NEW YORK - Jay Greenberg, the kid composer who got a big-time recording contract in the summer of 2006, has scored again: His violin concerto had its world premiere at Carnegie Hall with Joshua Bell as soloist.
The work, which combines a teenager's rambunctiousness with a mature master's sophistication, shows that the 15-year-old composer is for real.
The debut was Sunday, with Roberto Abbado leading the Orchestra of St. Luke's, which commissioned the work for its 33rd season.
By the time Sony released Greenberg's first CD in August 2006, he had already written more than 100 works, including five symphonies, 17 piano sonatas and three piano concertos.
The violin concerto, written for fellow Sony artist Bell, is Greenberg's first for the instrument.
"At one point in my life, I resolved that I would never write a violin concerto," Greenberg said in the program notes. "I no longer recall why exactly I made this resolution; perhaps it was sour grapes, as all of my attempts at violin writing up to that point had been failures."
Then, he got the commission, and he worked with Bell, himself a former child prodigy, to confront some of the problems in composing for the instrument.
The piece is hardly a failure. Greenberg skillfully leads the listener through a gamut of emotions with touches of 21st-century tonality, excitement and lyricism.
It's a compelling addition to the genre, and was a perfect companion to Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto, which Bell played earlier in Sunday's program. (The concert also featured a 2002 work by another American composer, Joan Tower's moving "In Memory," and for some strange reason Haydn's Symphony No. 93.)
Greenberg's concerto starts out in a mysterious hush — a soft pizzicato, a nervous tremolo, a piano chord, and then the piccolo and clarinet playing a slow theme in unison one octave apart.
Suddenly, an angry violin chord pierces the tense peace, barging in and jumping through a violent arpeggio that gets the music off and running. The full force of the orchestra follows, with the brass going on a romp that's accented by irregular poundings of the percussion.
It soon settles back into the meandering wind doubling that seems to allude to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." A calmness prevails, leading to a descending passage that Greenberg also used in his Fifth Symphony. Then another eruption. Eventually the music accelerates to a climax and ends on a big drum beat.
Bell, who gave a commanding performance of the Barber concerto, occasionally looked at the score as he played Greenberg's 24-minute piece. Bell's technical prowess and sensitivity enabled him to navigate the gymnastics of the difficult solo part that covers the entire range of the instrument.
"I'm very happy," Bell said in a brief interview later. "We got through it. I really like the piece. It's growing on me more and more. Now I can't wait to actually work on the music; I was just trying to get the notes in the right place."
The audience responded with a standing ovation. Greenberg left his seat next to his parents and little brother and walked on stage, bowing self-consciously.
Asked later what he was trying to convey in the work that took him about six months to write, he deadpanned: "I don't know. I never figured that out."
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Band on the run - Iraqi rockers seek new home
Acrassicauda, which claims to be Baghdad's only heavy metal band, fled to Syria and on to Turkey to avoid the violence in Iraq and specific death threats from insurgent groups, but now the four young musicians may be forced to return home.
"We're stuck, we're lost," Marwan, at 23 the youngest member of the group, said by telephone from Istanbul where he is staying with bandmates Firas, Tony and Faisal.
He said the musicians were not welcome in Turkey, particularly since fighting has escalated between Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border, but they could not find another country willing to take them in as refugees.
"If we ever made it back to Baghdad, and we ever made it back to our families, where would we rehearse?" said Marwan, frustrated at talking about politics and personal troubles rather than tours and tracklists.
"If we go back to Baghdad now, we'll just stay at home as prisoners, not even go out to buy and packet of cigarettes.
"I live in a Shi'ite neighborhood and I'm a Sunni," he added, referring to sectarian divisions behind much of the killing. "There are gangs who deny us the simple choice of free will."
Acrassicauda, which refers to the Latin for a type of scorpion, was formed in 2001, but played only three concerts before the U.S. invasion of 2003. They played three more, facing heavy security, tiny crowds, power shortages and the odd explosion nearby.
Their story is the subject of a documentary "Heavy Metal in Baghdad," made by Canadians Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi.
They are spearheading a campaign to find the band a new home and get money to them. The Web site www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com has a link through which donations can be made.
"PLAYING FOR SATAN"
The film covers a concert in 2005 in a Baghdad hotel, and portrays the violence in 2005 and 2006 during which the band's rehearsal space was destroyed by a bomb.
"We got a threat saying we are Americanized and we are playing music for Satan, blah blah blah, and we're going to get you one by one," Marwan says in the film, which premiered at the Toronto film festival and is due to be released in early 2008.
Inspired by the likes of Metallica, Slipknot and Slayer, the head-banging, drum-crashing Acrassicauda started out writing and rehearsing in a basement in Baghdad in 2001.
Bass guitarist Firas recalled how playing heavy metal under Saddam Hussein was not straightforward.
When they informed the authorities that they planned to stage a concert, they were told they had to include a song about the president in their set, which they duly did.
Called "The Youth of Iraq," the number included the lyrics: "Following our leader Saddam Hussein, We'll make them fall, We'll drive them insane!"
After the fall of Saddam, Firas expected life to improve, but added: "They took Ali Baba and left the 40 thieves...It sucks, dude."
According to Marwan, the band still dream of keeping their passion alive, although the experiences of the last four years have taken their toll. Describing the lyrics he has written in recent months, he said:
"There is a lot of weird stuff that is so dark and gets kind of miserable, full of rage, anger and different from the stuff I used to write back in Baghdad. I grew 20 years older in the last two years."
"We're stuck, we're lost," Marwan, at 23 the youngest member of the group, said by telephone from Istanbul where he is staying with bandmates Firas, Tony and Faisal.
He said the musicians were not welcome in Turkey, particularly since fighting has escalated between Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border, but they could not find another country willing to take them in as refugees.
"If we ever made it back to Baghdad, and we ever made it back to our families, where would we rehearse?" said Marwan, frustrated at talking about politics and personal troubles rather than tours and tracklists.
"If we go back to Baghdad now, we'll just stay at home as prisoners, not even go out to buy and packet of cigarettes.
"I live in a Shi'ite neighborhood and I'm a Sunni," he added, referring to sectarian divisions behind much of the killing. "There are gangs who deny us the simple choice of free will."
Acrassicauda, which refers to the Latin for a type of scorpion, was formed in 2001, but played only three concerts before the U.S. invasion of 2003. They played three more, facing heavy security, tiny crowds, power shortages and the odd explosion nearby.
Their story is the subject of a documentary "Heavy Metal in Baghdad," made by Canadians Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi.
They are spearheading a campaign to find the band a new home and get money to them. The Web site www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com has a link through which donations can be made.
"PLAYING FOR SATAN"
The film covers a concert in 2005 in a Baghdad hotel, and portrays the violence in 2005 and 2006 during which the band's rehearsal space was destroyed by a bomb.
"We got a threat saying we are Americanized and we are playing music for Satan, blah blah blah, and we're going to get you one by one," Marwan says in the film, which premiered at the Toronto film festival and is due to be released in early 2008.
Inspired by the likes of Metallica, Slipknot and Slayer, the head-banging, drum-crashing Acrassicauda started out writing and rehearsing in a basement in Baghdad in 2001.
Bass guitarist Firas recalled how playing heavy metal under Saddam Hussein was not straightforward.
When they informed the authorities that they planned to stage a concert, they were told they had to include a song about the president in their set, which they duly did.
Called "The Youth of Iraq," the number included the lyrics: "Following our leader Saddam Hussein, We'll make them fall, We'll drive them insane!"
After the fall of Saddam, Firas expected life to improve, but added: "They took Ali Baba and left the 40 thieves...It sucks, dude."
According to Marwan, the band still dream of keeping their passion alive, although the experiences of the last four years have taken their toll. Describing the lyrics he has written in recent months, he said:
"There is a lot of weird stuff that is so dark and gets kind of miserable, full of rage, anger and different from the stuff I used to write back in Baghdad. I grew 20 years older in the last two years."
No museum cash, says Woodstock veteran
WASHINGTON - Sen. Norm Coleman attended Woodstock and even did a video for a planned museum commemorating the famous music festival. But the Minnesota Republican recently voted against spending $1 million to help with the effort, saying government has better things to do with its money.
"I was at Woodstock. I have been to the site of the Woodstock museum," Coleman said last week. "It's a wonderful museum. That doesn't mean the government has to pay for it."
This month, in a mostly party-line 52-42 vote, Coleman voted with the majority to strip the $1 million earmark sought by New York Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, both Democrats. In another tie to the past, Coleman and Schumer attended high school together in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, just a few years before Woodstock.
Coleman, a former long-haired, anti-war student activist, described his museum video as "kind of a historical — a U.S. senator, and I was at Woodstock. It may appear someday in the museum."
"As somebody who was there, who has actually seen the facility, I have an appreciation for it, but the vote was about federal dollars," he said.
Officially, the Woodstock museum is known as the Museum at Bethel Woods, and is due to open next year. Bethel is the upstate New York town where organizers eventually put on the three-day Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969. Museum officials declined to share the Coleman video.
Coleman worked as a roadie for Ten Years After in the summer of 1969, helping set up stage equipment. But he quit by the time the band played at Woodstock. In a 1994 interview with The Associated Press commemorating the 25th anniversary of the festival, he explained: "I didn't want to work. I wanted to play and hear music."
Last week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tried to capitalize on the brouhaha over the earmark, running a TV ad that mocks fellow presidential candidate Clinton for the spending proposal.
"A few days ago, Sen. Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock concert museum," McCain says in the ad, his words from a Fox News Channel debate played along with psychedelic music and colors. "Now my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event."
Then, as footage shows McCain strapped to a bed as a POW in Vietnam, he adds, "I was tied up at the time." McCain, a Navy pilot, was shot down in 1967 and spent 5 1/2 years in a North Vietnamese prison.
While McCain tries to use Woodstock against Clinton, Republicans once talked up Coleman's participation in the event.
In 2002, Ken Mehlman, the White House political director at the time, tried to favorably compare candidate Coleman with the incumbent senator, Minnesota Democrat Paul Wellstone.
