The University of Colorado's "Pendulum" series

Last night I went to a concert of the University of Colorado's "Pendulum New Music" series, presenting the best of new music from both students and faculty. It has always been fun to hear new compositions from unknown composers and last night was rewarding.

A guest faculty composer, Ed Knight from Oklahoma City, had his "Trio for flute, viola, and piano" played for the first time. It was an interesting tonal work well worth hearing again. As it progressed I could believe that Knight would do well writing for the movies. What made this piece even more interesting was that the he went on stage and said a few words about it. The evening's program merely named the piece but Knight gave names to the 4 movements. I cannot just image an event or setting just by listening to the music, particularly one which I've never heard before. But Knight's description of the work being influence by the Internet added immensely to its appeal. "Spam", with a hint of the darkness and even a worm made the first movement come alive. While I don't know much about "Classmates.com" or "Matchmaker.com", his brief explanation put substance to the second and third movements. "Ebay bidding war", once named could be imagined musically and was realized with the final spoken word "Sold". It was much fun.

"Pendulum New Music" has always been enjoyable and it's pleasing to hear the student and faculty compositions. It is to the composition faculty's credit that the music comes off as well as it does. The students say a few words about their work and take applause afterwords. Greg Simon's "Prometheus in the Dead Zone" was exciting, but the other works by Matthew Browne and Mary Mixter should be complemented also. Kudos to all involved.

It's been a while.......

I've been still trying to find a decent replacement for my old FM radio. Since KVOD, the Denver all classical music station, essentially went off the air, I've been trying Internet stations from a few different systems. While the broadcast fare from KVOD was tepid, at least all I needed to do to hear it was turn on the radio and there it was -- oh, for the good old days.

While having breakfast the other day it dawned on me that I could listen to some classical music on my TV. Comcast has several stations, so I thought to try them out. They were pretty innocuous but okay. Then I noticed that Comcast also believes in only playing parts of a composition. If a composer only wanted his audience to hear the 2nd movement he wouldn't write a first. It's a petty peeve of mine --- if you broadcast a composer's work of art, play the entire thing!

I've been very happy with the music broadcast over the Internet using the Live365's network, particularly contemporary-classical.com which broadcasts 20th and 21st century composers. I've heard some incredible music on contemporary-classical.com that I've never heard before. Stations like KVOD never took the risk of exposing their listeners to this stuff, instead broadcasting the same old masters over and over and over. Even broadcasting 24 hours each day, they just couldn't risk contemporary music.

The contemporary-classical.com web site went off the air a week or so ago. Two musicians associated with the group "Alarm Will Sound" were staying at our house while rehearsing for a Denver performance. I was telling one of them about the music broadcast on contemporary-classical.com. Later that day I went to check out the web site and instead found a note "Will the owner of this site please contact his ISP". Since I was about to renew my annual membership with Live365, I wasn't sure I wanted to re-up if the main station I was interested in was going away. Using Live365's contact form, I asked what they knew about the site. I got no response. A few days later, still no contemporary-classical.com web site, so I sent another query. The day after the second request to Live365 I noticed that the Contemporary-classical.com web site was back up. The next day Live365 finally responded (twice, separately) and said all was fine, just clear my browser cache. Give me a break! This was not a caching issue. Anyway, I'm back and happy listening to some very interesting contemporary classical music.

Right now I'm listening to Roy Harris's Symphony #7 on Live365/contemporary-classical. Was it broadcast on any of the stations I monitor in the last 5 years? Nope. Harris's 3rd, 4th, 6th and 9th, yes, but not the 7th. Such is the state of broadcast classical music in some of cities around the country.