All but one of the song titles on Body Sound, the debut album from experimental string trio Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart, line up nicely-a few words, usually two, usually nouns, separated by a vertical line. The straight line in the middle means different things in different disciplines. In computing, it's called a 'pipe' and serves as a conduit. In poetry, it denotes a pause or break. In music, it marks the beginning and end of measures.
Fast forward a few decades and John Wilson is still hand-picking musicians and still serving up performances so polished they leave critics scrabbling for superlatives. These days Wilson's main outfit is the Sinfonia of London, and he is as likely to be conducting the symphonic mainstream as showtunes.
Her slowly shifting synthesizer compositions and quiet, meditative pieces for acoustic instruments continue to inspire a deep immersion in their audiences, and her recordings and writings have influenced multiple generations of musicians worldwide.
You know that song from 1987? The one you haven't heard in years? Start playing it right now and I bet you'll nail every word, every pause, every dramatic key change. Meanwhile, you're standing in front of your open refrigerator wondering if you already ate lunch today. This isn't just you being forgetful or having selective memory. There's actually fascinating psychology behind why your brain holds onto those old Backstreet Boys lyrics like precious gems while treating yesterday's breakfast like trash to be deleted.
I was immediately struck by his magnetic intensity, his fierce passion for music and his unique way of speaking English—punctuated by frequent utterances of er-er-er. Many years later, Kurtag was to tell me: 'Stuttering is my natural mode of expression.' He and Marta simply embodied—he still embodies—music. I had never met anyone to whom each note mattered so much.
Any composer's relationship to music is intense, but Sarah Kirkland Snider, whose debut opera, Hildegard, receives its world premiere at the LA Opera this week, ratchets that intensity up to a higher, more metaphysical level. When Snider hears music, she says, she sometimes wants to eat it that's how deep the desire goes. She's not traditionally religious, but she has come to see music as a mysterious, divine force within her.
We began in the world that was-in the humid atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Vienna, from which Zemlinsky, Schreker, and Schoenberg emerged. In a program note, Blier wrote that the "Fugitives" concept was inspired by Zemlinsky's "Meeraugen," or "Sea Eyes," which tells of a "person staring into the roiling abyss of the ocean." You had the feeling, as the evening went on, that the crushing realities of twentieth-century history-war, revolution, inflation, the Depression, Fascism-made such refined aestheticism untenable and forced composers onto other paths.
Angels exist, I swear! If you were at the sold out Austra show on Monday, you would have witnessed Portland-born, Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist Colin Self descending from the heavens to bless us mere mortals with their angelic vocals and cherub-like presence. If you're looking for something to believe in, believe in music-it's one of the very few things with ability to unite complete strangers in dialog, movement, and tears.