"Only one of two candidates attended Woodstock ... Norm Coleman," Mehlman told reporters, according to The New York Times. As to whether that was a good thing, he responded: "I think it's good. Voters like people who are who they really are."
Wellstone died in a plane crash just days later, and his replacement, former Vice President Walter Mondale, lost the election to Coleman.
"I was at Woodstock. I have been to the site of the Woodstock museum," Coleman said last week. "It's a wonderful museum. That doesn't mean the government has to pay for it."
This month, in a mostly party-line 52-42 vote, Coleman voted with the majority to strip the $1 million earmark sought by New York Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, both Democrats. In another tie to the past, Coleman and Schumer attended high school together in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, just a few years before Woodstock.
Coleman, a former long-haired, anti-war student activist, described his museum video as "kind of a historical — a U.S. senator, and I was at Woodstock. It may appear someday in the museum."
"As somebody who was there, who has actually seen the facility, I have an appreciation for it, but the vote was about federal dollars," he said.
Officially, the Woodstock museum is known as the Museum at Bethel Woods, and is due to open next year. Bethel is the upstate New York town where organizers eventually put on the three-day Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969. Museum officials declined to share the Coleman video.
Coleman worked as a roadie for Ten Years After in the summer of 1969, helping set up stage equipment. But he quit by the time the band played at Woodstock. In a 1994 interview with The Associated Press commemorating the 25th anniversary of the festival, he explained: "I didn't want to work. I wanted to play and hear music."
Last week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tried to capitalize on the brouhaha over the earmark, running a TV ad that mocks fellow presidential candidate Clinton for the spending proposal.
"A few days ago, Sen. Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock concert museum," McCain says in the ad, his words from a Fox News Channel debate played along with psychedelic music and colors. "Now my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event."
Then, as footage shows McCain strapped to a bed as a POW in Vietnam, he adds, "I was tied up at the time." McCain, a Navy pilot, was shot down in 1967 and spent 5 1/2 years in a North Vietnamese prison.
While McCain tries to use Woodstock against Clinton, Republicans once talked up Coleman's participation in the event.
In 2002, Ken Mehlman, the White House political director at the time, tried to favorably compare candidate Coleman with the incumbent senator, Minnesota Democrat Paul Wellstone.
"Only one of two candidates attended Woodstock ... Norm Coleman," Mehlman told reporters, according to The New York Times. As to whether that was a good thing, he responded: "I think it's good. Voters like people who are who they really are."
Wellstone died in a plane crash just days later, and his replacement, former Vice President Walter Mondale, lost the election to Coleman.
Dylan documentary shows genius in the making
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - With all due respect to "I'm Not There," Todd Haynes' imaginative and often dazzling meditation on the pop-culture mythology of Bob Dylan, there ain't nothing like the real thing.
In "The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965," documentarian Murray Lerner delivers the genuine article, on shimmering B&W film, in some of the most significant performances of his early career. The film receives its West Coast premiere Thursday as part of the Mods & Rockers Festival at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles, and will remain forever young on DVD, a must for any fan.
An indispensable chronicler of musicians including Isaac Stern, Miles Davis and the Who, Lerner has delved into his archives to craft a fascinating portrait of Dylan during key transitional years. The artist's blossoming from folkie treasure to self-defined rock 'n' roll visionary unfolds dramatically onscreen through his performances at three editions of the Newport Folk Festival.
Using outtakes from his 1967 Newport documentary "Festival" (about 70% of the material has not been seen before), Lerner constructs a narrative devoid of narration, talking-head anecdotes, analyses or interpretations. The only adornment is onscreen titles announcing the respective year of each section. Eschewing slice-and-dice manipulation and with deceptive simplicity, Lerner and his team of editors orchestrate the material with poetic precision.
At his first Newport appearance, in 1963, a tentative 22-year-old Dylan faced the collegiate white crowd of 20,000 as a beloved disciple of Woody Guthrie, his repertoire including "North Country Blues" and "Talking World War III Blues." At evening performances and the fest's more casual afternoon workshops, he's introduced as an artist who "grew out of a need," his "finger on the pulse of our generation" -- the kinds of accolades that, we now know from recent interviews and his 2004 memoir, made Dylan squirm.
By the 1964 festival, Johnny Cash was singing Dylan's praises and his songs (his rendition of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" ends all too soon). More than that, Dylan's earnestness was balanced by a self-aware irony, in his attitude and his songs; he and Joan Baez all but crack up as they perform "It Ain't Me, Babe." Yet when he brings the house down with "Chimes of Freedom," and as Peter Yarrow struggles to introduce the next act, Dylan bounces back onstage with elfin delight to tell the roaring, rapturous crowd, "Thank you, I love you."
Building up to the 1965 festival, when Dylan and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (sans Butterfield) introduced electric rock 'n' roll to the purist gathering, "The Other Side of the Mirror" illustrates the finer points of the culture clash. His hair now long, his face filled out, his work shirt traded in for a black leather jacket, Dylan faces a largely unchanged crowd. But however "Maggie's Farm" may have bruised and scandalized them, still they demanded an encore. What transpired wasn't a matter of pure animosity, as lore would have it.
