out pianist Shan-shan Sun performing his Toccatina, op.40, no. 3 (1984).

Our COMPOSER PORTRAIT this week features an interview with Steve Reich. The Guardian (London) wrote recently that "There's just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history, and Steve Reich is one of them." "Reich is among the great composers of the century," echoed The New York Times. Such adulation is a far cry from the initial reception Reich's piece Four Organs got at Carnegie Hall in 1973. "People were catcalling or holding their ears and shouting, 'Stop, stop! I'll confess!'" recalled conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who recognized Reich's genius early and reassured him that his work was provocative and would eventually be heralded. He was right, of course. Reich's music is lauded for embracing the spoken voice and non-Western rhythms and virtually inventing "sampling" long before the computer or hip-hop. His compositions cross boundaries, attracting such admirers as minimalist composer Philip Glass, pop icon David Bowie, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and remixing master DJ Spooky; AND his piece Double Sextet just won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize!

The Sea Hawk by Jack London is one of the most filmed stories in movie history. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score for the 1941 film version, stark and brutally dissonant, shows the great film composer at his most dramatic - this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING...

Lastly, FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES brings us a thrilling performance of the finale from Grazyna Bacewicz's Sonata for Solo Violin No.2 (1958). ENJOY!

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst

According to composer Michael Daugherty, "Ladder to the Moon is inspired by the urban landscapes of the American artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1968), who lived and painted in Manhattan before moving to New Mexico in 1934. From 1925 to 1930, O’Keeffe created over twenty New York paintings of newly constructed skyscrapers, such as the Radiator Building and the Shelton Hotel. Like experimental photographers of the era, such as Alfred Stieglitz, O’Keeffe discovered a different reality in the form of skyscrapers, simultaneously realistic and abstract. Although Stieglitz (her husband at the time) claimed it was 'an impossible idea' for a woman to paint New York, O’Keeffe went on to create some of her finest work during this time, motivated by her own conviction that 'one can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.' Ladder to the Moon is a musical tribute to O’Keeffe's art, recreating the feeling of skyscrapers and cityscapes in the Manhattan of the 1930’s."

Our FEATURED RECORDING this week presents chamber music by Peter Schickele. Some may know Schickele in his alter ego, P.D.Q. Bach" (1807-1742)? - long forgotten member of the Bach family, whose music combines parodies of musicological scholarship, the conventions of Baroque and classical music, and elements of slapstick comedy. The music of the "real" Peter Schickele is "the fruit of a totally and uniquely American composer who celebrates the great American music that has preceded him" (Anastasia Tsioulcas, Classics Today). "Any ensemble that takes on Schickele needs to be fluent in classical, jazz, and folk writing to pull it off - and the players on this recording certainly are. The performances are beautifully relaxed and colorful and the sound is rich and full-bodied. This is lovely, lovely stuff." Check out sound clips from the CD at Pytheas ...

A new addition to Pytheas is our Fun/Cool/Great New Music Videos! We've searched our archives (and then some) to present thoroughly engaging, sometimes mesmerizing, but always Fun and Cool videos of new music performances, as well as new music with dance and in film. Check them out and let us know about any others that we could add to the collection!

Lastly, FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES brings us a beautiful performance of Aaron Copland's Duo for Flute and Piano (1971) - a late work in his career, but with all the hallmarks of that distinctive "Copland Sound".

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst

Tōru Takemitsu's Rain Tree Sketch II (1992) is our featured New Music Video this week. Caleb Deupree at his blog Classical-Drone has some thoughts on the piece: "Takemitsu's last major piano work was Rain Tree Sketch II, a memorial for one of his great influences, the French composer Olivier Messiaen. The work was the last in a series of memorial pieces, a set which included orchestral works for composer Morton Feldman and film director Andrei Tarkovsky and solo pieces for composer Witold Lutoslawski and sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Takemitsu had returned to a 'sea of tonality' (his phrase) in the 1980s, and Rain Tree Sketch II centers on a D minor chord (but without any of the directional aspects of nineteenth-century tonality, as far as I can tell anyway). Interestingly, at important moments the D minor chord is arpeggiated and accompanied with high overtones, which sound to me like a gamelan. I am grateful for the jewels that he wrote for piano, and these are well represented on recordings."

NOISE is our FEATURED NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE. "NOISE is an ensemble of accomplished soloists with a deep commitment to chamber music. NOISE presents concerts that are energetic and engaging as well as intellectually stimulating and technically sophisticated. They believe that music which is sometimes called complex, difficult, or avant-garde is accessible to any audience when performed with passion and conviction." Check them out online, and, if you're in California this week, see them at the soundON Festival of Modern Music taking place in La Jolla, California, June 18-20, 2009.

A facinating read is this week's Featured Thought & Idea ... 2001: A Space Odyssey - Alex North's Unused Soundtrack. And check out the special feature of the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the classic soundtrack replaced with Alex North's original, but discarded, score [sorry, no longer available]...

This week FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES brings us classically trained ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem. Her most notable performances have included Giselle and Rudolf Nureyev's stagings of Swan Lake and Don Quixote. As of late she has moved from ballet to contemporary dance, working with performers such as Akram Khan as an Associate Artist of the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Here she is featured in Wet Woman with choreography by Mats Ek and music by the Swedish group Fläskkvartetten (Fleshquartet) ...

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst

Sofia Gubaidulina's Viola Concerto (1996) is the Featured New Music Video this week at Pytheas. Raymond Tuttle writes, "Gubaidulina is the greatest Russian composer at work today – the greatest since Shostakovich. Any new work from her is a major event, and the Viola Concerto is not a disappointment. The concerto's opening, with the soloist's insistence on the notes D and Eb, almost literally invokes the name of Dmitri Shostakovich, a formative influence on Gubaidulina. The violist and the orchestra share the concerto's sound-world with a string quartet, tuned a quarter-tone lower; a darker "second dimension" in the words of the composer. Here again, the violist travels between and mediates for the two ensembles. The concerto's tone is dark and oppressive, but Gubaidulina's need to communicate with her listeners is unmistakable. She demands their uttermost concentration, but those who make the effort are rewarded by being taken on an emotional journey whose aftereffects are long-lasting and deep".

Pulitzer Prize winning composer Paul Moravec has written more than a hundred orchestral, chamber, choral, lyric, film, and operatic works. His music has earned numerous other distinctions, including the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, as well as many prestigious commissions. In many ways, Moravec's work builds upon "The Great Tradition" of Western Europe, reconfiguring some of its bedrock gestures into an aesthetic that is thoroughly of our day. Dubbed a New Tonalist by critic Terry Teachout, Moravec writes with depth but does so with a light touch. He draws on craftsmanship so virtuosic it seems easy. All this adds up to a composer who is simultaneously learned and accessible, tradition-based and imaginative, profound and a heck of a lot of fun. In an era when pundits worry over the fate of the concert world as a whole, Moravec's music-and its deep-down integrity-speak of confidence and hope. Listen to Moravec talk about his life and music in this week's Composer Portrait.

This week's Pytheas Earful brings us music from Massachusetts based composer Dean Rosenthal. Featured are his Songs from the Japanese (2000) for soprano and violin.

FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES brings Julian Bream's soulful and compelling performance of Manuel de Falla's Homage: The Tomb of Debussy (1920).

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst