I strolled around Battery Park City before turning east towards Ground Zero. The line snaked for blocks. I joined it. I could have sworn that, before I smelled the Atlantic on the May 2012 breeze sidling down the Financial District's narrow, crowded streets and over the eleven-year-old open wound, I smelled that day's unforgettable admixture of smoke, fused metal, aviation fuel, and something else. Freedom Tower, unfinished, thrust into the mist on one side. Dead ahead, the roar of falling water rose from the negative space of the World Trade Center's enormous footprints.I remembered looking out the window of Jim Kendrick's Trade Center office years earlier, far, far down at the Staten Island Ferry and the Statue of Liberty, both rendered ...
At last year’s Chamber Music America conference, Kevin Powell, our operations manager, met...
David T. Little. Photo: Merry Cyr.
After a long gestation, which included multiple workshops that presented excerpts of the work in progress, this weekend David T. Little’s Dog Days will be given its premiere as a full length opera. It is being presented at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey on September 29th through October 7th. Despite all the myriad details to which he’s had to attend in the rehearsals leading up to the performances, David was kind enough to consent to an interview about the bringing this long term project to fruition and some of his other current activities.
Sequenza21: When did you first become aware of the short story on which Dog Days is based? Why did you ...
The closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London gave a celebration of British music, fashion and culture. Yet, none of the music was by a British Classical composer living or dead.
This isn't because the organizers don't like classical music. The London Symphony Orchestra played a large role in the creation of the music from recording all the national anthems, playing at both the opening ...
Mellissa Hughes sings her part in the Piano Concerto during a recording session at Kilgore Sound in NYC with John engineering. Monitoring the session via SKYPE in San Francisco.
The rapid change in technology is creating a new generation of music connesisseurs that think differently than the typical orchestra concert goer.
Don Pepper made a great observation in his article "The Reason "Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25" Struck Such A Nerve" which was a response to this article by Cathryn Sloane. Don's point is that technology is moving so fast it is ...
With the explosion of social media and the desire for arts organizations to jump on the band wagon, hiring a social media consultant/expert seems to be the order of the day. How do you know if you're actually hiring an expert?
I was reading a blog post the other day from a self-proclaimed orchestra expert. Granted the information this 'expert' writes about in terms of orchestra administration, budgeting, and contract negotiations seems to be spot on. {I'm not an expert in these topics so I have no way to certify if the advice is correct or not.} However, this person also claims to know social media and is quite outspoken at how poorly orchestras are using social media, particularly Twitter. I do understand Social Media, Twitter ...
'Most pieces,' Virgil Thomson once quipped, 'withdraw themselves.'I've always believed that it is a composer's job to write music, not to waste energy thinking about whether that music will be of use after he is dead. Nevertheless, at a certain point, one has to acknowledge one's strengths and work from them.After thirty years studying, attending, composing, and coaching opera, I have begun to finally realize that I am only barely beginning to understand what writing one entails. One successfully produced opera is a composer's visa at the border; two means you've bought property. I'm not certain how many operas one has to write before citizenship in the opera world is earned; I only know that every time I finish one I feel further away ...