Boa tarde, paulistanos de nascimento e paulistanos adotivos!

Essa semana descobri um cd inspirador, o “The Hours” – trilha sonora do filme que leva o mesmo nome, de autoria de Philip Glass. Confesso minha ignorância, ainda não conhecia o trabalho do Philip. Mas a boa notícia é que agora não somente viciei nas músicas, como indico aos que gostam de músicas instrumentais que soam como poesia para alma.
Agora, o filme mesmo, ainda preciso assistir. Prometo que volto aqui para contar o que achei.

Quem ficou curioso, pode baixar o cd aqui.

Essa dica veio do meu professor de violão, Celso Ricardi.
O Celso também tem um trabalho instrumental muito bonito (no estilo lounge), que faz sucesso principalmente no exterior. Com gravadora italiana, ele lançou o cd “Better Future”, que pode ser conferido aqui.

E, como o assunto é música boa, fica a dica: hoje tem show de Tó Brandilene, às 22h no Ao Vivo Music. No show “A grama do vizinho” ele interpreta composições próprias e de amigos, que certamente estarão por lá para uma participação especial (gente, ele tem amigos de peso, como: Vinicius Calderoni, Dani Gurgel, Pedro Altério, Dani Black, Pedro Viáfora…não é pouca porcaria não!).
Eu não poderei comparecer dessa vez. Portanto, se você for, por favor não me esnobe.

Um pouco mais de Tó Brandileone (guardem esse nome!), com música de Vinícius Calderoni.

DanceNOWChicago loves music (for obvious reasons). We also love the unexpected. The two together….well, you can only imagine.

The Gillick work that is up at the MCA has got me thinking a lot about where we encounter music and just how much we engage with it. Music is so prolific in some spaces (like restaurants, coffee shops, and stores) that we hardly notice it enough to even appreciate it. On the other hand, when we encounter music in unexpected places (like a museum) we have a different engagement with it-we are automatically more turned on by it and tuned in to it.

Today for example, I encountered a man fiddling around with a finger harp while waiting for the red line. It was disarmingly lovely.

Here are a couple other disarmingly lovely things I have encountered recently regarding music. Enjoy.

Just incredible.  I want to play it so badly!

(who knew Philip Glass wrote music for Sesame Street?!)

P.S. Speaking of music, did you download the song for the next guerrilla dance party yet?

1.  Article in the Wall Street Journal on Philip Glass is pretty wonderful, but I gotta say, there is a pretty large school of people that would argue the claim that to “anyone familiar with his music, Philip Glass is the original Minimalist.”  I’ll agree that Phil is definitely one of the original minimalists, but not the original one.

2. You wake up one day, and not only do you find out you are Charles Manson’s son, but some douchebag commenter on the Dangerous Minds article about your discovery says you look like Nathan Lane.  While all that sucks, at least you can rest assured that your pop technically isn’t a serial killer like it states in the same article.  He just had his followers do all that dirty work.

There’s a story up on the Wall Street Journal about the recent(ish) trend in classical concert percussion pieces, including Philip Glass’ Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Tan Dun’s Concerto for Water Percussion. It mostly covers the growing corps of soloists and the number of new music composers that are growing the repertoire, but it also asks the question of why it is so popular.

And yet the extramusical elements may be the reason percussion music is so popular with audiences, and often draws crowds that are substantially younger than average. Sometimes it bridges the divide between classical music and rock: Mr. Yamashta remains an icon in alternative rock circles; a percussion concerto by Stewart Copeland, the former drummer of The Police, will be given its premiere next year by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Perhaps most intriguing is the fact that percussion music is in such demand despite its association with contemporary music—usually considered toxic for ticket sales.

“I think that concert presenters still scratch their heads and don’t understand why this phenomenon is occurring,” says Mr. Haas. “They don’t want to recognize the fact that drums, which not so long ago were considered to not be a concert instrument, have now taken over as the predominant attraction of new audiences.

I think I have an answer to this.

In a sense, rhythm is the last holdout of variety through geographic isolation. Throughout the history of Western classical music it has been possible to track rhythms (especially in dances) from their origin in folk and foreign traditions and the way that they spread around the continent. For example, the sarabande came to Spain from Central America in the middle of the 16th century, then became a staple of French dance suites a century later after it had been banned in Spain due its “obscenity.” With the internet, greater interest in world music, and a globalization fueled interest in cultural pluralism, Western music audiences of the 20th century have the ability to hear the music of any culture on earth.

It was a rhythmic century. Rock and Roll. Funk. Disco. Hip Hop. Jazz. And I think audience interest in percussion oriented pieces reflects a desire to hear concert music that is of its time. In other words, to have music written in the 21st century that ignores the experiments and sounds of percussion specialists like Aphex Twin, or the syncopation and rhythmic variety of a master MC is ignoring the sounds of their time.

There have been periods in music history characterized by growth in complexity of counterpoint, or changes in instrument building and orchestration, or innovations in form. I think this century is going to see a lot of experimentation in the rhythmic content of concert music.

The sound is unnecessary, but the visual display is extra-ordinary.

-Amanda Hick and Walter Aparicio, soprano and piano extraordinaires

Went to BAM for the first time last night to see the US premiere of Philip Glass’s new opera ‘Kepler,’ an hour-and-a-half work about  the scientist’s exploration of the sky and his coming to terms with science and God: he arrives at the conclusion that astronomy and God are connected and it is up to humanity, through science, to find out God’s plan.

The music sounded great with the libretto, which included some of Kepler’s own quotes and the usual libretto filler.  The harmonies and the rhythm were the strongest supporting elements of the ideas contained in the text.  The musicians and conductor Dennis Russell Davies straight up had their shit together.  Sound-wise, Kepler was fantasic.

The production itself, however,  needs a makeover.  At an opera strong visuals are expected, a must even.  Aesthetics aside, visuals also help the audience follow the story better.  For example, the main soloists dressed in plain black concert attire were meant to be the voices of Kepler’s thoughts, but that was not clear.  At the very least, the scenery could have been, I dunno, a starry night perhaps?  (This seems obvious to me.)  I understand the budget was probably low, but creativity does not take thousands of dollars…and we can confirm that here at The Nouveau Classical Project!  My mind was racing with ideas as I sat there.  Anyway, you should still go see it!

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the performers, as a rabid usher nearly clawed my boyfriend’s face off as he tried to take a photo of the closing bows.  (She probably would have Tasered him if she had one handy.  Thank God she is not in any real position of authority.)  But enjoy these after-party photos (and a special video!), where, luckily, Ms. Anger Management Issues was not invited.

