Saturday, April 30th
This is a sound-world I’d be happy to inhabit all day.
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir (1977-), Ró (2013); Esbjerg Ensemble, live
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: viola
2016
Saturday, April 9th
So bleak, so beautiful—like life.
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), Viola Concerto (1985), live, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (Valery Gergiev, cond.), Yuri Bashmet (viola)
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), Palisades, N.J., 1958
2016
Wednesday, April 6th
sounds of New York
Oliver Lake and the FLUX String Quartet, live, New York, 2014
2016
Saturday, March 12th
more
Gérard Grisey (1946-1998), Les espaces acoustiques, I-III (1974-76); Ensemble Intercontemporain, live, Paris, 2013
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lagniappe
random thoughts
How many things can go wrong with the human body?
2016
Saturday, March 5th
This sound-world I could inhabit, happily, all weekend.
Gérard Grisey (1946-1998), Vortex Temporum (1994-96)
Ensemble Sonorama, live, Argentina (Buenos Aires), 2013
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lagniappe
reading table
When we recognize we ‘think again’
without knowing what or if
we thought before.—Rae Armantrout, “Fusion,” excerpt (New Yorker, 3/7/16)
2016
Wednesday, February 24th
tonight in (snowy) Chicago
They’ll be playing at Constellation.
Ches Smith (percussion), Mat Maneri (viola), Craig Taborn (piano), “Wacken Open Air,” live, Copenhagen, 1/19/16
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“I Think”
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Looking for pointers on patience? Here’s what MCOTD recommends: a bicycle accident and hip fracture. That will, I guarantee, change your whole outlook—pronto.
2016
Friday, February 19th
Want to be swept away?
Claude Debussy (1862-1918), String Quartet in G minor (1893); New England Conservatory Student Quartet (Minchae Kim & Harry Chang, violins; Heejin Chang, viola; Hsiao-Hsuan Huang, cello), live, Boston, 2014
2015
Tuesday, December 22nd
The only thing hard about listening to this is letting go of everything else.
John Luther Adams (1953-), Dream in White on White (1992); Virtuoso String Orchestra (Joaquin Valdepenas, cond.), Sanya Eng (harp), live, Toronto, 2014
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lagniappe
reading table
Barn’s burnt down—
now
I can see the moon.—Mizuta Masahide, 1657-1723 (translated from Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)
2015
Monday, December 7th
The more kinds of music you love, the more chances you have to make wonderful discoveries, as happened yesterday when I heard this for the first time (Oberon Ensemble, Art Institute of Chicago).
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor; Martha Argerich (piano); Gidon Kremer (violin), Yuri Bashmet (viola), Mischa Maisky (cello), 2001
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lagniappe
reading table
You don’t hear the sound; you go into the sound—you and the sound become one.
—Seung Sahn, Only Don’t Know
music clip of the day 