Monday, August 8th
alone
Dai Fujikura (1977-), Sakana (2007); Ryan Muncy (tenor saxophone, International Contemporary Ensemble), live, New York, 2015
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lagniappe
random sights
other day, Oak Park, Ill.
music clip of the day
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Tag: International Contemporary Ensemble
2019
Thursday, March 28th
sounds of Chicago
John Cage, Solo for flute, from Concert for Piano (1958); Eric Lamb, flute (International Contemporary Ensemble), Chicago, 2012
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music is theater for the ear. Take this performance. The phrasing, the interplay between sound and silence—this unfolds like something by Beckett.
2017
Monday, August 21st
more
Anna Thorvaldsdottir (1977-), In the Light of Air (2013/2014); International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), live, New York, 2014
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Suppose that, for the rest of your listening life, you had two options. One: You could only listen to things you’d never heard before. Two: You could never listen to anything new. Which would you choose?
2017
Saturday, August 19th
mysterious, adj. Exciting wonder, curiosity, or surprise while baffling efforts to comprehend or identify. E.g., Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Sequences.
Anna Thorvaldsdottir (1977-), Sequences (bass flute, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone, contrabassoon), 2016; International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), live, New York, 2016
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lagniappe
reading table
in the big rain
gushing down
little butterfly—Kobayashi Issa, 1763-1827 (translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue)
2015
Saturday, January 17th
If your appetite for new music is insatiable, what better time to be alive?
Tyshawn Sorey (1980-), Quartet for Butch Morris (2012); International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), featuring Erik Carlson (violin); Joshua Rubin (bass clarinet), Eric Lamb (flute), Cory Smythe (piano); live, New York, 2012
Six decades of listening and, until yesterday, I’d never heard this particular combination of instruments. You?
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lagniappe
art beat: yesterday at the Art Institute of Chicago
James Ensor (1860-1949), Rooftops of Ostend, 1884 (Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor, through January 25th)
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reading table
Nature, the sky above us, is conducting no mean politics when it presents beauty to all, without discrimination, and nothing old and defective, but fresh and most tasty.
—Robert Walser (1878-1956), “Snowdrops,” excerpt (translated from German by Tom Whalen and Trudi Anderegg)
2013
Monday, March 4th
alone
John Cage, Solo for flute, from Concert for Piano (1958); Eric Lamb, flute (International Contemporary Ensemble); Chicago, 2012
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music is theater for the ear. Take this performance. The phrasing, the interplay between sound and silence—this unfolds like something by Samuel Beckett.
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taking a(nother) break
Back in a while.
2012
Tuesday, 7/24/12
George Lewis (1952-), “Will to Adorn” (2011)
International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Chicago, 2012
[W]hen writing “The Will To Adorn,” Lewis was especially “interested in this idea of adornment—color, color, color everywhere.” The piece represents Lewis’ current musical goal to get “more color energy into the pieces.”
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
In February, when I left this concert, which took place on a Sunday afternoon at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, I felt both exhilarated and wistful. This performance, which had been such a joy to hear, I would never be able to experience again. Or so I thought, until, just the other day, I discovered this recording online. Young people, many of them, anyway, would see nothing remarkable in being able, thanks to the ’net, to return to a musical experience whenever, and wherever, you want. To me it seems a small miracle.
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reading table
I was trying to assert myself as the man in the house, taking charge of things no one could control.
—Richard Ford, Canada (2012)
2011
Saturday, 12/10/11
If sounds define a space as much as walls and windows, you don’t need to knock out a wall to open up a room—just play this.
International Contemporary Ensemble with Steve Lehman
Impossible Flow (S. Lehman), live, New York (Le Poisson Rouge), 4/19/11
The moment this ends I want to hear it again. Is there any higher compliment?
More Steve Lehman? Here.
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lagniappe
reading table
A strange old man
Stops me,
Looking out of my deep mirror.—Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (c. 662-710; trans. Kenneth Rexroth)
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