Blog
Monthly Archive: April 2010
Spoleto 2010
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010
A busy writing time for me at the moment, but I'm delighted that the month of May brings three performances at the 2010 Spoleto USA 2010 Festival of Gumboots by the group John Adams recently called "my favorite of all groups" - the St Lawrence String Quartet. It's now 18 months or so since the quartet premiered Gumboots at Carnegie's Zankel Hall; and the piece has since had a thrilling life of its own with performances on three continents. But in its heart and indeed its inspiration it belongs to Todd Palmer at the St Lawrences. Only a shame I can't be there!
Tears, Puffes and Bums on Seats
Posted on Friday, April 2, 2010
I was going to draw attention to Metropolis Ensemble's forthcoming concert which features my new recorder+string quartet arrangements of Dowland pieces, Tears, Puffes, Jumps and Galliards; but according to their website it seems to be already sold out.
Last time I was in New York I had a long chat (naturally featuring more bottles of wine than people present) with Andrew Cyr about Metropolis's approach to audience building. These guys have a truly diverse and engaged audience, they invariably sell out their concerts, despite the fact that the majority of what they offer is contemporary music. Andrew confirmed that it takes a lot of thought and effort, but what his group shows is that it really is possible, there is no crisis in classical music, given the right leadership. It's encouraging that people are beginning to take note of Metropolis's work now. It has the future written all over it.