Finally, a term I can get behind! I have never (not once, ever) been called an old soul, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since mostly I act like it’s my first day on earth. This gives me an innocent appreciation for shiny objects, but also guarantees that I will put my hand on a hot stove and be swindled by traveling magicians. I often wonder how some people stay so composed, while I (metaphorically) careen wildly off a cliff and break my (metaphorical) legs. But what are brains for, if not to be filled with foolish, improbable schemes? At this point, I’ve made so many mistakes that I’ve learned to do it quietly, behind the scenes. This saves me from embarrassment, but also keeps me from sharing the process with others. There’s a line I like from a Dean Young poem that says, “Youth, your brain is more hand grenade than a sack of scholastic slugs.” Uh oh. It took a reminder from someone dear to me to notice that somewhere along the line, my methodical side has steered me away from some of that youthful exuberance. I believe my creativity has suffered because of it. And so, I am resolving to make my mistakes loudly and boldly from now on, to follow my foolish schemes into erupting volcanoes, to mess up in front of a live audience, and to bring back the hand grenade thinking that has brought so much to me in the past.

I’ve been very inspired by Philip Glass lately — not just by his music (which has always been a favorite), but by his creative strategies. There’s a moment in an interview with him where he’s asked about his work habits, and he says something like, “I get up very early in the morning and I work all day.” Well, that’s it, isn’t it? There’s your secret: just sit down and do it. (I’m trying, hard.) I went to see one of Glass’s operas the other night; it was “Orphee,” based on the classic Cocteau film, and it was my first experience with live opera. It was so different from what I’m used to! I could feel my brain stretching and trying to make sense of things; I’m entirely unfamiliar with the conventions of opera, so I could only go by my immediate impressions. By the second act, I’d stopped trying to analyze things and just let myself be moved by the music. Opera is filled with passion and longing, which is right up my alley — as Nietzsche says, “… I love only that which is written in blood.” Word up, dude.

Anyway, I was sitting there in my most restrictive outfit, right next to someone who spent the entire performance slowly unwrapping cough drops, when it began occurring to me that what I was watching was not just a singular work, but the product of a whole slew of previous compositions. One work sets the stage for the next, which learns from the mistakes of the previous, which brings some of its elements to the next, and so on (forever). And so, even if you churn out some clunkers, your work will grow and benefit from the effort. I hate some of Glass’s earlier works (zzzzz!!) but they made it possible for me to be at Orphee that night, wearing red high heels and fantasizing about snatching the Ricola wrapper from my seatmate’s hand. This lesson seems so obvious, but when I put it into practice in my own life, it’s almost revolutionary! There goes common sense, blowing my mind again.

Here, would you like to see Philip Glass playing piano? This is one of my favorites.

WAY TO GO, PHIL.

To celebrate The Strokes being voted number 1 album of the decade by NME readers here is one of their great songs, Hard To Explain…

Do I agree with the choice? Not telling (er… not sure) but I do love the album… a lot. And I would have been very disappointed to see the The Libertines in the top spot – they are definitely too high up in my humble opinion.

EDIT: The video is all a bit modern-Koyaanisqatsi. Now there’s a piece of music that is deserving of super-high-mega-accolades.

Terry Riley (Califórnia, 24 de Junho de 1935) é um dos grandes nomes da música contemporânea, que tem cultivado o inconformismo para ajudar a mudar este planeta. A sua composição “In C” fez 45 anos neste mês e foi festejada com um concerto, em Carnegie Hall (Nova Iorque).

Riley disse recentemente: “Cada pessoa tem uma maneira diferente de experimentar a música. É um acto individual e existem diferentes níveis na experiência musical que satisfazem diferentes necessidades intelectuais e emocionais. Por isso, a música é essencial à vida, tal como a água”.

Discografia: In C (1964), A Rainbow in Curved Air (1967), Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band (1968), Shri Camel (1980), The Harp of New Albion (1986), Salome Dances for Peace, Chanting the Light of Foresight, Sun Rings, para Kronos Quartet, Church of Anthrax, com John Cale

C’est vrai, je passe pas mal de temps sur Twitter. Endroit idéal pour la procrastination du no-life quadragénaire en reconversion misanthropique avec syndrome d’angoisse sociale Allégations à vérifier chez un de ces psy dont la parole vaut de l’or vu ce qu’ils tarifient la demi-heure pour lâcher quelques mots

Donc, en tweetant, parmi ce qui me sert de plus en plus de fil d’infos – autant si ce n’est plus que les abos RSS et agrégateurs habituels -, on suit pas mal de liens vers des articles ou du contenu produit par les blogueurs. Mais il y a aussi un temps pour partager ses goûts et au hasard de clics on peut s’offrir de belles découvertes ou l’occasion de se plonger un peu plus dans ce qu’on avait négligé. Les applis de partage sont nombreuses, comme ce Blip.fm par exemple, mais il suffit aussi de linker vers Deezer, Spotify, Dailymotion, Youtube…

Justement là, je vais rester sur les chemins qui m’ont été tracés vers des écoutes via ce site de partage.Tranquille ce dimanche après-midi, avant d’aller gagner à la sueur de mon front ma maigre pitance sous le joug inhumain du capitalisme financier (je galéje un peu là : je bosse assis derrière un ordi et la paye est assez correcte; mais l’idée y est quand même – je vous donne pas de détails ?), voilà que b-mode (retrouvez-le avec “ses” co-auteurs sur Ruminances et sur Tes reins et terroirs) et loloster (par ici pour son blog) s’échangent quelques “scuds” amicaux mais musicaux. Ni une, ni deux, je profite de ces “tirs” croisés…

Et me voilà débarquant en vol aussi libre que plané chez des cadors du jazz. Faisons simple, je ne peux prétendre à aucune connaissance dans ce domaine. Tout au plus quelques notions éparses via notamment un super pote,  zikos expat’ et fervent du genre, mais une culture bien insuffisante pour tenter quelque analyse de ce que j’entends. Je serais plutôt du genre auprès de qui on peut faire passer du free pour du bebop et du cool pour du west coast (et je ne cite là que des courants dont j’ai retenus le nom )  Ce qui n’empêche de se laisser aller à l’écoute et à être emporté par (dans) le son. Issu de leur échange, et mis en favoris de suite, je me fis donc “bêtement” plaisir en écoutant plus avant Charlie Mingus et John Coltrane.

