Universal Pallettes, After Party and Breakfast

Well, the day is here.  Welcome back from your break!  Tonight should be real fun…  I need everyone there for soundcheck at 1:45.  Running order of the program and the Universal Pallettes you’ll need to have by memory are on the October 18th Page.  Check it out, please.

Now for the fun part.  We’ll convene at the Strathallan after the concert, but whether or not you join all of us there…

PLEEEEEZE join me for breakfast at the Strathallan on Thursday morning at 9am, just before i drive on outta here.  It’s gonna be heavily subsidized, and therefore wallet-friendly.  Come chow down with me, say goodbye, and celebrate all the work we’ve done together.  I’m so so happy to have had some time to work with you.

I’ll take a count tomorrow night, i need one in order to ask them to set up a table, or three.

see you Wednesday.

Todd

Fuzzy Logic baby….YEAH!

New York is being flooded with fuzziness! This past week was marked the premiere of Brad’s new piece Fuzzy Logic, written for the American Composer’s Orchestra as part of their Orchestra Underground series. Fuzzy Logic is scored for ensemble, electronic audio, amplified cello solo with sound processing and a virtuoso live video installation by Boom Design Group (all Eastman alumni!). Fuzzy had it’s premiere this past Friday at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. It was a wonderful experience for me to be a part of this and I enjoyed working with everyone…congrats to Brad on an amazing new work and Boom Design for a wacky and beautiful video!

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The Year of Brad Lubman

From Sequenza 21, an extraordinary article on Whassup With Brad Down In New York City Right Now. with Comments.
here.  check it out. 

Just cuz. A little article splainin’ whassup in the Electroid world of T.

I thought since I’m here, I might as well give you all as much of a heads up as to what types of things interest me as possible, especially since i’ll be using some of ‘these things’ in the concert on Wednesday.  I know I love to get know people as thoroughly as possible when I meet them, so i offer this in the same spirit.  The following is an article which was written a few months ago in Chamber Music America Magazine.  Written by Kyle Gann, one of our most important Contemporary Music writers, it focuses on electronics as it exists in my own work and in the work of a few other colleagues.  As Kyle is a great writer and has reviewed for the Village Voice for a long time, I’m thrilled that we got to spend some time together as he wrote this article.  You’ll notice to the right in the Blogroll I’ve listed his internet radio station and from there you can find his site as well.  Check him out.  Shortly after my tenure here, I head to Bard College to do a seminar on electronics in performance taking with me the joys of having done it with you here at ESM.  Link offered with permission of Chamber Music America

Here’s the article :  CMA_Article_KyleGann.pdf

A new look at composition and music-making.

To all my colleagues in Musica Nova, today it begins. Wednesday and Friday, 1:45-3:30 in 514 and Kilbourne Hall, respectively.

Also check out the October 18th Concert Page. 

You need to bring nothing but your bad selves, your instruments, and a notepad or notebook for taking some personal notes. oh, and toys, if you got’em. like, you know, noisemakers. It’s all good.

So, by the afternoon of October 11th, you’ll have a bunch of new tools with which to make music, and you won’t even know how it happened. Be very very scared. (just kidding)

I’ll give you all the basic principles in rehearsal, then i’ll post some of them here tomorrow afternoon as well. I just want you to hear them and work with them before seeing them in writing.

Want to hear what sort of music SoundPainting™ can produce?
Listen to this…

It’s from an Improvisation concert at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute last summer.

There were other completely unique and organic improvisations as well which were not led with SoundPainting™ , but rather from expanded listening.

Listen to them here…

Steve Reich Week-long Concert Party in London. Next Stop, Carnegie Hall in October.

One week, One big big party. Steve Reich turned 70. Here are some rehearsal pix of the prep for Daniel Variations, Steve’s new piece about Daniel Pearl, the tragically-killed journalist in Iraq. There is so much to the story, both Daniel Pearl’s, and the composition itself. Read more about it here. Brad and I felt privileged as we always do to play the music and to be part of the history-making. Several standing-ovations later, and simply teary-eyed from from being part of some great music-making, we’re once again reminded that this is a master of form and of rhythm, of simplicity and complexity all at once, and at 70 years, making some of the best music of his career. Let no one tell you it’s unemotional or at the same time unintellectual. That’s ignorance.

We weren’t able to nick a recording, but we hope you’ll hear it soon, in fact we hope we record it soon. The 1st pic is from The Cave, the second from the London Underground. Pics from Ben Rubin. Thanks, Ben

Composer, Steve Reich, man of the hour, speaks.