Little Bobby Dylan was no longer theirs, but he was something greater. And in his acoustic afternoon performance that year of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," his face held in closeup, framed by bulky foam-wrapped microphones and wind-tossed trees, Lerner has given us three of the most gorgeous minutes ever put to film.
With:
Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, The Freedom Singers, Peter, Paul and Mary, Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Barry Goldberg, Jerome Arnold, Sam Lay
Director-producer: Murray Lerner; executive producer: Jeff Rosen; main camera crew: Murray Lerner, Stanley Meredith, George Pickow, Francis Grumman; editors: Alison Heim, Einar Westerlund, Pagan Harlemann, George Panos, Howard Alk; main sound crew: Ben Sobin, Jack Jacobson, Art Bloom, Mike Scott, John Gibbs.
In "The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965," documentarian Murray Lerner delivers the genuine article, on shimmering B&W film, in some of the most significant performances of his early career. The film receives its West Coast premiere Thursday as part of the Mods & Rockers Festival at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles, and will remain forever young on DVD, a must for any fan.
An indispensable chronicler of musicians including Isaac Stern, Miles Davis and the Who, Lerner has delved into his archives to craft a fascinating portrait of Dylan during key transitional years. The artist's blossoming from folkie treasure to self-defined rock 'n' roll visionary unfolds dramatically onscreen through his performances at three editions of the Newport Folk Festival.
Using outtakes from his 1967 Newport documentary "Festival" (about 70% of the material has not been seen before), Lerner constructs a narrative devoid of narration, talking-head anecdotes, analyses or interpretations. The only adornment is onscreen titles announcing the respective year of each section. Eschewing slice-and-dice manipulation and with deceptive simplicity, Lerner and his team of editors orchestrate the material with poetic precision.
At his first Newport appearance, in 1963, a tentative 22-year-old Dylan faced the collegiate white crowd of 20,000 as a beloved disciple of Woody Guthrie, his repertoire including "North Country Blues" and "Talking World War III Blues." At evening performances and the fest's more casual afternoon workshops, he's introduced as an artist who "grew out of a need," his "finger on the pulse of our generation" -- the kinds of accolades that, we now know from recent interviews and his 2004 memoir, made Dylan squirm.
By the 1964 festival, Johnny Cash was singing Dylan's praises and his songs (his rendition of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" ends all too soon). More than that, Dylan's earnestness was balanced by a self-aware irony, in his attitude and his songs; he and Joan Baez all but crack up as they perform "It Ain't Me, Babe." Yet when he brings the house down with "Chimes of Freedom," and as Peter Yarrow struggles to introduce the next act, Dylan bounces back onstage with elfin delight to tell the roaring, rapturous crowd, "Thank you, I love you."
Building up to the 1965 festival, when Dylan and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (sans Butterfield) introduced electric rock 'n' roll to the purist gathering, "The Other Side of the Mirror" illustrates the finer points of the culture clash. His hair now long, his face filled out, his work shirt traded in for a black leather jacket, Dylan faces a largely unchanged crowd. But however "Maggie's Farm" may have bruised and scandalized them, still they demanded an encore. What transpired wasn't a matter of pure animosity, as lore would have it.
Little Bobby Dylan was no longer theirs, but he was something greater. And in his acoustic afternoon performance that year of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," his face held in closeup, framed by bulky foam-wrapped microphones and wind-tossed trees, Lerner has given us three of the most gorgeous minutes ever put to film.
With:
Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, The Freedom Singers, Peter, Paul and Mary, Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Barry Goldberg, Jerome Arnold, Sam Lay
Director-producer: Murray Lerner; executive producer: Jeff Rosen; main camera crew: Murray Lerner, Stanley Meredith, George Pickow, Francis Grumman; editors: Alison Heim, Einar Westerlund, Pagan Harlemann, George Panos, Howard Alk; main sound crew: Ben Sobin, Jack Jacobson, Art Bloom, Mike Scott, John Gibbs.
Alanis Morissette tunes in to "Radio"
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Alanis Morissette has joined the cast of sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick's semiautobiographical feature adaptation "Radio Free Albemuth."
The Canadian pop singer plays Sylvia, a woman who shows up in the vision of a record label executive named Nick (Jonathan Scarfe) as a glamorous singer.
In reality, she's an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma who, after appearing in Nick's visions, gets a job as his secretary. She becomes his soul mate thanks to the pair's shared spirituality and visions.
"Radio" began filming this month in and around Los Angeles. Director John Alan Simon adapted the script from Dick's 1976 novel, which was published posthumously in 1985. It was loosely based on his own experience with visions in the mid-'70s.
"I am a big fan of Philip K. Dick's poetic and expansively imaginative books," Morissette said. "I feel blessed to portray Sylvia, and to be part of this story being told in film."
The Grammy-winning "You Oughta Know" singer guest-starred as a lesbian on three episodes of the FX plastic-surgery drama "Nip/Tuck" last year.
The Canadian pop singer plays Sylvia, a woman who shows up in the vision of a record label executive named Nick (Jonathan Scarfe) as a glamorous singer.
In reality, she's an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma who, after appearing in Nick's visions, gets a job as his secretary. She becomes his soul mate thanks to the pair's shared spirituality and visions.