Ce qui me valut de me faire Impressions dans la foulée

Autre chemin sympa via les méandres du web, celui qui m’a conduit vers un Bashung crépusculaire revisitant L’Homme à tête de chou. C’est depuis chez Thephase3 que j’ai rapatrié dans mes esgourdes ces Variations sur Marilou de Gainsbourg, dont la version originale était déjà écoutable jusqu’à l’infini pour y découvrir sans cesse des détails aussi infimes qu’indispensables qui s’y étaient dissimulés. Ce titre fait partie d’une relecture de cet album concept définitif que Bashung envoie post-mortem pour une mise en scène et une chorégraphie de Jean-Claude Gallotta présentée à Grenoble et qui s’apprête à voyager (dates à la fin de ce billet de Menilmuche).

Quatre autres titres sont dispos en écoute sur le site de L’Express (clic clic clic).

Finissant ce billet, je ne sais pour toi lecteur quelle heure il sera au moment où tu le croisera. Pour moi, celle du sommeil approche. Le moment de trouver sérénité et quiétude, de se laisser aller vers un état un peu contemplatif. Cette ouverture des Glassworks, je ne me souviens plus, malheureusement, par le tweet de qui j’y atterris (s’il se reconnaît sait-on jamais qu’il le dise pour être linké plutôt que de se taire à jamais).

Il va sans dire que la musique classique contemporaine en général et Philip Glass en particulier, ce n’est pas mon univers d’origine ni même de prédilection. Quand on grandit le regard entre Best et Rock&Folk, avec sur sa platine les Ramones, les Clash ou le Boss et que ses nuits de concerts furent longtemps faites de Cramps, de Gun Club ou de Lords of the new church, il y a quand même des séquelles Cela n’empêche pas d’écouter. L’occasion de prolonger une soirée où je le vis rendre hommage à Allen Ginsberg avec Patti Smith. Cette vidéo minimaliste sur  Opening Glassworks,  filmée en plan fixe un jour de pluie depuis une fenêtre à Los Angeles par twentyflights a, sans non plus ici prétendre à toute lecture “autorisée” de cette musique, des vertus que je trouve bien apaisantes.

i’m ashamed to say that i have never been to the opera before seeing philip glass’s orphee last week. the opera just always seemed out of reach, so i never looked into it. when i saw that the portland opera was going to be doing one of glass’s operas, i decided it was time. and thankfully i knew who to ask to accompany me, the only other person i know that likes philip glass, morgan’s brother don. don also got us some great seats for a really good price. now the opera doesn’t seem so out of reach anymore.

this is what philip glass’s website says about orphee.

Based on Cocteau’s fascinating retelling of the Orpheus myth, Orphée, the first opera of Philip Glass’ Cocteau Trilogy, is an extended parable on the life of an artist, a poet harassed and misunderstood by peers. His success leads to the ridicule by fellow poets, ending in a creatively crippling isolation. With a renewed apprehension of his own mortality, Orphee regains his emotional strength, enabling him to ignore the trials of ordinary life, freeing him to be a poet. The poets Orphee and Cegeste, Euridice, and a mysterious Princess interact within the worlds of the living and the dead, existing in that mysterious realm that separates the two worlds. Love triumphs and thus returns Orphee and Euridice to mortal life, with no remaining consciousness of their unusual time spent between “the worlds”. The Princess has violated the laws of life and death one time too many and is banished into oblivion.

the music was pure philip glass, small repetitive tonal circles culminating in beautiful glissades mixed with delicate percussion, and intricately subtle piano work. the libretto for the opera was lifted right from cocteau’s screenplay. since i don’t have a lot of experience with opera i can’t really critique the performances.  i do think that this was far from traditional opera, it seemed more like performance art. every movement and motion of the cast was choreographed, people popped in and out of the stage saying cryptic messages, and endless interpretations of the symbolism are probable. the set was also one of the characters, with two sides a mirror images. the use of mirrors and mirror imagery was the most striking part of the production, they were the portal between the worlds. watching orphee was reminiscent of watching movies of the french new wave. orphee grabs the audiences attention and doesn’t let go. i was moved by the performance, but over a week later i’m still not sure how, i still need more time with it.

Two of the greatest musicians of the 20th century worked together and created a masterpiece. The album was called “Passages“, and the piece you’re listening to is called “Channels and Winds”. Tha composers,  Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass. The album’s content is a hybrid of Ravi Shankar’s signature sitar playing and Hindustani classical music and Philip Glass’s distinct American minimalist contemporary classical style.

Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass met in Paris in 1965, when Glass was a young aspiring composer and Shankar was confirming his place in the world’s classical canon. Shankar acted as an informal mentor to Glass, and their interaction inspired Glass to consider the possibilities of rhythm. By the time they joined forces at a New York City studio, in 1989, the two occupied a more level playing field.

PASSAGES differs from previous collaborations that Shankar had undertaken with Western musicians such as Yehudi Mehuhin, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and George Harrison. On four of the six pieces, the two don’t improvise together so much as refine each other’s material, while on the remaining tracks, each composer is entirely responsible for the final composition. Shankar’s lush orchestrations are most evident on “Prashanti” and the graceful “Ragas in Minor Scale,” while Glass’s repetitions manifest most hauntingly on “Channels and Winds.” But on the finest tracks, “Offering” and “Meeting Along the Edge,” their individual talents are subsumed into the collective experience.

So, I haven’t blogged in forever, but at last the term’s winding down, and my workload is (slowly, slightly) dissipating. Soon winter break will be here and I’ll have little better to do than spout out thoughts onto the Internet. In any case, I’ve got some random thoughts clotting up my brain: movies I’ve been watching lately, good & bad. Gender roles and perceptions. Feminism, activism, and privilege. Where to start? My ideas aren’t really in any kind of especially useful or coherent form. But I’ll see what I can do.

[Watchmen SPOILERS!]

First of all: the Watchmen movie. I wanted this to be good. I honestly, sincerely wanted to see Watchmen and enjoy it, and say, “Well, that was a worthy adaptation.” Alas, that was not to be. I know everybody went over all of this months ago, but I just now caught up with the film, so I’m going to speak my piece: I love Alan Moore’s Watchmen. I read it for the first time when I was a senior in high school. Its merits (and its influences) are endless. With Dave Gibbons’ impressive artistry and Moore’s blow-you-the-fuck-away writing, which veers between the trenchantly political, satirical, personal, and epic, it’s an ambitious, mature work of art that changed both how readers thought about superheroes, and how comics writers wrote about them.

But praising Watchmen is like bringing coals to Newcastle – it’s been declared the greatest graphic novel of all time, and so far, that claim seems at least as legitimate as calling it “the Citizen Kane of comics” (just try searching that phrase and see what comes up). My point is, I’ve loved the book for a while, loved how it lures you into its dystopian yet recognizable world and gives you pathetic has-beens to identify with (Dan and the insulated Laurie), loved its intelligently crafted images from the snow blindness of Karnak to the majesty of Jon’s Martian solitude, and loved how they all came together to form a brilliant and imaginative end result.

