Jennifer Higdon’s former student has become one of her latest and biggest champion.  The 31-year old violinist Hilary Hahn commissioned, premiered and recorded Higdon’s Violin Concerto, which won last year’s Pulitzer Prize for Music.  This month Hahn performs the work in Philadelphia and New York, with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, Juanjo Mena, conductor: Monday, February 14 Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center Tuesday, February 15 Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall Click on the following picture to be taken to YouTube for videos of the pair talking about the Concerto: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In...

On the Fox show “Glee,” the teenagers Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Blaine (Darren Criss) are an adorable young couple who aren’t drenched in shame, being beat up or suffering from a disease. Best of all, they sing to each other. Besides the positive nature of their portrayal, a touching part of this pair is that they’re members of the high school glee club.  Choirs – at school and church – were for me a safe haven from bullying as well as a place to begin to learn how to express myself and explore my artistic side. If only I could have flirted with the other choir buys...

December 30, 2010 marked the centennial of Paul Bowles, who died in 1999. Conferences and celebrations have already happened in Seville, Cologne, Lisbon, Boston and Tangier – where Bowles spent his last decades. A three-day “Celebration of Multi-Artistry” will take place in February at the University of California Santa Cruz. Best known as an author (“The Sheltering Sky”), Bowles was also a composer during his early career in Manhattan as well as a music critic under Virgil Thomson at the Herald Tribune. This event will give a special emphasis to his music as each day...

It’s no secret that British composer Thomas Ades is gay and if you research just a bit it’s easy to find that his partner is the video artist Tal Rosner. They collaborated in 2008 on a piano concerto with video, “In Seven Days.” The piece was performed January 6-8 by the New York Philharmonic, with Ades as soloist and music director Alan Gilbert conducting.  Unfortunately there’s no mention of the fact that they are partners on the Philharmonic’s website nor in Anthony Tommassini’s Times review (okay, maybe he didn’t know). But if these two were...

The New Yorker critic, best selling author and MacArthur fellow, Alex Ross released a new book in the fall, Listen to This. In the Preface, I say that the aim is to “approach music not as a self-sufficient sphere but as a way of knowing the world.”  I treat pop music as serious art and classical music as part of the wider culture; my hope is that the book will serve as an introduction to crucial figures and ideas in classical music, and also give an alternative perspective on modern pop. A more thorough introduction to the book is on Alex’s site The Rest is Noise, including iTunes...

In December the Manhattan School of Music gave three staged performances of Lee Hoiby’s “Summer & Smoke,” a 1971 adaptation of a Tennessee Williams piece with a libretto by Lanford Wilson. Anthony Tommasini in the Times gave a very positive review, especially of the work referring to the “sure dramatic pacing and understated expressivity, in music admirable for its directness and melodic grace” (When Youthful Desire Grows Into Regret).  Not surprisingly, James Jordon (Parterre Box) was harsher in his review for the New York Post saying the original Williams material...

For singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright’s return to The Egg in Albany tonight, every audience member gets a close up view.  That’s thanks to the visual component of the concert’s first half, a video creation by Douglas Gordon. But don’t expect a live action shot of Wainwright on a big screen, like at an arena rock show. Gordon is an acclaimed artist who works in large scale video formats and he’s created a very long and slow-moving treatment of Wainwright’s eyes, which are lined in heavy black mascara. The video will play on a 30-foot screen for the entire first half of the concert...

Eugenics — the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase desirable characteristics — is a central theme in “Cold Spring,” which plays Friday and Saturday nights (12/3-4/10) in the EMPAC theater in Troy. Creator Sean Griffin chose the title as a reference to the studies in human potential conducted in Cold Spring Harbor, Suffolk County, during the early part of the 20th century. The research, which he found published online, unexpectedly supported the Nazi’s efforts to build a master race. Another examination of humanity’s strengths...

To my surprise and pleasure, last year’s Music Quiz for World AIDS Day is one of the most visited posts on this site.  So here’s another round. Match the artist on the left with his (or her!) album/song/ensemble/venue on the right.  Answers follow. share: Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up Tip on Hyves Share via MySpace Share on Orkut share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Tell a friend

Steven Blier on “Manning the Cannon,” an upcoming program with the New York Festival of Song: “This is a program I’ve been longing to do for about two decades. It explores two centuries of gay composers and gay-themed songs, and presents a wide variety of characters: experienced guys on the prowl for a good time; sensitive men grappling with their sexuality; hyper-males and drag queens; ecstatic lovers and those just awakening to their erotic nature. The composers come from seven countries and span 190 years, but they have one thing in common: they are all masters of words and music,...