Sunday, December 14, 2014

Nicolas Collins, more than a nostalgist

Composer Nicolas Collins, Professor in the Department of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Editor of the Leonardo Music Journal, has been very usefully sharing some of his archives online. First off,  he's dedicated a page to the work of Stuart Marshall, composer, film/videomaker and activist, here.  Second off, his website includes a lot of very good things, including his Freshperson notebook from his first class with Alvin Lucier at Wesleyan (for the record, Marshall, Collins & this blogger were all students of Lucier (I didn't overlap with either & never met Marshall); also for the record, Collins is a far braver soul than I in sharing one of his undergraduate notebook; with any luck, I've managed to make all mine (helpless, tangent- and bad poetry-filled as they were) go away.) And third off, he's made a web-based recreation of one of his own landmarks of electronic music, the feedback-based Pea Soup, from 1974, here.  This is all new music that remains news, so pay attention!

Monday, December 01, 2014

So much more to learn

I've recently appreciated reading composer Lauren Redhead's thoughtful blog. She makes useful connections between aesthetically deep and completely practical issues — like performing organ music for a darkened auditorium — in concrete ways that usefully suggest interesting opportunities or openings for new music.