Nightmare On My Street

(I'm so glad I found this when I did.)
This Halloween night, I give you:
Der Erlkönig
performed by Anderson and Roe
set in a (haunted) Steinway factory.

HANDS DOWN the best "classical music"-video I've ever seen.
Ooh, I've got the shivers!



This comes from their soon-to-be-released album on the Steinway label - check it out.
(via collabpianoblog)

Brush Your Teeth / Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch

Of all the things he could possibly shill for, Frank Zappa chose the American Dental Association.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCMENT 1981-82 -- but still relevant today, ladies and gents!



Mm, yes. Raffi agrees.


(via openculture)

Look At Me / I Gotta Case Of Body Language

If this year's AMS conference had been scheduled for one week earlier than it actually is, a critical mass of musicologists would be in San Francisco during the 4th Annual International Body Festival (Nov 1 - 6, 2011).

I dare you not to watch the whole video once you've started.

It Ain't No Sin To Take Off Your Skin And

Dance around in your bones!
Overtone singing in an x-ray machine.
(excerpt from INLAND (2002) by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud)

Overtone singing with X-ray (extract of INLAND) from momentum_prod on Vimeo.

(via notcot)

They Called Him Crazy / When He Started Out

1950s news footage: Mills College students play Harry Partch's instruments. You'll like it!



(via openculture)

One Of These Mornings / You're Going To Rise Up Singing

Porgy and Bess is getting a fresh coat of paint à la Broadway: a new (happier) ending, extra dialogue, revamped music, modernized sets and costumes, the works!

Not to show my hand too soon, but based on the New York Times preview I think this production sounds amazing:
It seems as though the impetus for the makeover was a fleshing out of Bess' character - and, in fact, the musical is directed by Diane Paulus; Suzan-Lori Parks modernized the libretto; Deirdre L. Murray adapted the music; and Audra McDonald signed on for the title role. Despite the fact that this will be a commercial musical designed to appeal to a variety of theatergoers, the production team is in no way skimping on the issues written into the plot, including rape, drugs, poverty, and racism.
In other words: a group of strong, mostly African-American women are re-examining what has always been a (beloved, but) problematic opera, they are introducing an entirely new audience to an old work, they are making it relevant to the 21st century, they are pushing at the boundaries of how we interact with "the canon," and in the process they are making new art.


But Stephen Sondheim hates everything about it, so.

I could get on my soap box and write about how adaptations do not debase the original - but it may be enough to say that I would hate to live in a world without gems like these:

Teach Me How To Dougie

Yo Yo Ma, Lil' Buck, and Spike Jonze.
Cello, Jookin, and Film.
Teaching kids about creativity.
All in a day's work.


"We can build community like nothing else," Ma said in a radio interview. "All it takes is imagination, attention and empathy -- that we care."



(via colorlines)

Won't You Play That Pretty Music?

In which a ball run xylophone plays Bach's Cantata 147.

Full disclosure: I'm fairly certain this is a commercial for a cell phone - but that doesn't make it any less clever/mesmerizing. (I think it also brings up some interesting questions about music and marketing. It's "high-class" Bach on a homemade instrument, it's a familiar melody in an unexpected setting: the juxtapositions are intriguing, yes? All I know is: if this is what all commercials were like, maybe I'd watch more tv.)





(You might also like Rows of Tones.)

(via metafilter)

Float On

Historical flutes floating in space! Next, I would like to see space tubas, please.





(via metafilter)

Cause The Way You're Steppin' Around / You're Steppin' Out Of Line

Not tone rows exactly, but definitely rows of tones.


"Czardas on 146 bottles"





"400 drums in 1 minute"






(via christoph and haveyouseenthis?!)

Melody / It Was A Second Name

If you can't appreciate a 35-year-old man playing Josquin on multi-tracked melodica, then I don't want to know you.



(check out James Howard Young's youtube channel.)
(via metafilter)

Is This The Real Life / Is This Just Fantasy?

Fourteen women / fourteen accordions: The Main Squeeze Orchestra.

