I have once again become an insufferable snit, living in the throes of research mode.
Read MoreProject 19.19: Sarah Kirkland Snider
Snider’s music represents a unique musical voice moving past concepts such as genre using every tool available to present music primarily concerned with emotion and storytelling.
Read MoreProject 19.18: Maria Schneider
Who deserves the blame for opening the Pandora’s Box of technology that allowed music (and other art forms) to be freely shared worldwide amongst anyone with enough access? Maria Schneider is on a mission to bring these issues to our attention and demonstrate how to use these technologies to allow artists to make a living doing something other than performing on stage 365 days a year.
Read MoreProject 19.17: Olga Neuwirth
Olga Neuwirth teaches us that it's more important to decide which language and setting are more critical (or efficacious) for the expression of ideas than it is to try to cram an idea into a predetermined musical genre, instrumentation, or performance setting.
Read MoreProject 19.16: Caroline Mallonee
The simplicity on the far side of complexity.
Read MoreProject 19.15: Unsuk Chin
Her music is based on a musical syntax that shares certain similarities with computer programming languages.
Read MoreProject 19.14: Du Yun
These are dangerous times for our better angels.
Read MoreProject 19.13: Caroline Shaw
While Shaw may adore the music of J.S. Bach’s time, she incorporates her cosmopolitan musical sensibilities at will into her compositions, creating a sonic world that is at once recognizable and modern.
Read MoreProject 19.12: Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
She can find inspiration in the microscopic or macroscopic, biological or geological, or in the inner space of dreams or the depths of outer space.
Read MoreProject 19.11: Angélica Negrón
Angélica Negrón sings whatever she feels like singing and, in the process, helps to shape the world around us all.
Read MoreProject 19.10: Melinda Wagner
Her concertos for orchestral instruments elevate a form that has been around for centuries and would make any principal musician in any modern symphony orchestra dream of calling her up and having her write a showpiece to remember.
Read MoreProject 19.9: Mary Kouyoumdjian
Musicians have always loved the stars.
Read MoreProject 19.8: Jessie Montgomery
Montgomery has maintained her enthusiasm for string performance by expanding the possibilities in composition for string music.
Read MoreProject 19.7: Joan Tower
Tower's music defines a bridge from serialism, through the realms of minimalism, neo-romanticism, and spectralism, into the land of contemporary classical music.
Read MoreProject 19.6: Ellen Reid
One can sense the theme of dualistic push/pull throughout the piece.
Read MoreProject 19.5: Tania León
Perhaps I am overstating Tania León’s connection to Leonard Bernstein, but her story lifts us ALL up at a time when our country is in desperate need of a reminder of what truly makes it great.
Read MoreProject 19.4: Paola Prestini
It’s a challenge to come up with a creative adjective to describe the productivity of Paola Prestini.
Read MoreProject 19.3: Nicole Lizée
It's the realization of a new dimension hidden in the source material, brought to the awareness of those of us hanging out in Flatland without her vision.
Read MoreProject 19.2: Joan La Barbara
Traditionally, instrumentalists work very hard to emulate the human voice.
Read MoreProject 19.1: Nina C. Young
There is a moment at the end of Fata Morgana that gets me every time. The mirage appears to resolve into a simple, clear vision (solo horn) only to be disturbed by the mirage's reality crashing down loudly and discordantly on the observer before everything comes to an end. It's a beautiful, chilling metaphor for so much these days.
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