Then I saw the movie.

Yes, it’s faithful, but only to the letter of the original, not to the spirit. A real Watchmen adaptation (IMHO – after all, who am I?) would have acknowledged that comics are a different medium than film, so the techniques that worked so well in one just wouldn’t translate to the other. Similarly, we read comics in a different way than we watch movies. In comics, you can page back and forth, reconnecting subplots, noticing subtle visual clues, and resolving suspicions. Moore & Gibbons used this to their advantage time and time again. In a movie theater, though, you can’t slow down the pace at which you’re taking in information – it’s going to be constantly hitting you at 24 fps – and you can’t ask the projectionist to rewind to a earlier reel because you want to check something. (Maybe Watchmen can be an object lesson in medium specificity.)

What this amounts to is that 1) while in the book, we could extract all the detail out of Gibbons’ art by lingering over each panel, we don’t have time for that in the movie, especially when so much jumbled, hyperkinetic action is being thrown at us and 2) the complex, interweaving strands of narrative and character development are reduced to chaotic attempts to give each character his due. Robert Altman could dart back in forth between sets of characters and do each one justice, showing the audience how they all intersect and what that means. (See Nashville, Short Cuts, or Gosford Park.) Zack Snyder just can’t. So what ended up happening?

The viewer’s assaulted with chunks of pages ripped from the book, with no chance to appreciate any of their nuances. We get one flashback, then another, then another, with a little bit of the present day thrown in for good measure. What was a fully-developed world full of unhappy, relatable people becomes a competing mix of garbled ideas, some carried out well, others not. The massive background of Watchmen, apparently tossed in as one of many efforts to please fans, instead becomes a contextless distraction. Who’s Dollar Bill? Who’s Hooded Justice? Snyder might as well have tacked a note to those scenes saying, “If you can’t tell what’s going on, go read the book, then come back.” This is by no means a stand-alone project; instead, it’s like a parasitic twin sprouting out of the Watchmen legacy.

So what the film’s unflinching “faithfulness” to the book means, in the end, is that it’s a rushed, 3-hour attempt to tell a huge story. And to paraphrase Citizen Kane’s Bernstein, “It’s no trick to [tell a huge story], if all you want to do is [tell a huge story].” Well, OK, it is something of a trick, but my point is that Snyder doesn’t tell the story well or interestingly or in a way that adds anything to the body of cinema; he just tells it. Sure, every plot point is filled in, but they’re done perfunctorily. In the book, the ending is cathartic and daunting – with Dan and Laurie still together, two people in a shattered, confused world, and the New Frontiersman potentially about to change all that.

Having felt for these two and been involved in their lives over the preceding hundreds of pages, I could sympathize with the crises they’d faced and the uneasy point at which they’d arrived. In the movie, however, I just didn’t care about Laurie. Maybe it was fucking Malin Åkerman. Or maybe it was the way she was squeezed into all of these emotionally loaded situations – her mom popping up briefly at the beginning and end to reminisce, Dr. Manhattan with his making-you-remember-things superpower (where did that come from?) to let her know that the Comedian is her father. All the right words and pictures are there, but none of the feeling.

I’ll keep my minor complaints to a minimum: for example, why did the masked heroes call themselves “the Watchmen”? I’m not a purist who insists every detail in the book must be in the movie, but there was a reason for the group in the book to be called the Minutemen instead. The title derives from a Juvenal quote, graffiti’d on walls periodically throughout book and film, “Who watches the watchmen?”, an explicit questioning of the pre-Keene Act team’s power and lack of oversight. If the team calls itself the Watchmen, that takes away the whole critical aspect of the title, and reduces it to a simple descriptor. Of course, as Ashley pointed out, if they’d called the team the Minutemen, audiences would’ve been confused and upset, so it’s probably all for the best.

Other minor complaints: the soundtrack, dear lord. Hey, who wants another montage, action scene, or random transition set to the best of classic rock? “99 Luftballoons” appeared for about a minute as Dan and Laurie went to dinner together. You’re just left guessing what not-really-that-appropriate song they’ll turn to next. And finally, this isn’t really minor, but I can’t imagine enjoying this movie if you don’t enjoy stylized violence. All the time. Like blood splattering places for no real reason. Bones cracking in slow-motion. People being exploded by Dr. Manhattan, a lot, and having their guts stick to the ceiling. It’s not a party if no one’s being exploded.

So that’s my take on the Watchmen movie, and as you can imagine, I’m kinda sick of talking about it. Was it insufferably bad? Not really. Was it good? Eh. Jackie Earle Haley made for a suitably grungy, psychotic Rorschach. The general visual aesthetic worked well enough. But on the whole, especially in comparison to the book, no. Pretty much the only correct response to the existence of the film Watchmen is to go read the book. In cinematic form, it has all of its energy, emotion, and political inquiry sucked out, replaced with interminable blood-letting and tedious plot re-enactments, until you practically want to blow up New York yourself just to get it over with. (Another minor complaint: the changed ending also sucks, and it lacks the curiosity-piquing build-up of the book.) I may be a little tardy in reviewing this, but it doesn’t really matter. Maybe someday they (this mysterious “they”) will take the same route as with the 2003 Hulk, and reboot it all entirely. But given the legal quagmire this adaptation got stuck in, I doubt we’ll be seeing a brand new one any time soon.

One piece of Watchmen I did enjoy, though, was something lifted from another movie: the use of Philip Glass’s “Pruitt-Igoe” among other pieces from Koyaanisqatsi. The main effect, though, was to make me think, I want to go listen to some Philip Glass music, without Zack Snyder’s involvement. Listening to Glass makes me wish I knew anything about music. He’s called a minimalist, which makes sense to me – his compositions are often repetitive and cyclical, but beautifully so. When Godfrey Reggio approached him to score Koyaanisqatsi, he originally said he didn’t do film scores. Thank God he reconsidered, because what resulted was one of the greatest feature-length mergers of image and sound in film history. Since the film is entirely without dialogue (or narrative), the music speaks for it in a similarly universal language.

From what I’ve learned about him and heard of his music, Philip Glass is just cool. I first heard his name in connection to a new score he composed for the 1931 Dracula – I mean, how much more awesome do you get? He’s based symphonies on David Bowie albums. His score for Mishima, despite being totally un-Japanese, somehow fits Paul Schrader’s depiction of the author’s dark visions and imperial dreams. With Errol Morris’s The Fog of War, his music aurally illustrated the historical implications of Robert S. McNamara’s life. I can’t imagine a Glass score ever being a liability; I would (and have) watch a movie just to hear one. Out of all the classical musicians in the world today, I’m skeptical that any are as plainly awesome as Glass. Need proof?