If you don’t know that Steve Reich turns 70 this year, please crawl out from underneath that rock! Brad and I set sail for London today to join with the Kronos Quartet and the Bang on a Can All-Stars as part of the Steve Reich Ensemble performing The Cave and Reich’s new composition, Daniel Variations, for the Barbican’s weeklong Steve Reich Birthday celebration.

Please check out this most interesting article written by the man himself on the future of music as he saw it 36 years ago, how it has actually unfolded, and his impressions on the music business of today. This is a fascinating glimpse into how time passes and defies expectation while at the same time fulfilling it in unforeseen ways.

Beyond learning from the perspective and experience of a master who changed the face of what we do and changed how the world hears music, it’s great to hear some thoughts from the composers mouth.  Speaking of “Future of Music”, this is truly your time, your music business, yours to make next. “New Music”, in its very broadest understanding, is where this happens, and has happened, ever since the very beginning of what we do.

Please pardon the preachin’ – “Music is my Life Dude”-quality rant. But really, click here to Read the Article, and stay informed. (Back to the future… Steve Reich. Photograph: Martin Godwin)

See you all on October 12th, and i’ll post more than a few times before then. stay tuned, stay in touch. comment on this post even! Don’t know how? Click on the ‘no comments’ link directly below, and you’ll figure it out. And you’ll be the first. Once one person has posted, that disappears, the comments list themselves in chron.

Stay Well, Brad and I will post some from London soon!

Todd

Seminar Content and Links

To all of you folks who attended the seminar yesterday, thanks for coming, and thanks for your interest and participation!

As promised, here are all the links i mentioned yesterday and a few more to support both composer and performer on your journey. I’ll post this on Todd’s Page as well, so that it will remain accessible long after this post has made it’s way to the background. I’ll also continue to put more links up as i remember that i forgot to mention them yesterday. (or just plain ran out of time) Don’t forget to check out Ableton Live!

I remembered as well that i didn’t even get to describe Soundpainting™ to you, which will be almost the entire basis of what we do for Musica Nova in October, so i’ll start to post some things about that soon, mostly on the October 18th Page, but i’ll let you know via the blog as well.

So, more links after the jump… but to get us started… here’s where I live, and you can listen to my music here . Once again, i’ve had a fantastic time here with you all, and i can’t wait to return in October! all the best, Todd click here to ==>

Open Conversation with Todd Reynolds on Saturday, 4:30-6:30 in Room 209

Want to know what it’s like out there right now in the music business? Want to know about life after Eastman? What’s possible? Have any tendencies toward other art forms or toward other disciplines within music? Like computers? Have questions about what a ‘creative voice’ means, and if you even have one? Like to ‘improvise’, but don’t know how to get started?
Todd will meet with performers and composers alike to share things learned from his own journey and experience in the music world, having forged close alliances with countless composers, performers and entities such as Yo-Yo Ma, Bang on a Can, Steve Reich, John Cale, Joe Jackson, Todd Rundgren and Tan Dun, to name a few, and having established an international presence as an innovator in music and performance, touring concert halls and clubs around the world with his own projects and in support of the projects of others.

Todd also recently completed six years of building a string quartet which rose to prominence in the music industry, leaving his band Ethel to focus on solo and educational projects. Building a not-for-profit organization and classical music ensemble is a viable and exciting option after graduate school, and there is much to be aware of even now if that exists for you in the back of your mind as a possibility.

If you have questions, or are just interested in what’s possible as you begin to think about your own future, do consider attending. Subjects covered include: computers and amplification in music training and performance, general practice techniques, music as socially relevant art form, classical music as ambassador for peace, and… Music as Play. like, as in, FUN.

Also embedded in the conversation is a demonstration of Ableton Live, a generation of music software which is indispensible to every musician, especially creative types, and one of the only packages which provides every tool necessary to music creation and production.  Imagine Garage Band but with 70 years of wisdom and an exhaustive array of paint and brushes.  A basic practice and rehearsal toolkit will be created in realtime, then used to create your own music quickly and easily over which to play and interact.  This is the perfect way to introduce yourself to electronic music.

This seminar is offered as sponsored by Brad Lubman and Musica Nova and is open to anyone, and a plentiful question and answer session will complete the event. Y’all come! We promise a ton of value and a good time to boot.  Milk and Cookies included in the price of admission.  $00.00

Welcome to the brand spankin’ new Musica Novacaine Blog!

A big shout out to the whole Musica Nova community. I’m only a guest here, but i thought i’d put up a little blog as part of my contribution while i’m here. It’s so nice to be back, I was a student here from ’85 to ’87, then Principal Second Violin of the RPO so, though i’m a little rusty, I still know my way around these hallowed halls which you inhabit.

