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Tag: Ursula Oppens

Sunday, 7/3/11

This guy I can’t get enough of.

Vernard Johnson, “Don’t Wait ’Til The Battle Is Over, Shout Now!”; live, TV broadcast (Bobby Jones Gospel)

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Time for just one note? 6:23.

More? Here. And here.

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lagniappe

art beat

Lee Friedlander, Cherry Blossom Time in Japan (2006)

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reading table

Yesterday, opening my Emily Dickinson collection (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin) at random, I came upon this.

We do not play on Graves —
Because there isn’t Room —
Besides — it isn’t even — it slants
And People come —

And put a Flower on it —
And hang their faces so —
We’re fearing that their Hearts will drop —
And crush our pretty play —

And so we move as far
As Enemies — away —
Just looking round to see how far
It is — Occasionally —

—Emily Dickinson (#599)

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listening room: what’s playing

Echocord Jubilee Comp. (Echocord)

Art Ensemble of Chicago, Full Force (ECM)

Art Ensemble of Chicago, Urban Bushmen (ECM)

Paul Motian (with Lee Konitz, soprano & alto saxophones; Joe Lovano, tenor saxophone; Bill Frisell, guitar; Charlie Haden, bass), On Broadway Vol. 3 (Winter & Winter)

Rebirth Brass Band, Feel Like Funkin’ It Up (Rounder)

Marc Ribot, Silent Movies (Pi Recordings)

• Wadada Leo Smith, Kabell Years: 1971-1979 (Tzadik)

Charles “Baron” Mingus, West Coast, 1945-49 (Uptown Jazz)

• John Alexander’s Sterling Jubilee Singers, Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb (New World Records)

Rev. Johnny L. Jones, The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta (Dust-to-Digital)

Elliott Carter, composer; Ursula Oppens, piano; Oppens Plays Carter (Cedille)

Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, composers; Maurizio Pollini, piano, piano works (Schoenberg), Variations Op. 27 (Webern) (Deutsche Grammophon)

Morton Feldman, For Bunita Marcus, Stephane Ginsburgh, piano (Sub Rosa)

WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
Traditions in Swing (Phil Schaap, jazz)
—Daybreak Express
(Various, jazz)
Out to Lunch (Various, jazz)
Jazz Profiles (Various, jazz)
Jazz Alternatives (Various, jazz)
Morning Classical (Various, classical)
Afternoon New Music (Various, classical and hard-to-peg)
Eastern Standard Time (Carter Van Pelt, Jamaican music)

WFMU-FM
Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
Sinner’s Crossroads
(Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some
(Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine (soul)

Saturday, 12/12/09

Last week a recording of his complete works for solo piano (so far), Oppens Plays Carter (on Chicago-based Cedille Records), was nominated for a Grammy.

This week he celebrated his 101st birthday.

Next week?

Elliott Carter, Quintet for Piano (1997), Ursula Oppens, The Arditti Quartet, live

Part 1

Part 2

Want more? Here.

Thursday, 11/19/09

For Ursula Oppens, present and past aren’t far apart. In a concert I heard several years ago (at Northwestern’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall), she opened with Beethoven (1712-1773) and closed with John Adams (1947-).

Elliott Carter (1908-), “Retrouvailles” (2000)/Ursula Oppens, piano, live, New York, 2008

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lagniappe

[Elliott Carter, who will soon celebrate his 101st birthday,] heard pianist Art Tatum play on 52nd Street [in the 1940s] and . . . became a fan of Thelonious Monk.—Tom Cole, “Elliott Carter’s Century of Music,” NPR

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David Schiff, author of ‘The Music of Elliott Carter,’ said in the program that the ‘Piano Sonata of 1946’ ‘invoked jazz.’ And during a panel discussion he smiled and said he thought he heard some influence of jazz pianist Thelonious Monk in the piano part of Carter’s ‘Cello Sonata of 2000.’

‘I’ve never heard Carter say anything about it,’ Mr. Schiff later added in an e-mail, ‘but when I play through the part (in private!) I like to give the many staccato notes that mark the pulse a kind of Monk edge to them.’—Roderick Nordell, “99 years of Elliott Carter in 5 Days,” Christian Science Monitor, 1/26/09

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An (often-fascinating) conversation between Elliott Carter and Phil Lesh (Grateful Dead) can be heard here.