That’s right, Glass composed music for Sesame Street. He’s just all over the place. And I salute his extreme versatility, ingenuity, and the great pleasure of his music. So, that done, I think I’ll take the time I have left at work to switch to a very different vein: talking gender roles, as I often do. Today in my often thought-provoking (and always very easy) Psychology of Gender class, we were watching clips of John Gray (of Men are from Mars fame) and Dave Chapelle talking about the differences between men and women. To put it directly, bullshit. In addition, fuck that. To make matters worse, last night Ashley and I were looking at a disturbing “trending topic” on Twitter: #arealwife. To give some random, unpleasant examples:

“sticks by her man thru thick or thin, rich or poor, her friends all hate him or not….”

“runs the family but acts and lets everyone think like her man is really running shit!”

“will give u a massage after a long day at work n will cook ur fave meal…. tell u she loves u n kiss u”

“will feed u, please u, need u, and always be right there for u”

Here’s what’s (obviously) wrong with this situation: these statuses are advocating deeply regressive gender roles that negatively affect both men and women. They’re claiming that “a real wife” should be subservient, sycophantic, hard-working, and sincerely caring all the time, subordinating herself to her almighty husband regardless of his behavior. It’s just a big, tiresome, worthless set of lies that people feel strangely compelled to fulfill. They’re similar to the lies we were discussing in class today: all women are [adjective], while all men are [adjective]; men and women apparently can’t talk to each other, but must do a formulaic dance in every relationship, struggling to reconcile they’re absolute goals (generally this means sex for men, and some combination of wealth, family, and commitment for women). Love, it would seem, has nothing to do with it.

And naturally feminism is very problematic, because it upsets all these supposedly universal desires of men and women. After all, if women expect to be treated like human beings, how are men supposed to degrade them and coerce them into sex? And if the men can’t do that, how are the women supposed to latch onto them for security and start producing babies? Why, feminism is just a wrench in the circle of life! It frustrates assumed life roles, it messes up how people of different sexes are supposed to relate (and really, without these schemata, how can men and women even talk to each other?), it just makes everything impossible!

That’s some extensive sarcasm, of course. I’d like to discuss this more, but I have some business to attend to for the rest of the evening. My point is that this #arealwife shit is just kind of saddening. Everyone should feel like they’re a worthy human being on their own, with no need for the validation of a set-in-stone relationship. Men and women are more similar than they are different, dammit. I feel like this should be obvious, but for some reason it’s just easier to perceive the world and relationships through the lens of oversimplifying roles. Hopefully people can gradually come to realize what confining, damaging bullshit all of this is – hell, I feel insulted when I’m told “men only want sex!” – and all of society can continue changing. I mean, we’ve made some progress in the past century. But so much of it lingers. The battle’s never over.

Moral of the story? Watchmen movie and gender roles bad; Watchmen book, Philip Glass, and liberation good.

I interviewed Anne Manson, the conductor of Portland Opera’s current production of Orphée, two weeks ago today, but because of lingering problems with my recording software, I’ve only just been able to piece the audio portion of our session together in order to transcribe it for posting. My sincerest apologies to Anne for this unexpected technical delay.

Here is the first part of our conversation, in which I asked her to talk about her musical background and her interest in contemporary and 20th-century music.

BK: Did you grow up in a musical household?

AM: My sister and I always played instruments from a young age, so we were always playing together, duets and so on. And later when we got older, we got friends together to do Brandenburgs and that kind of thing. So there was a lot of music in our house. My father is not a musician, neither of my parents are musicians. But my father is English and grew up during the war in England and he went regularly to concerts and that what basically got him through the war I think. [Laughs] So he just loves music. He had lots of recordings and he played them a lot and he loved to listen to us play, even it was probably a horrible sound in the early stages. [Laughs] So it was a household that was really full of music.

BK: Was there a defining musical moment for you early on?

AM: Well, the defining musical moment for me was the one summer I got to go to Tanglewood in the Young Musicians program. And that was a bit of a turning point for me, because I had always done a lot of music and enjoyed music, but that was an intense immersion in music. And my teachers were musicians but we didn’t know a lot of musicians, and I wasn’t exposed to musicians or what musical life might be. So it was the first time I was in that context with a lot of people who had music as their life.

BK: How old were you?

AM: I was fifteen.

BK: You enrolled at Harvard as a premed student. How long were you in that program?

AM: Well, it isn’t a program. You just do the courses that you need. I started out majoring in a combined degree called history and literature, and after a year or so I switched and majored in music, and then I did science classes as well. I didn’t major in biology or chemistry or anything like that.

BK: We tend to think of the sciences and the arts as compartmentalized activities, but I’d say there are some strong connections.

AM: There are some very strong connections. Most of the people I played with or sang with in college were majoring in math or physics. I actually think that science and math are very creative. They both have the intensely creative, imaginative side, and they have the side which is a lot of repetitive work. And we have the same.

BK: How did you end up in London?

AM: [In the fall of 1983], I started at the Royal College of Music, and then after I was there for several years – I had a scholarship to study there – they took me on as a fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music and I spent two years in Manchester. The fellows there do a lot of conducting and are almost members of staff, kind of a cross between a student and a member of staff. You run the contemporary music ensemble—that was when I started to get very interested in contemporary music—and then you also conduct orchestral concerts sometimes. You have supervisors who give you advice.

BK: That was around the same time as Mecklenbergh Opera.

AM: What happened was that I did a production of Figaro with an English director—theater director, really, not so much an opera director—and after we did it he suggested that we start an opera company together and we did, and that was Mecklenburgh Opera. And out first production was in 1988.

BK: How long did the company last?

AM: I was with Mecklenburgh Opera until 1996.

BK: Did Mecklenbergh program only contemporary music?

AM: No, no. It was 20^th-century. Initially we wanted to do operas that were being done in Europe, a lot of them were from Central and Eastern Europe that were simply not being seen in Britain or in Western Europe. So that’s what we started out doing, and then we started doing a broader range of 20^th-century chamber opera and also commissioning new operas ourselves from British composers.

BK: I’m interested in how performers gravitate towards certain repertoire. Is there something about 20^th-century or contemporary music that connects with you?

