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Category: viola

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.

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

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)

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

#1

#2

#3

#4

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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

Monday, November 16th

Sounds for a strange, scary, sad world.

Georg Friedrich Haas (1953-), String Quartet No. 8 (2014); JACK Quartet

Wednesday, November 4th

two takes

“I Never Learnt to Share” (J. Blake)

Spektral Quartet (arr. Chris Fisher-Lochhead), live, Chicago, 2015


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James Blake, live, Berlin, 2011


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lagniappe

musical thoughts

When we’re full of music, we’re free of everything else.

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random sights

yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)

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Monday, October 12th

3n

Albrecht Maurer (violin), Mat Maneri (viola), Lucian Ban (piano), “Irreverence” (L. Ban), live (recording session), Germany (Cologne), 2013

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)

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Saturday, October 10th

tonight in Chicago

These folks will be playing at Curtiss Hall.

Christopher Fisher-Lochhead (1984-), Dig Absolutely (2010); Spektral Quartet, live, Evanston, Ill., 2011

Wednesday, September 9th

serendipity

When this came on the radio the other day (WKCR, Columbia University), background became foreground.

Luciano Berio (1925-2003), Differences (1959)

Monday, August 10th

Why not start the week with something strange?

Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), Tetras (1983); JACK Quartet, live, Philadelphia, 2014

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lagniappe

reading table

Trust in the Unexpected —

—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), #561 (Franklin)