"Radio" began filming this month in and around Los Angeles. Director John Alan Simon adapted the script from Dick's 1976 novel, which was published posthumously in 1985. It was loosely based on his own experience with visions in the mid-'70s.
"I am a big fan of Philip K. Dick's poetic and expansively imaginative books," Morissette said. "I feel blessed to portray Sylvia, and to be part of this story being told in film."
The Grammy-winning "You Oughta Know" singer guest-starred as a lesbian on three episodes of the FX plastic-surgery drama "Nip/Tuck" last year.
Beenie Man faces tax evasion charges
KINGSTON, Jamaica - A Jamaican judge released Grammy winning musician Beenie Man on $21,100 bail Monday after he appeared in court on tax evasion charges.
Jamaican authorities say the singer and rapper, whose real name is Anthony Moses Davis, owes about $661,000 in overdue taxes in his Caribbean homeland. He is due back in court Dec. 3.
The 34-year-old Kingston native broke onto the U.S. charts in 1998 with the hit single "Who Am I" and accompanying album "Many Moods of Moses."
In 2001, he won a Grammy for his album "Art and Life."
Recently, Beenie Man has come under pressure from gay rights groups in Britain and the U.S. who say some songs have anti-gay lyrics.
Jamaican authorities say the singer and rapper, whose real name is Anthony Moses Davis, owes about $661,000 in overdue taxes in his Caribbean homeland. He is due back in court Dec. 3.
The 34-year-old Kingston native broke onto the U.S. charts in 1998 with the hit single "Who Am I" and accompanying album "Many Moods of Moses."
In 2001, he won a Grammy for his album "Art and Life."
Recently, Beenie Man has come under pressure from gay rights groups in Britain and the U.S. who say some songs have anti-gay lyrics.
Can 'Blackout' beat Britney's bad press?
LOS ANGELES - On her new CD, "Blackout," Britney Spears acknowledges that 2007 hasn't been a charmed year. "I'm Mrs. Bad Media Karma, another day another drama," the 25-year-old pop princess croons to a thumping dance groove on the song "Piece of Me."
"Another day, another debacle" might have been a more apropos lyric. In just a year's time, Spears has become the ultimate case study for the "When Celebs Go Bad" file. She's been an out-of-control party girl, landed in rehab, lost temporary custody of her two young sons, given a horrendous performance on live TV and gotten herself arrested.
But despite her litany of woes, "Blackout," due out Tuesday, may be the one positive note in an otherwise dreadful year. So far, it's earned her a Top 10 single (with "Gimme More") and some of the best reviews she's had in ages.
Could "Blackout" be the break Britney needs? Industry insiders, fans and some critics are saying "yes."
"One of the problems for Britney right now is the public is more focused on her personal life than her music. This record is an opportunity to change that," says Rolling Stone executive editor Joe Levy, who called the album "state of the art."
"A lot of people are tired of hearing about the negative stuff going on in her personal life and they'll gravitate to the new sound she's putting out," says Nate "Danja" Hills, who produced five songs on dance-focused "Blackout."
"This is a rebirth. It's a new musical chapter for her," he says.
Spears' musical past is already the stuff of legend. She was 16 when she put out her first album, "... Baby One More Time," in 1999. Fueled by title track, which had the teen crooning the refrain "hit me baby one more time," the album sold more than 14 million copies in the United States and made her an international superstar. She's released three multiplatinum studio albums since then, had best-selling tours, several hit singles and starred in a movie (the less-than-successful 2002 flick "Crossroads").
But Spears, who turns 26 in December, hasn't released an album of original material since 2003's "In the Zone." Since then, she's been relegated to the tabloid realm of celebrity, in danger of rivaling Michael Jackson in freak-show status.
Still, Junior Sanchez of Los Angeles, a 21-year-old college student, says the singer's woes make him "feel more attached to her."
"I can really tell she's going through a lot of bad stuff right now," he says. "Her real fans don't care about her personal life. We care about her music and the way she performs."
Though Sanchez was "really disappointed" with Spears' appearance at MTV's Video Music Awards, he eagerly sought leaks of her new album online and says he likes what he's heard so far.
"It's one of her best, I honestly think," he says. "I'm ready to buy her records and I'm ready to buy tickets to her concert."
Sanchez isn't alone.
"Gimme" was the top-selling digital song on the week of its release, and Spears losing custody of her two toddlers a week later didn't slow sales.
Fans remain loyal despite the drama, says Jerry Del Colliano, a music-industry professor at University of Southern California.
"Look at her single sales," he says. "She couldn't have been through a darker time. She embarrassed herself on television, she was ridiculed by bloggers and still she was No. 1."
However, "Gimme" topped out at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and, after seven weeks, has dropped to No. 13.
Still, marketing consultant Ryan Schinman, president of Platinum Rye Entertainment, said: "I'd be shocked if this didn't go platinum."
"It certainly doesn't help that she can't promote this properly, but she doesn't need that much promotion," he adds. "You can't get more out there than she's been out there. (The album) is going to sell. People are curious because they know what a train wreck she's been."