AM: I don’t know if I can define that. I’ve always done contemporary music and I’ve always loved 20^th-century music, and even early 20^th-century music – Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and so forth. But to me, nothing is more sublime than a Mozart opera. And in orchestral repertoire, I do a lot of Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms – central classical repertoire. There’s no question that there are works I connect to and works I don’t connect to, at least not as a conductor. I do not connect to the Tchaikovsky symphonies as a conductor, but there’s a huge range of music that I do connect with. I find it very rewarding to work on pieces by living composers and to have contact with living composers. I truly believe that it enriches audiences’ experiences to listen to that music. I really think we can’t just listen to the music of dead people, even though that’s some of the greatest music and it would be a pretty poor life without it. We need to broaden ourselves, and that also enriches our experience when we listen to a Mahler symphony or a Puccini opera. I wouldn’t say that I’m more drawn to contemporary music than a Brahms symphony, but one of the great things about being a conductor is that you have this incredibly broad, rich repertoire, and I feel incredibly lucky that we have it.

Four videos in a series of Philip Glass video resource dumping…

1. “Metamorphosis One,” from Solo Piano, and used in that episode of Battlestar Galactica. It was used quite effectively and also, in that one episode in the last episode where Starbuck jams with the piano player, if you didn’t think that guy was supposed to be her dad after having seen this episode, well…

…then again, with the butchering of “All Along The Watchtower” that was so heavily incorporated in the final cycle of that show, I think I have to remain incredibly happy that Glass was used at all. It gave this show a certain touch of class that so many people mistakenly thought it retained it’s entire four seasons (and well into straight-to-DVD money grabs). But I digress. See a little of how “Metamorphosis One” was used here and here.

2. The trailer for Glass: A Portrait Of Phillip In Twelve Parts, the documentary on the composer who is a master of “existential dread” and “repetitive structures” by director Scott Hicks.

3. Einstein On The Beach, the approximately five or so hour long opera composed by Glass.

…of which there is an excerpt above. The opera is where the Counting Crows got the title for their song, “Einstein On The Beach (For An Eggman)” from. I don’t really like the Counting Crows except for just a handful of songs, but there’s just something infectiously wonderful about that one.

Though, musical side note: When I think of their song, with that subtitle in parentheses, I can’t help but think of, of course, the Beatles’ “I Am The Walrus,” a lovely bit of juvenile Lewis Carrolling about and complaining abotu capitalism, and the eternal debate that followed over who exactly the Walrus was and who was the fucking Eggman. In “Glass Onion” on The White Album, it’s suggested that the Walrus was Paul, though in John Lennon’s solo song, “God,” naturally, he suggests that it was himself. But the Eggman was actually Eric Burdon.

4. How to play piano like Philip Glass.

Just fascinating. If I had ever taught myself how to play piano, well… now I’d be playing like Glass, wouldn’t I? Well, more soon, I imagine, but for now, enjoy the Phillip Glass. And… suck it, Michael Nyman, ha ha.

曾經想過彈出Philip Glass那層層疊疊聽似不斷重複又藴涵變化的極微主義音樂嗎？這位仁兄懷抱著技客的精神，幫你分解飛利普葛拉斯。

când ai nevoie de dragoste nu ti se da dragoste.
când trebuie sa iubesti nu esti iubit.
când esti singur nu poti sa scapi de singuratate.
când esti nefericit nu are sens sa o spui.

când vrei sa strângi în brate nu ai pe cine.
când vrei sa dai un telefon sunt toti plecati.
când esti la pamânt cine se intereseaza de tine?
cui îi pasa? cui o sa-i pese vreodata? (Mircea Cărtărescu – Când ai nevoie de dragoste)

cineva…

intr-o zi…

cândva…

este…

undeva…

chiar daca e noapte…

chiar daca e muzica prea tare…

chiar daca imaginile sunt apă dulce…

si versurile curg ca focul….

strat după strat….

mă aştern pe strada….

ta…

…….şi te vei linişti…
în final vei fi fericit

poate îţi vei dori să fii şi tu nebun
ca mine
sau ca tine
ca nebunul de acum din tine
care dă să iasă din lăcaşul închinat lui de la începutul timpului tau

oricum,
fericirea e ACOLO
uite-o!
atige-o!
fericirea s-a îndragostit de tine!
n-o dezamăgi
chiar dacă n-o iubeşti-
strânge-o în braţe şi alint-o
te va iubi şi mai mult după…

Leí Las Horas por el revuelo crítico que causó la película del mismo título, aunque yo no la había visto todavía; lo que es un riesgo a veces y, otras, una bendición. No sabía nada de su autor,  Michael Cunningham, más sí del director de la versión cinematográfica (Stephen Daldry), y del maravilloso plantel de actores de la misma. Es uno de los pocos casos en los que me vi abocado a leer una novela debido a una película. Y ambas me sorprendieron.

Las Horas no es una historia fácil. Ni pretende serlo. Porque no se deja leer con facilidad. Está llena de estuarios que son miradas y gestos; de silencios que bullen con los sonidos de recuerdos sofocados; brota del dolor y al dolor retorna; se asienta en la desesperación llegando, sin embargo, a la calma. Y, a pesar de todo, o debido a todo, la historia fluye, fluye a través de sus páginas con una sutileza admirable sin detenerse nunca, sin dar respiro al lector. La historia imbricada de tres mujeres que en nada se parecen pero que son tan similares; el ambiente de cada una, opresivo, abigarrado, lleno de las naderías de la existencia normal; los sentimientos que las hermanan; la desidia que las corroe; la lucha que las iguala; y, finalmente, el dolor que las reproduce. Porque son mujeres que dan fruto: se quedan en nuestro corazón y se mantienen, flotando como espíritus benevolentes, por muchos días. Y ése es el mérito de Michael Cunningham: trasciende una historia triple, opresiva, dura y desesperada, en la que triunfa el individuo, el ser, y ese triunfo lo mide en intangibilidad, en evocación, en nada. Fascinante.

Las Horas es un libro magnético, escrito con esa sencillez casi minimalista que caracteriza a cierta prosa norteamericana llena de trazos de Hopper, con su desolación y desesperanza, en la que la vida de tres mujeres tan diferentes en tiempo y espacio, se imbrican a través de la fascinación que sienten una por la otra, por la fantasía de una historia que se gesta y que es contada y por las consecuencias que nuestros actos siempre tienen, en los demás (algo tan freudiano que quizá debiera pasar de una vez de moda) y sobre todo, y más que todo añadiría yo, en nosotros mismos. Son tres mujeres llenas de flaquezas; interiormente rudas y plenas; que luchan por salir a la superficie y por respirar el aroma de la verdadera libertad: la ausencia de unas ataduras inútiles, el batir de las alas al remontar el vuelo, y el bramar de la tierra al quedarse atrás… Las Horas contiene en las horas que pasan cada uno de los sueños, cada una de las ideas y de los sentimientos atormentados y atrapados de estas mujeres que luchan, luchan siempre y siempre contra sí mismas, sin importarles nada. Son verdaderas artistas, capaces de desangrarse a sí mismas, y a los que les rodean, para conseguir sentirse plenamente ellas mismas, seres únicos, indiscutibles, serenos y, a la postre, libres.

