January 2012
2 posts
2 tags
“L.A. gets no respect as far as culture goes, unless you’re into visual art”        Guitarist Nels Cline of Wilco, in this LA Times interview. Another quote: “we all have a chip on our shoulder in L.A. because everyone hates us and thinks we’re plastic and shallow”        .
Jan 11th
5 tags
“While the cars and planes drive faster, the air gets dirtier, and the stock markets are on a roller coaster, we sit in a classical concert … and expect a kind of detached sublimity that has nothing much to do with real life”         pianist Marino Formenti quoted here Yes, fast cars, dirty air and stock market volatility are clearly the best examples of what real life is like...
Jan 9th
6 tags
Jan 1st
1 note
December 2011
5 posts
5 tags
Dec 22nd
2 notes
4 tags
Dec 20th
4 notes
4 tags
Dec 14th
4 notes
4 tags
Dec 4th
4 notes
November 2011
6 posts
4 tags
Nov 30th
9 notes
4 tags
Nov 26th
7 notes
“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”        Rosa Luxemburg        
Nov 21st
5 tags
Nov 21st
“Someone told me that it’s the only time that Japanese women are allowed to...”
–  Kerry Candaele, speaking about why Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is popular in Japan. In this LA Times article .
Nov 14th
3 tags
Nov 13th
October 2011
5 posts
“The explosive expansion of technological resources has led, paradoxically, to an impoverishment of the language of music.”      Frederic Rzewski in this wonderful NYT article.    Here’s another quote:  “If the “avant-garde” has no soul — if it is simply a branch of the market — then it has given up its historical claim to leadership. It is dead. But the questions that...
Oct 19th
5 tags
Oct 10th
2 notes
3 tags
“Schoenberg’s bizarre fantasy of becoming the savior of the Jewish people, broadcasting messages from a ship that was to have been supplied by President Truman.”    quoted by Alex Ross from Sabine Feisst’s Schoenberg’s New World     .
Oct 9th
7 tags
Oct 9th
3 notes
3 tags
Oct 7th
8 notes
September 2011
1 post
2 tags
Sep 25th
May 2011
1 post
“Trader Joe’s is for overeducated and underpaid people, for all the...”
–    (Founder of supermarket chain Trader Joe’s, Joe Coulombe, in this L.A. Times interview)  
May 8th
April 2011
4 posts
“But these huge institutional orchestras are like imperialist armies that have...”
–  Violinist/conductor Joseph Swensen, quoted in this N.Y.T. article  
Apr 23rd
4 tags
Apr 6th
“Such results have managerial implications. The systematic use of this technique...”
–  From this study showing that playing music with “pro-social empathy” resulted in larger restaurant tips.  
Apr 4th
“Yeah, well, I guess “opera” and “disappointment” go together like a horse and carriage.” Marcel Proost (a character in John Adams’ blog Hell Mouth)  
Apr 2nd
March 2011
3 posts
4 tags
Mar 29th
1 tag
“”
–  “Dalí, it seems, also associated pianos with sexuality – a link formed in his childhood by a book of venereal diseases that his father left open on the family piano to teach his son the perils of promiscuity.” from this article on WFMU.org  
Mar 27th
1 note
4 tags
Mar 22nd
1 note
February 2011
2 posts
2 tags
Feb 25th
4 tags
'
“I think you should all go to a John Cage concert. And then you’ll come back to the next one I have and you’ll like it.”         Frank Zappa, age 22, during a Q&A session following a concert at Mount St. Mary’s College, May 19, 1963 .
Feb 5th
January 2011
3 posts
4 tags
Jan 26th
8 notes
3 tags
Jan 7th
4 notes
2 tags
Jan 5th
December 2010
7 posts
3 tags
“in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads.” From this article which calculates that total U.S. television watching every year is equivalent to the amount of time required to write 2000 Wikipedias. .
Dec 31st
“We’re thrilled that ‘Jeopardy!” is considered a benchmark of ultimate knowledge.”     (Harry Friedman, producer of Jeopardy!, announcing that a super-computer called Watson will compete on the show. link) .
Dec 15th
1 tag
Dec 10th
2 tags
Dec 10th
3 tags
Dec 9th
2 notes
6 tags
Dec 9th
3 tags
Dec 8th
November 2010
1 post
3 tags
Nov 4th
October 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Oct 30th
2 tags
What would John Adams dance to?
“Meanwhile, on a nearby dance floor, John Adams, the man described by the New Yorker as possibly “the most vital and eloquent composer in America,” was shaking his groove thang to a cover of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” ” From this L.A. Times article. THIS JUST IN: Composer John Adams claims that the above statement does not refer to him, but...
Oct 9th
September 2010
4 posts
7 tags
“all the looming sort of Carmina Burana scary music that gets played in some people’s minds when you talk about Elizabeth Warren” … Local KPCC talk-show host Patt Morrison on September 16, 2010, suggests an unlikely soundtrack for consumer protection. Hear the interview here. .
Sep 17th
3 tags
Sep 14th
3 tags
Sep 9th
“I’m still not totally sold on the idea that the best way to fight the scourge of Schoenberg-style 12-tone serialism is to write 600 insufferable minimalist art compositions. It’s like trying to fight World War II by painting everyone’s doorknob blue.” ……Vice Magazine review of Philip Glass’ String Quartets. .
Sep 2nd
August 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Aug 30th
3 tags
“You achieve nothing without self discipline. Whether you’re a bohemian or not. “   Esa-Pekka Salonen, in this advertisement for Koskenkorva Vodka.   Check out Phil Glass selling scotch here. .
Aug 14th
July 2010
5 posts
3 tags
“Go home this week and write one complete piece per day, each one about a different kind of soup” Composition lesson from composer Sam L. Richards commenting here. .
Jul 29th
“Squeeze your bottom. That’s the key to high notes. I have a big bottom, and big high notes.” Opera singer Jane Eaglen, quoted here, explains that her body is her instrument. .
Jul 21st