It may help Spears that her club-friendly sound appeals to an older audience rather than the teens and tweens she originally courted, says Geoff Mayfield, Billboard's senior analyst and director of charts: "If kids were still a huge part of her album base, the nefarious publicity would be more troublesome."
"Blackout" features 12 thumping dance tracks crafted by top pop and hip-hop producers including Bloodshy & Avant (who produced Spears' 2004 Grammy-winning hit, "Toxic") and Danja, the beatmaster behind Spears' single "Gimme More."
Danja, a Timbaland protege who already scored hits with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, says he was "excited" to work with Spears and expects people to support the album, which has a "hard-hitting, dark and sexy vibe."
Jive Records, Spears' label since her debut, has remained mostly mum about the pop star. Jive officials declined to discuss why the album's release date was changed (it was originally set for Nov. 13), how many more albums are in Spears' contract, or the marketing challenges involved with promoting the troubled singer.
"As Britney's label, it's not our place to comment on her personal issues, but we do care about her and support her," label spokesman Allan Mayer said in a recent statement. "Britney's a grown woman who makes her own choices, and we respect that. But she faces challenges that most of us can't really imagine."
"Another day, another debacle" might have been a more apropos lyric. In just a year's time, Spears has become the ultimate case study for the "When Celebs Go Bad" file. She's been an out-of-control party girl, landed in rehab, lost temporary custody of her two young sons, given a horrendous performance on live TV and gotten herself arrested.
But despite her litany of woes, "Blackout," due out Tuesday, may be the one positive note in an otherwise dreadful year. So far, it's earned her a Top 10 single (with "Gimme More") and some of the best reviews she's had in ages.
Could "Blackout" be the break Britney needs? Industry insiders, fans and some critics are saying "yes."
"One of the problems for Britney right now is the public is more focused on her personal life than her music. This record is an opportunity to change that," says Rolling Stone executive editor Joe Levy, who called the album "state of the art."
"A lot of people are tired of hearing about the negative stuff going on in her personal life and they'll gravitate to the new sound she's putting out," says Nate "Danja" Hills, who produced five songs on dance-focused "Blackout."
"This is a rebirth. It's a new musical chapter for her," he says.
Spears' musical past is already the stuff of legend. She was 16 when she put out her first album, "... Baby One More Time," in 1999. Fueled by title track, which had the teen crooning the refrain "hit me baby one more time," the album sold more than 14 million copies in the United States and made her an international superstar. She's released three multiplatinum studio albums since then, had best-selling tours, several hit singles and starred in a movie (the less-than-successful 2002 flick "Crossroads").
But Spears, who turns 26 in December, hasn't released an album of original material since 2003's "In the Zone." Since then, she's been relegated to the tabloid realm of celebrity, in danger of rivaling Michael Jackson in freak-show status.
Still, Junior Sanchez of Los Angeles, a 21-year-old college student, says the singer's woes make him "feel more attached to her."
"I can really tell she's going through a lot of bad stuff right now," he says. "Her real fans don't care about her personal life. We care about her music and the way she performs."
Though Sanchez was "really disappointed" with Spears' appearance at MTV's Video Music Awards, he eagerly sought leaks of her new album online and says he likes what he's heard so far.
"It's one of her best, I honestly think," he says. "I'm ready to buy her records and I'm ready to buy tickets to her concert."
Sanchez isn't alone.
"Gimme" was the top-selling digital song on the week of its release, and Spears losing custody of her two toddlers a week later didn't slow sales.
Fans remain loyal despite the drama, says Jerry Del Colliano, a music-industry professor at University of Southern California.
"Look at her single sales," he says. "She couldn't have been through a darker time. She embarrassed herself on television, she was ridiculed by bloggers and still she was No. 1."
However, "Gimme" topped out at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and, after seven weeks, has dropped to No. 13.
Still, marketing consultant Ryan Schinman, president of Platinum Rye Entertainment, said: "I'd be shocked if this didn't go platinum."
"It certainly doesn't help that she can't promote this properly, but she doesn't need that much promotion," he adds. "You can't get more out there than she's been out there. (The album) is going to sell. People are curious because they know what a train wreck she's been."
It may help Spears that her club-friendly sound appeals to an older audience rather than the teens and tweens she originally courted, says Geoff Mayfield, Billboard's senior analyst and director of charts: "If kids were still a huge part of her album base, the nefarious publicity would be more troublesome."
"Blackout" features 12 thumping dance tracks crafted by top pop and hip-hop producers including Bloodshy & Avant (who produced Spears' 2004 Grammy-winning hit, "Toxic") and Danja, the beatmaster behind Spears' single "Gimme More."
Danja, a Timbaland protege who already scored hits with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, says he was "excited" to work with Spears and expects people to support the album, which has a "hard-hitting, dark and sexy vibe."
Jive Records, Spears' label since her debut, has remained mostly mum about the pop star. Jive officials declined to discuss why the album's release date was changed (it was originally set for Nov. 13), how many more albums are in Spears' contract, or the marketing challenges involved with promoting the troubled singer.
"As Britney's label, it's not our place to comment on her personal issues, but we do care about her and support her," label spokesman Allan Mayer said in a recent statement. "Britney's a grown woman who makes her own choices, and we respect that. But she faces challenges that most of us can't really imagine."