La versión cinematográfica es igual de fascinante. Engatusa al espectador con la fluidez de las imágenes, con el baile de miradas, de sensaciones (todo se toca, se huele, se saborea en la distancia; todo se observa desde dentro y desde fuera: los besos, las caricias, las soledades) y de angustias, que culminan en el parto de una idea que evoca, en otro tiempo y lugar, la libertad de una mujer hastiada y la angustia de una mujer encerrada entre un amor imposible y un amor que le puede dar lo que más ansía: la libertad. Porque, a pesar de ser una obra de desesperación y de angustia por conseguir ser individuos al completo, Las Horas es el canto a la libertad real, a la libertad de espíritu y de facto, aquella que sólo somos capaces de darnos a nosotros mismos y que, quizá, nos costaría menos, o la saborearíamos mejor, si comprendiésemos que los que nos rodean nos aman lo suficiente como para dejar que seamos lo que deberíamos ser.

Y la belleza de las imágenes, la transparencia de cada una de las extraordinarias creaciones del elenco de actores; la ambientación detallada; las luces, las sombras, las reacciones, los detalles, las flores y los aromas, no valdrían de nada sin la maravillosa banda sonora creada por Philip Glass, llena de incisión, de voluntad; tan amable con el espectador como la misma historia, tan brillante sin embargo en su casi desaparecer, y tan fluida, que hilvana las horas que pasan con el ritmo incesante de lo que no tiene fin. Y que queda grabada en la mente y el corazón, con la resonancia de lo verdadero, una vez se cierra el último plano y cesa el arrullo de su ritmo.

Who: T. Gureckis, Assistant to Philip Glass/Co-founder, Found Object Music Productions +1 (me)

What: Philip Glass Violin Concerto No. 1

Bruckner Orchester Linz/Dennis Russell Davies, Conductor/Renaud Capuçon, violin

Where: Avery Fisher Hall

Wore: Bandage mini-skirt, eggplant v-neck tank, ankle boots, leather jacket, and tights (to keep it proper)

Interesting Fact: Got ‘booed’ back in 1987 (I was probably too busy watching ‘Jem and the Holograms’ to notice)

Feelings/Thoughts: Enjoyed immensely.

Why such an aversion (to say the least) to Glass by many classical music aficionados?  Some people really HATE Philip Glass, with a passion.  Whoever thought arpeggios could cause such a stir?  I don’t hate on Missoni or Pucci for having a signature style.

Unless one really knows Glass’s works really well, most would not be able to readily distinguish one piece from another (I wouldn’t, beyond solo vs. chamber vs. concerto, etc.) because there are so many similarities.  Lots of simple arpeggios, major, minor, 7ths, nothing un-analyzable.  This is why his music has oftentimes been disregarded as having any sort of musical value: it is accessible, unpretentious, straightforward.  However, even those who hate his music the most can probably instantly recognize Glass in 5 seconds (or less).  Regardless of how one feels about the fact that, yes, Glass is repetitive (and not just within a piece of music but across his body of work as a whole) it’s undeniable that he’s done something original, created his own musical identity that no one else can claim, and that alone is deserving of respect.

Google keeps telling me it’s Sesame Street’s 40th Anniversary. That’s good enough for a cupcake spotlight. Remember when it used to be cool, and not all baby-einsteiny? Poor retard children of tomorrow.

And didn’t Cookie Monster become a “Vegetable Monster”?!

Beatdigger, producer and DJ RJ Krohn aka RJD2 needs no introduction. With 3 studio albums under his belt and a whole string of productions and remixes for artists such as Massive Attack, The Go! Team, Aesop Rock and Souls of Mischief, RJD2 is certainly a force to be reckoned with.

Right at the calm before the storm of launching his next album, The Colossus, WhoSampled got the man to talk about his musical development, vinyl and sampling, and the making of an RJD2 production from the beats up.

WhoSampled: What is your earliest musical memory?

RJD2: Records. I remember my mom’s record collection: Kraftwerk, The Beatles, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass – things like that. I remember playing NES games and listening to those records. Both things played an important part in my development.

WS: To what extent did older records inspire you in your past productions? Is that still true today? Which artists do you feel have influenced you the most?

RJ: The tones that are found within records are constantly informing what I do. I think that my best foot forward is as a producer, not a DJ or singer or keys player. And obviously, when sampling records, they end up playing a direct role in a new song. Even if I’m not sampling them per se, it’s still true; I am constantly referencing things off records when I’m tracking live instruments.
I think the biggest things I’ve internalized are the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, The Impressions, and then the experience of things like a Meters or De La Soul record on a big system.

WS: When digging for samples, are there any specific genres or eras that you look out for?

RJ: Eras, yes. Genres, no. My roll-off years are around 1961 and 1985 or so. That’s my usual window. Otherwise, I’m just usually looking for the rarest things I can get my hands on; the least visible record I can possibly sample.

WS: What is/was your favorite 2nd hand record store and why?

RJ: The one that was a huge contributor to my first record (Deadringer) was a place called Robert’s Records on the southeast side of Columbus, Ohio. They had been a distributor throughout the 70’s, and then went out of business around 1999 or 2000. It was just an insane goldmine, when they had their going out of business sale. It was massive; about a basketball court sized room for LP’s, and another for 45’s. HUGE. All LP’s were $1, all 45’s were $.25. I spent 5 days going through a storage closet stacked top to bottom with boxes of 45’s; I was pulling things like Lowell Fulsom and J.B.’s 45’s, and thought I was doing well. I didn’t realize the 45 room was open as well at the time; we are talking 8 ft racks, 60ft long rows, and about 8-10 rows. Alvin Cash’s Keep on Dancin’, Incredible Bongo Band 45’s, that caliber of stuff, all for a quarter a pop. I probably clocked 50-60 hours in the store before it closed.

WS: What’s your forecast on the future of vinyl – do you think it will die out and if it does, will it matter?

RJ: No, I think it’s gonna do fine, cause it already is! Records are definitely making a resurgence. People will always love buying vinyl, even if it’s not a huge market.

WS: What rapper(s) would you like to work with if you could choose anyone you want? Whose style and voice do you think would go well together with your beats?

RJ: Ludacris, first and foremost. The Clipse. Freeway.

