El Sistema has taken root in Scotland, and there is new funding for a project In Aberdeen. Scotland looks set to get its third El Sistema-style children’s orchestra project, thanks to backing from Aberdeen City Council. Big Noise Torry, based in the Torry area of the city, will be a partnership between the local authority and charity Sistema Scotland, and according to the council could be up and running as early as 2015. See link in Classical Music Magazine.
Category Archives: Society
Invictus
Invictus– the poem that inspired Nelson Mandela
by William Ernest Henly
The following poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henly, a Victorian poet, was published in 1875 and was a deep inspiration to the great Nelson Mandela (July 18, 1918 – December 5, 2013)
National Youth Guitar Ensemble – calling all teachers. Also players aged 13-18
The National Youth Guitar Ensemble is looking for players, grade 5-6 to audition for this prestigious and fun ensemble.
Do you have young students who enjoy a challenging musical experience playing original works for guitar ensemble?
This year’s guest artists are the Vida Quartet (Mark Eden, Chris Stell, Helen Sanderson, Mark Ashford), and the programme will feature original concertos for guitar quartet and guitar orchestra.
Details below
Lou Reed homage
A few weeks late for a homage , but this is an interesting interview with the Godfather of Punk and cofounder of Velvet Underground in Guitar World, 1998. He was obsessed with guitar technology and did surprising things with guitars!
The world sends us garbage… We send back music – the children of Cateura and their “Garbage Instruments” – Los Reciclados
Mozart played on oil drums!
Just outside the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion sits Cateura, a massive landfill that receives 1,500 tons of new rubbish each day. The dumping site’s surrounding neighborhoods are home to several thousand families who make a living by sorting through its rotting waste, and separate out whatever can be sold to the local recycling industry. According to UNICEF, Cateura is a community marked by extreme poverty, illiteracy, and pollution.
It’s also home to an orchestra—one made up of local children whose instruments are made entirely from recycled garbage.
This is an article in TakePart amplifying my earlier post on Cateura’s collaboration with Berta Rojas.
It’s an intriguing story of a musician, Favio Chávez, who got together with a rubbish collector, Nicolás Gómez, to make instruments together using packing cases, oil drums and old bottles.
The Song of the Sirens
It is easy to forget that the great epics of classical Greek poetry were originally sung. Since the 16th century, scholars have been trying to reconstruct the songs of Sappho, Sophocles, Euripides and Homer from their signature poems.
Now research carried out by Armand d’Angour at Oxford University is bringing us several steps closer to hearing how this ancient music sounded.
Great Guitar Pieces Nobody Plays
Some of the harmonics on the series would be quite out-of-tune if played on a regularly tuned, equal-tempered guitar.Tenney obviates this problem by retuning a couple of strings on the guitars responsible for each harmonic—and restricting the musical material for that guitar only to those notes that can be sounded accurately in tune.
The repertoire of American composer James Tenney (1934-2006) is among the most diverse and stimulating in experimental music.
He studied with, amongst others Chou Wen-Chung and John Cage.Tenney’s work deals with perception (For Ann (rising), see Shepard tone), just intonation (Clang, see gestalt), stochastic elements (Music for Player Piano), information theory (Ergodos, see ergodic theory), and with what he called ‘swell’ (Koan: Having Never Written A Note For Percussion for John Bergamo), which is basically arch form.
Gunpowder plot truthers – ten things about bonfire night you probably didn’t know
Article in the Independent with a bit more history and a touch of gruesomeness for those who don’t know about hanging, drawing and quartering.
Apparently is was by law that you had to remember, remember the 5th of November.
There is also a distinct possibility that the whole plot was a put up job by arch Catholic hater and MP Robert Cecil to finger Fawkes, Catesby and their co conspirators.
Guitar Friendly Airlines
“Without music, life would be a mistake” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Just a nod in the direction of the German philosopher, cultural critic, poet and composer, Friedrich Nietzsche, whom many remember for his declaration “God is dead”.
It’s his 113th birthday today (Nietzsche’s) and is celebrated by the Google Doodle.
Nietzsche made quite an impact on composers during the 1890s. Continue reading