Music
Diary of a Mad Composer
By George GrellaMaking music is a social activity. There are exceptions, of course, but ever since human beings started to make music, we have done so with other people, whether in a concert hall or a social ceremony.
White Hills
By Marshall YarbroughThe clock on stage showed a prompt 7:02 as White Hills opened their set on a wet but—finally—somewhat warm Tuesday night in Manhattan. Guitarist Dave W. stood stage right, holding back initially as bassist Ego Sensation, stage left, laid out a simple phrase descending step-wise over a sparse drumbeat.
Music as Mystery: John Carpenter's Lost Themes and Career Retrospective at BAM
By Jeff TobiasFilmmaker and composer John Carpenter’s most notorious antagonist is known to most as Michael Myers, but in the credits of 1978’s Halloween, the hulking killer is identified as simply “the Shape.”
Brooklyn Rail Highly Selective Music Events
A thoughtful, discerning, and carefully compiled list of the most notable, promising and unique musical events for the month of March in New York City.
MEREDITH MONK
A Vocabulary for the World
By George Grella
What does it mean to be a composer? Like many words, its definition and cultural significance have accrued through the ages. The definition—someone who writes music—is plain enough, but the way the word has been used in Western culture for the last 300 years
Zoe Keating at SubCulture
By Stephanie Del RossoBesides a gramophone perched by the staircase, there is little trace of the antiquated at SubCulture, NoHo’s latest underground performance venue. The whole place has a squeaky kind of newness to it, perhaps because it opened its doors a mere two Septembers ago,
The Specials Revisited
By Kurt GottschalkPunk was theater well before Green Day hit Broadway. Spotty teens in London dressed like warriors and put on a show while yelling for revolution. Growing up in Central Illinois, a third of a world away and a few years after the punk explosion, those guitars of rebellion were everything to me. I was avidly buying new wave,
Outtakes
By Steve DalachinskyRecently, composer/musician/curator Dan Joseph and I discussed Matisse and how with the simple action of the scissors he managed to blur the boundaries between color and image, almost literally obliterating the use of the “concretized” line. Similar to what Joseph does with his stunning minimalist compositions and playing