I ended up being a ‘new musician’ for a living, for a lifestyle. It all started back in ’85, during my first year, and quickly became my passion. It’s a HUGE subject, what it means to be a ‘contemporary musician’, more later about that if you’d like to hear more of the story or more about what it meant to me personally to take this path.

Back then, Syd Hodkinson was our fearless leader, and a great leader he was. Now you’ve got Brad as a fearless leader, who is widely known in the professional community in New York and in some circles internationally as our most revered contemporary music conductor since Boulez. I’ve been playing under Brad’s hands for going on 12 years, and I never turn down an opportunity. You’ve got the best there is in your very midst.

In any case, it’s an honor and a privilege to be here to work with you all. Invited to contribute to my old school where it all started for me, where my life took turns which solidly placed me where i am now, I’m very happy and content and no less engaged and impassioned about music and what it can mean than i was in college. In short, I’m a very lucky man.
Brad, Lauren and myself will be authors during this experiment, and should it be a success, it will rock on for eons… You can comment to posts as well by replying in the comment fields. If you have interest in contributing a post of your own on a particular subject, let us know… don’t hold back now, ya hear?

So… Greetings. I look forward to getting to know you all, and to making some music together. Todd

CELLISTS OF DEATH!

My own friends and cellists who extend the boundaries of conventional cello playing….

Bang on a Can All-Stars cellist Wendy Sutter…Learn more about wendy at www.wendysutter.com.

Ensemble Intercontemporain cellist Pierre Strauch, who I worked with and became friends with at Lucerne Festival. Pierre is a cellist and composer…check out his Xenakis and Lachenmann recordings and learn more by clicking here.

Radical Dutch cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, the inventor of two-bowed cello! Frances-Marie writes her own compositions for two bows, but her two bows have also been written for by composers such as Kurtag and Scelsi. It’s an amazingly different sound. For more information on Frances visit her website.

A word from Brad…………

Greetings everyone! Yes, it is true, I am on sabbatical this semester. But actually, it is quite a busy sabbatical with many concerts in Europe and New York, mostly for the occasion of Steve Reich’s 70th (!) birthday. However, I am in Rochester during September, and will make a brief appearance on the first Musica Nova concert, September 25th (the debut of my new ensemble, Electric Fuzz).

But the real reason I’m writing this is to say how excited I am, gleeful even, that Musica Nova is in such expert and caring hands, namely those of Todd Reynolds and Lauren Radnofsky. Todd and I have worked together now for at least 16 years, in many different ensembles and walks of musical life. Quite simply, Todd’s the man! He’s a guru. A great violinist, conductor and composer, a deep and moving thinker, a generous and spiritual presence. It is indeed an honor and pleasure to have him here. I am so glad to be in Rochester this month to experience his work first hand.

I am also thankful that Musica Nova has the savvy and brilliance of Lauren Radnofsky, who is handling all things organizational, as well as coaching some pieces and covering some rehearsals. She is already doing a fantastic job. Here’s someone who is bravely paving a new path for new-music performance (amplified cello and electronics) and already has an impressive list of credentials (having worked in such diverse settings such as with members of Bang-on-a-Can, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival, as well as an appearance on one of John Zorn’s Tzadik CD series).

It is such a pleasure to watch Todd and Lauren at work (yeah, I’m supposed to be on sabbbatical and stay away from Eastman……but I can’t help but come in to Eastman almost everyday, just to see what’s going on and remain a part of the scene, and what a wonderful and vital scene it all is!).

Next month I am not only involved with the 70th birthday celebrations for Steve Reich in London and New York, but also will be my debut conducting the American Composers Orchestra (and premiering a new work of mine) and the New York debut of Electric Fuzz, amongst other things.

I wish everyone a truly great semester!

Bass-Clarinetists of Death

Years ago, the Bass-Clarinet became much more than an orchestral instrument, and as such, the volume of music, both chamber and solo which is written for it has exponentially increased.

Evan Ziporyn, the composer of Tree Frog, is a Bass-Clarinetist whose musicianship, compositions and sheer powerful voice on the Bass-Clarinet is well-known and respected throughout the classical and world-music fields.

As amazing, as notable, and in fact the perfect foil and alter-ego to Evan is another incredible Bass-Clarinetist, Michael Lowenstern, whose website, earspasm.com has all the material you need to broaden your ‘bass-clarinetness’.

Check these guys out, PLEASE, even if you’re not a clarinetist, and share the links with your friends. Then SlapTongue your heart out.

String Swing!

Ever wish you just had some place to temporarily rest your fiddle rather than sticking it all the way back in the case? For my violinist and viola friends… i put this thing on a mic stand, on a regular stand, whatever, and it’s sorta nice when i have to write something or step away from something during a long rehearsal. just a little gadget, but blogworthy…

the String Swing