No bailout for Hannah Montana fans
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Soaring black market prices for tickets to see pop idol Hannah Montana have enraged parents and prompted probes by several states' attorney generals, but the Richmond Federal Reserve says don't blame market forces.
"Yes, it may be unfortunate that some little girls won't be able to see Miley Cyrus (the real name of the performer who plays teenybopper Hannah Montana) in concert," the Richmond branch of the U.S. central bank noted in an article on its Web site.
"The more fundamental issue is that promoters of the Hannah Montana series apparently haven't priced tickets commensurate with demand, opening the door to a secondary market with much higher prices," the Fed said.
This secondary market has sky-rocketed. Hannah Montana tickets officially priced at $25-$65 for a show on Monday in Seattle were for sale on one major private on-line ticket brokerage for between $163-$393. Seats near the stage for a November 7 performance in Los Angeles were $2,427 each.
Hannah Montana is the TV alter-ego of 14-year-old Cyrus, who plays a teenager living a double life as a rock star on a hit Disney Channel cable show. The Hannah Montana 54-date "Best of Both Worlds Tour" began in St. Louis earlier this month.
Acknowledging the age group of the fan base -- mainly young girls -- was a soft target for scalpers, the Richmond Fed article nonetheless argued against cracking down on the secondary market in tickets.
Instead, it urged rationing tickets to make sure that they get to 'real' fans, now that the old-fashioned solution of sorting the diehard supporters from mere profit-seeking ticket speculators -- by making everyone line up to get tickets -- has been overtaken by technology.
"One version would be a system in which a certain number of seats are auctioned off to the highest bidders, with the remaining ones sold for a flat price.
"This aids the promoter in not over- or underpricing tickets beforehand and more closely mimics a true market for high-valued seats," the Richmond Fed said.
Ticket speculators charging exorbitant prices for big sports events or shows have provoked anti-scalping laws in parts of the United States. But the crestfallen expressions of young Hannah Montana fans has really struck a chord.
"I have a young daughter, and I really wish I could fix this problem for all the parents with disappointed kids right now," Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said in a statement last month.
He launched an investigation after a Hannah Montana concert in Little Rock sold out a few minutes after the official sale opened, with tickets appearing soon after on various private websites pitched at much higher prices.
The Richmond Fed noted that there had been other suggestions for event promoters to winnow out scalpers by quizzing prospective ticket buyers to identify real fans. This might be flawed, but could still yield results.
"Perfect? Of course not. Scalpers could quickly educate themselves and use the same old methods to cut in line ahead of real fans. But at least this approach doesn't meddle with supply and demand," it said.
"Yes, it may be unfortunate that some little girls won't be able to see Miley Cyrus (the real name of the performer who plays teenybopper Hannah Montana) in concert," the Richmond branch of the U.S. central bank noted in an article on its Web site.
"The more fundamental issue is that promoters of the Hannah Montana series apparently haven't priced tickets commensurate with demand, opening the door to a secondary market with much higher prices," the Fed said.
This secondary market has sky-rocketed. Hannah Montana tickets officially priced at $25-$65 for a show on Monday in Seattle were for sale on one major private on-line ticket brokerage for between $163-$393. Seats near the stage for a November 7 performance in Los Angeles were $2,427 each.
Hannah Montana is the TV alter-ego of 14-year-old Cyrus, who plays a teenager living a double life as a rock star on a hit Disney Channel cable show. The Hannah Montana 54-date "Best of Both Worlds Tour" began in St. Louis earlier this month.
Acknowledging the age group of the fan base -- mainly young girls -- was a soft target for scalpers, the Richmond Fed article nonetheless argued against cracking down on the secondary market in tickets.
Instead, it urged rationing tickets to make sure that they get to 'real' fans, now that the old-fashioned solution of sorting the diehard supporters from mere profit-seeking ticket speculators -- by making everyone line up to get tickets -- has been overtaken by technology.
"One version would be a system in which a certain number of seats are auctioned off to the highest bidders, with the remaining ones sold for a flat price.
"This aids the promoter in not over- or underpricing tickets beforehand and more closely mimics a true market for high-valued seats," the Richmond Fed said.
Ticket speculators charging exorbitant prices for big sports events or shows have provoked anti-scalping laws in parts of the United States. But the crestfallen expressions of young Hannah Montana fans has really struck a chord.
"I have a young daughter, and I really wish I could fix this problem for all the parents with disappointed kids right now," Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said in a statement last month.
He launched an investigation after a Hannah Montana concert in Little Rock sold out a few minutes after the official sale opened, with tickets appearing soon after on various private websites pitched at much higher prices.
The Richmond Fed noted that there had been other suggestions for event promoters to winnow out scalpers by quizzing prospective ticket buyers to identify real fans. This might be flawed, but could still yield results.
"Perfect? Of course not. Scalpers could quickly educate themselves and use the same old methods to cut in line ahead of real fans. But at least this approach doesn't meddle with supply and demand," it said.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
What is Music ?