Quote member Kelly Alba: "You put it on your chest and you wear it right next to your heart. You squeeze it, and it's like a big musical hug."



They also competed on America's Got Talent. America hated it.



[Now, if only the press (I'm looking at you, Village Voice) would stop calling this an "all-girl" orchestra, and if only America's Got Talent would take back comments like "[the (male) director is] kind of like the Hugh Heffner of the accordion world" and "for some reason I thought this was going to be sexy."
Respect and equality, wouldn't that be novel?]

You / Light Up My Life

This is...just the coolest.

Dr. Charles Limb, an otolaryngologist from Johns Hopkins, is conducting experiments trying to get at the neurological basis of musical creativity. Specifically: he put jazz musicians and freestyle rappers in an fMRI machine to learn how activity in the brain changes when musicians improvise v. when they perform memorized material.

I know this TED talk is 17 min, but you can hack it: you're on spring break!
No? Okay fine, here are the results highlights: 10'30" and 15'40". (But it really is worth watching the whole thing. And besides: what a charismatic otolaryngologist!)




(via metafilter)

Let's Start A Union / Calling Every Human

I didn't even go looking for this; youtube suggested it, and aren't we all glad?

Louis Andriessen
Workers Union (1975)
20'
for any loud-sounding group of instruments

bonus: performed by eighth blackbird!

Can You Hear The People Sing?

Hello friends! I apologize about the hiatus - I've been having trouble coming up with something that adequately represents what's been going on in Wisconsin over the past two weeks. Believe that I'm not trivializing anything when I say: PLENTY OF MUSIC, guys.

Day 13: Flash Mob in the Capitol Rotunda




Fight on, Wisconsin!

Football Fight

Superbowl + Classical Music
(or: Let's all just get along.)


Previous Super Bowl Ads That Feature Symphonic Music

Can Music Predict the Super Bowl Winner?

Jay-Z and the Rutgers Symphony 2010

And then there's my favorite: The Super Bowl Classical Collection
Who even why what?



Bonus: basketball gets in on the action.

Just Me And My Guitar

I started this post looking for photos or video of Christian Marclay's phonoguitar (a modified turntable he could strap around his neck and "play" [he especially liked recreating Hendrix tunes]), but: turns out that's difficult.

I did, however, find a video of one of his newer works, Guitar Drag (2000). Yes, that's an amplified Fender with a rope around the frets, dragged behind a pick-up truck over rural roads in Texas. Obviously.
The piece is a sort of homage to guitar mythologies, instrument smashing and shock performance, as well as a response to the 1998 lynching-by-dragging of James Byrd, Jr. And (with no good way to segue back into the relatively trivial) Guitar Drag is also about sound: fourteen minutes of what the Washington Post calls "found-art power chords." There's even a commercial recording out there somewhere.

Hear My Confession / I Have Been Wrong About You

I know this video is practically old news, but I'm easing into the new year.
Hey, Happy New Year friends!

When It Hurts So Bad / Why's It Feel So Good

Indianapolis has a radio station (WCIR 88.7 to be precise) that features a Concert Band Hour every Saturday morning from 7 to 8 in the AM.
Let me tell you from first-hand experience: it is a little jarring. (Although to be fair, it does wake you up.)

Anyway, my first (and probably only) encounter with Concert Band Hour concluded with a rousing performance of Leopold Mozart's Toy Symphony. The part with the noisemaker had me pretty convinced the car was about to break down. Okay.



With dancers!



Or: mandolin orchestra version of the concert band piece.



And finally: The Remix. Obviously.

I don't know - if any unwanted holiday guests are still lingering around your house, I would play this on repeat for awhile and it just might do the trick!

Dream / The Impossible Dream

Peter Aidu plays Steve Reich's "Piano Phase."
Not Peter Aidu and friend.
Just Peter Aidu(!)
It kind of makes my head hurt.

Or as my dad says: I can see him doing that trick for drinks in a musicology bar somewhere. Hmm, yes...



(many (many) thanks to Kevin)