We need to do better. I know this is going to be hard to hear, and it should be hard to hear. New Music is so very white. We need to make New Music more inclusive—more revolutionary—if we want to claim that our art does political work. We need to more deeply consider our audiences […]
Lighting Tips by Clyde Sheets
Clyde Sheets, a veteran lighting designer who’s worked with ensembles like Eighth Blackbird, So Percussion, and many others, dropped by C4NM to share insights about how to approach lighting live music. As musicians and composers we often obsess about sound while ignoring other key production factors involved with presenting music. A key element of music […]
May Workshops for Musicians – FREE!
The Center is thrilled to host a variety of opportunities for musicians to build their knowledge, artistry, and career this May. All workshops are free with registration, and open to anyone! Project Development Workshop Thursday, May 4, 12:30 – 2 PM How can you take your musical idea and bring it to fruition? Independent […]
In the Stacks: New York is Now! The New Wave of Free Jazz by Phil Freeman
Fiercely passionate and unapologetically polemical, Phil Freeman’s debut book New York is Now! The New Wave of Free Jazz is by turns infuriating, maddening…and completely enthralling. Early on, Freeman states that he wrote the book to introduce free jazz to music lovers “who may be only passingly familiar with it”, and it certainly can function […]
Interview with Jennifer Walshe
Jennifer Walshe was in town performing one of her multimedia one-woman shows at the Center. As with many of her pieces, it was a vocal tour de force, spotlighting her virtuosity and charisma as she nailed rapid-fire spot-on impersonations and a smattering of extended vocal techniques for nearly an hour. I sat down with her […]
The Source: Interview with Composer Ted Hearne
SF Opera Lab recently put on Ted Hearne’s work The Source, an oratorio/album/“patchwork of songs” drawn from primary source documents around and related to Chelsea Manning and the documents she leaked in 2010. Source texts include actual incident reports from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and online conversations between Manning and Adrian Lamo, a former […]
Act Without Words: Interview with Luna Pearl Woolf
As a curator at C4NM, I am focusing my energies on presenting programs featuring women as primary creators. I recently connected with Luna Pearl Woolf, the Composer-in-Residence for this year’s Bard Music West Festival. Woolf was commissioned to compose music for Samuel Beckett’s Act Without Words I, which will be premiered as part of this […]
Flight – Interview with Brian Staufenbiel, Creative Director of Opera Parallèle
This weekend, February 10-12, Opera Parallèle is performing Jonathan Dove’s 1998 operatic comedy Flight. The work was inspired by the true story of the forced residence, from 1988 to 2006, of Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri at Charles de Gaulle airport. Composer Joseph M. Colombo had a chance to ask a few questions to Brian […]
Award Recipients 2016
Award Recipients 2016 A combination of unrestricted grants, commissioning grants, residency programs, cash awards, and various honors, the following list includes important recognitions awarded to composers and musicians in 2016. While the list is lengthy, it is not exhaustive, so if you feel we missed something or someone, feel free to comment and let us […]
Post-Election Letter to C4NM Members
Earlier this week, the C4NM staff shared its thoughts and concerns on the Nov. 8 election results with members by e-mail. Perhaps most critical for our community is clearly identifying the threats to our work, and what we can do to promote our values. In summary, we fear the following: Cultural exclusion based on religion, […]