Category: music

“For the most part, the Oral History of American Music, known as OHAM, has focused not on insurance salesmen or barbers, but has instead gone straight to the source: living American composers, who sit for interviews that can last many hours. The archive has grown to encompass recordings of around 3,000 interviews with major voices in American music.” – The New York Times

“It will be a while before we can accurately assess whether jazz indeed has suffered more losses, proportionately, than other art forms. Yet the tragedy of so many major figures dying of the disease in such short order says a great deal about the jazz world’s perils and vulnerabilities.” – Chicago Tribune

What, the guy who wrote all those pops-concert pieces like The Typewriter, The Syncopated Clock, and Sleigh Ride? Yes, says Anthony Tommasini: “Bach provides solace, Beethoven stirs us with resolve and Brahms probes aching emotional ambiguities. But trust me: Leroy Anderson will make you feel better about things.” – The New York Times

One of the first things that struck Dvořák about Iowa was its emptiness. If he had come looking for the cheerfulness of home, what he found was this expanse of prairie, this sea of grass and grain that went on forever. “It is wild here,” he said, “and sometimes very sad.” – Plough

“Sound like quackery? It’s not. Numerous studies … have found that both performing and listening to music can have a significant impact on the immune system” — including one review that found levels of Immunoglobulin A to be “particularly responsive to music.” Jeremy Reynolds reports. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When it comes to live music streaming, and in particular, the capacity to play together real time over the internet, the technology could be said to be in a nascent state — still very much under construction. – Ludwig Van

David Patrick Stearns: “The carefully-curated public images of the past … have, ironically, faded away in this era of social distancing. Any exterior glamour that creates psychological distance suddenly feels out of fashion in a health crisis that we’re all in together. … [And] some use the blank-page spontaneity for the kind of reckless innovation that might not normally be permitted.” – WQXR (New York City)

Composers’ letters can make frustrating reading. Beethoven’s are brusque, practical affairs; Brahms hides behind a humour as impenetrable as his beard. But with Mozart, you get the whole personality — candid, perceptive and irresistibly alive. – The Spectator

After the Italian shutdown, Marchini immediately “went viral” (but in a good, pre-Covid-19 way) when he performed from his balcony on March 13. He didn’t even know it because, he says, “I’m not a social guy.” Then things got grim, and he took time off out of respect to the families. Now he’s back on his balcony singing arias. – Vice

Hazama, in this podcast: “My main study back in Japan was to be a film composer. But at the time, computer was taking over the entire industry. My thing was to write for acoustic musicians, not for the computer. … And I kind of lost my dream in the middle of my college life in Japan. So that’s the only reason why I got really into jazz composition. And then I wanted to meet jazz composers who are alive. That excited me so much because I couldn’t obviously meet Ravel or Prokofiev or Stravinsky in person.” – Slate