WS: How different was your approach to the production on The Third Hand from that on Deadringer and Since We Last Spoke? Did you use any samples on The Third Hand at all, or was it all made from live instrumentation?

RJ: There were some very minute samples, and all of the drums were samples, on The Third Hand. I was still going for “vintage” type of sounds, but trying to do it in a different way.

WS: You did a set for the BBC’s Breezeblock radio show, where you deconstructed some of your own beats using some of the original samples. It was interesting to hear you recreate some of the cuts by hand. What’s the initial catalyst or first step in an RJD2 production – beats, samples, instruments, inspiration from DJing or something else? When in the studio, do you often get ideas for sample combinations or tracks from “DJing on top of a beat”?

RJ: When I’m in the studio, it’s really all centered around the MPC, at least if I’m doing something that is inherently “beat oriented”, or if I’m just making a beat. There are things that can be done on an MPC that can’t be done on turntables, so when I’m doing those “redux” versions of tracks using the original records, it’s more reverse engineering a beat, rather than providing the germination point of a beat. On the MPC, I’m working at a more molecular level; DJ’ing is much more broad strokes, if you will.

WS: What can your fans expect to hear on The Colossus, your next album due in 2010?

RJ: BIG SECRET! Nah, I might end up talking about it closer to the release, but I don’t want anyone going into it with a preconceived notion of anything, stylistically speaking. Fresh ears and multiple listens, that’s all I ask of the listener. I always try to be as detail-oriented as possible with my solo records, and this one’s no different in that respect.

WhoSampled manages RJD2’s page on the site in cooperation with the artist. Look out for RJD2’s fourth studio album The Colossus, which will be released on his own label in 2010.

http://rjselectricalconnections.com
http://www.myspace.com/rjd2

Even bastards have heroes…
Note: Any similarity between APC’s My Perspiration Inspiration and a certain record store’s My Inspiration campaign is completely coincidental.

Yeah RIGHT!

Check out the rest of the APC Team after the jump

The words “great” and “greatest” appeared several times during my research into Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), both on the Internet and from books that I own.

Why was I looking for references about her? Because I had come across her name yet one more time, recently, causing me to go over the tipping point, not able to resist getting to know her better.

Last week a friend had given me a book, What to Listen for in Music by the composer of quintessentially American music, Aaron Copland, and in the foreword by Alan Rich was a reminder that Copland had been a pupil of Boulanger.

Leonard Bernstein congratulating Nadia Boulanger, after she became the first woman to conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a full concert, February, 1962. [Secondary Source]

Most simply put, she can be considered “the greatest” because she was teacher to so many renown composers and performing artists, some of whom were great teachers in their own right—Aaron Copland, for one.

These are some of the American students of Nadia Boulanger:

Although Leonard Bernstein’s name is linked for many reasons with that of Nadia Boulanger, he apparently was not a pupil of hers. But, he was a pupil of a pupil of hers: Walter Piston.

Boulanger, in 1928, rejected as a student one of America’s most important composers, George Gershwin. “What could I give you that you haven’t already got?” she asked him. [Source]

I most recently saw Boulanger’s name while reading Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, by Noël Riley Fitch. Beach was the owner of the famed “Shakespeare & Company” bookshop in Paris to which Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, Ezra Pound and many other writers of the 1920s and 1930s gravitated, along with musicians and other artists. Several of these musicians and future composers were in Paris because of Nadia Boulanger, thus offering the creative and disciplined influence of these two remarkable women who apparently never met each other. In chapter seven of her book, Fitch offers these anecdotes:

Aaron Copland (1900-1900)

Most of the regular customers of the bookshop were writers, but among them were four composers: Satie, Antheil, Virgil Thomson, and Aaron Copland…Copland, who had joined the lending library [of the bookshop] had time to read [Sylvia’s] books in spite of being worked “terribly hard” by Nadia Boulanger, the great French teacher of musical composition to more than a generation of American composers…Because of Stravinsky, Ravel, Schönberg, Strauss, Satie and the music school of Nadia Boulanger, young American composers went to Europe, particularly Paris, to complete their professional education. In America, musical training was predominantly Germanic and old-fashioned, but in Paris, according to Copland, Boulanger knew “pre-Bach to Post-Stravinsky…cold.”

Although only the names of male composers have entered this narrative so far, Nadia Boulanger was teacher and mentor to a number of women in the field of music. In A History of Classical Music, on which I commented previously, the author, Barrymore Laurence Scherer writes:

Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953)

During [Ruth Crawford's] European travels she was embraced by such pre-eminent musical figures such as Bartók, Honneger, and Nadia Boulanger…Among Nadia Boulanger’s American students were other women who achieved positions of distinction as composers, among them Marion Bauer (1882-1955) and Louise Talma 1906-1996). Bauer…had learned French from her parents; when introduced to Boulanger…in 1906, she offered to give Boulanger English lessons in return for lessons in composition, and thus became Boulanger’s first American student.

But, what was it like to study with Nadia Boulanger; what was so special that the most talented people sought her out? We can get a glimpse from Philip Glass.

Around a year ago I bought the book Writings on Glass: Essays, Interviews, Criticism, edited by Richard Kostelanetz. I have been fascinated with Glass’s music for almost two decades, especially since having viewed and bought the film Koyaanisqatsi, for which he wrote the musical score. The film has no spoken dialog. “In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living’” [Source]

In an early chapter of the book we learn that Glass went to study with Boulanger in 1963, at age 26, because a musical colleague whom he admired had studied with her. Glass had already completed his studies at the Juilliard School of Music.

(Transcribed from an interview by Ev Grimes)

Boulanger wasn’t interested in the music I had written…I started studying first species counterpoint with her again…I studied counterpoint and harmony with her for over two years…

She had a variety of techniques that she was teaching. They included score reading, counterpoint, harmony, figured bass, and analysis…With Boulanger, nothing was theoretical; it was all practical. The rules of harmony she could describe in a few sentences, but you could spend years writing it, because to her the difference between technique and theory was that technique was practice. Harmony is practice, counterpoint is practice—neither is theory…

You took three classes with her a week…[The] Black Thursday class…was a special class…[Y]ou were asked to that class; you couldn’t request it. She put together six or eight students…It would start at nine o’clock and would go till noon. The subject of the class was announced at the beginning, and we rarely accomplished it…When we left the class, we would sit in the café across the street. No one would say anything; we would have our coffee or a beer, then we would part until we got together the next week. No one would say anything [repeated]. It was totally demoralizing in one way. We all knew we were either her best students or her worst students, but none of us knew which ones we were…

One can read more of Nadia Boulanger and her teaching goals and methods from these sources:

List of students and others associated with Nadia Boulanger

[Click!]