Music is an art form consisting of sound and silence expressed through time. Elements of sound as used in music are pitch (including melody and harmony), rhythm (including tempo and meter), structure, and sonic qualities of timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture.The creation, performance, significance and even the definition of music, vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions and performances to improvisational or aleatoric forms. For purposes of discussion and exploration of the topic, music is divided into genres and sub-genres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often unclear and/or controversial. Within "the arts", music can be classified as a performing art, a fine art, or an auditory art form.Music may also involve generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli, principally sound. Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, ceremonial or religious purposes and by many composers purely as an academic instrument for study.
History
The history of music predates the written word and is tied to the development of each unique human culture. The development of music among humans occurred against the backdrop of natural sounds such as birdsong and the sounds other animals use to communicate. Prehistoric music, once more commonly called primitive music, is the name given to all music produced in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history.
Ancient
The human voice is possibly the oldest musical instrument. A range of paleolithic sites have yielded bones in which lateral holes have been pierced: these are usually considered to be flutes[1], blown at the end like the Japanese shakuhachi. The earliest written records of musical expression are to be found in the Sama Veda of India and in 4,000 year old cuneiform from Ur. Instruments, such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments have been recovered from the Indus valley civilization archaeological sites.[2] The Indian music is one of the oldest musical traditions in the world, and Indian classical music (marga) can be found from the scriptures of the Hindu tradition, the Vedas. Chinese classical music, the traditional art or court music of China has a history stretching for more than three thousand years. Music was an important part of cultural and social life in Ancient Greece. In ancient Greece, mixed-gender choruses performed for entertainment, celebration and spiritual ceremonies, and musicians and singers had an important role in Greek theater. Music was part of children's basic education in ancient Greece.
Al-Farabi (872-950) wrote a notable book on music titled Kitab al-Musiqa (The Book of Music). He played and invented a varied number of musical instruments and his pure Arabian tone system is still used in Arabic music today.
Medieval and Renaissance
While musical life was undoubtedly rich in the early Medieval era, as attested by artistic depictions of instruments, writings about music, and other records, the only repertory of music which has survived from before 800 to the present day is the plainsong liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church, the largest part of which was called Gregorian chant. Several schools of polyphony flourished in the period after 1100. Alongside these schools of sacred music a vibrant tradition of secular song developed, as exemplified in the music of the troubadours, trouvères and Minnesänger.
Much of the surviving music of the 14th century in European music history is secular. By the middle of the 15th century, composers and singers used a smooth polyphony for sacred musical compositions such as the mass, the motet, and the laude; and secular forms such as the chanson and the madrigal. The invention of printing had an immense influence on the dissemination of musical styles.
Baroque
The first operas, written around 1600 and the rise of Counterpoint musical compositions define the end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the Baroque era that lasted until 1750, the year of the death of J.S. Bach, along with Georg Friedrich Handel the most generally known of the Baroque composers (though many composers embraced the Baroque movement in music during those years).
German Baroque composers wrote for small ensembles including strings, brass, and woodwinds, as well as Choirs, pipe organ, harpsichord, and clavichord. During the Baroque period, several major music forms were defined that lasted into later periods when they were expanded and evolved further, including the Fugue, the Invention, the Sonata, and the Concerto.
Classical
The music of the Classical period is characterized by homophonic texture, often featuring prominent melody with accompaniment. These new melodies tended to be almost voice-like and singable. The now popular instrumental music was dominated by further evolution of musical forms initially defined in the Baroque period: the sonata, and the concerto, with the addition of the new form, the symphony. Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, well known even today, are among the central figures of the Classical period.
Romantic
Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert were transitional composers, leading into the Romantic period, with their expansion of existing genres, forms, and functions of music. In the Romantic period, the emotional and expressive qualities of music came to take precedence over the orientation towards technique and tradition. The late 19th century saw a dramatic expansion in the size of the orchestra, and in the role of concerts as part of urban society. Later Romantic composers created complex and often much longer musical works, merging and expanding traditional forms that had previously been used separately. For example, counterpoint, combined with harmonic structures to create more extended chords with increased use of dissonance and to create dramatic tension and resolution.
20th Century
The 20th Century saw a revolution in music listening as the radio gained popularity worldwide and new media and technologies were developed to record, capture, reproduce and distribute music. The focus of art music in the 20th was characterized by exploration. Claude Debussy has become well-known and respected for his orientation towards colors and depictions in his compositional style. Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and John Cage were all deeply influential composers in 20th century art music. Jazz evolved and became a significant genre of music over the course of the 20th century, and during the second half of that century, rock music did the same.
Music Therapy
Robert Burton wrote in the 17th century in his work, The Anatomy of Melancholy, that music and dance were critical in treating mental illness, especially melancholia. He said that "But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise of divine music, I will confine myself to my proper subject: besides that excellent power it hath to expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against despair and melancholy, and will drive away the devil himself." Burton noted that "...Canus, a Rhodian fiddler, in Philostratus, when Apollonius was inquisitive to know what he could do with his pipe, told him, "That he would make a melancholy man merry, and him that was merry much merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a religious man more devout."
In November 2006, Dr. Michael J. Crawford and his colleagues also found that music therapy helped schizophrenic patients. In the Ottoman Empire, mental illnesses were treated with music.
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