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At 12:29 PM -0400 9/25/01, KILLINFO@aol.com wrote: >I really don't want to start any discussions about what "classical" >really means Good idea. I generally avoid the term unless referring to the likes of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. I prefer "art music" or "instrumental art music" when speaking generally and when spanning style periods, "new music" when speaking to those who know that I'm not talking about "pop," and any of several more specific terms when I need to be more specific. Some personal asides: >Arvo Pärt I did sound for him at the Cabrillo Music Festival some years back. I'd never heard of him before that, but the music director Dennis Russell Davies often introduced us to important European artists. Pärt was very solemn and monk-like. He had been director of recording for Estonian Radio, and he spent much time wandering around the festival tent listening to the quality of sound (I was doing some reinforcement with surround reverb speakers). Pärt's music was much more popular with the audience than the musicians, however, due to the minimalism of some of the pieces. >John Adams I got to know John during my years in the Bay Area, and in fact he's married to one of my college chums. He's a very thoughtful and warm person. He's also very organized and disciplined about his composing, retreating to his studio every morning and emerging at the end of his working day to spend evening family time. He spent one year as interim director of the Cabrillo Festival, in the summer following the Gulf War. His programming included several performances of Arabic music and dance, and many other works were solemn memorials. The musicians jokingly referred to that summer as the "Festival o' Death." >Bartók I was walking down a street in New York a few years back and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a plaque on the front of an otherwise undistinguished apartment building. This proved to be a memorial to Bartók, who had spent the last years of his life living there in poverty. >Lou Harrison Lou lives in Aptos, California, just above the campus of Cabrillo College. He was one of the founders of the Cabrillo Music Festival and is a permanent composer in residence. He's a warm and gracious person, and a man of diverse interests and boundless energy (despite being 84). In his youth he was a dancer; he studied composition with Henry Cowell; he was a close friend and collaborator of John Cage, but they drifted apart when Cage embraced indeterminacy (Lou: "I'd rather chance a choice than choose a chance."); he and his late partner Bill Colvig have been mainstay of the American gamelan movement and build several sets of instruments. Much of Lou's music is now available, in part due to the efforts of Dennis Davies. >Steve Reich "Come Out" was one of those pieces of sound art that permanently changed the way I hear. I saw Reich's "The Cave" several years ago in New York. This work has particular importance today, dealing as it does with the common heritage and divergence of the Muslim and Jewish faiths. >Igor Stravinski I always enjoyed his setting of "The Owl and the Pussycat" >Oliver Messiaen "Quatuor" is a powerful piece, particularly when one considers its origin. His musical language is unique, and his influence on post-WWII music profound (he was a teacher of both Boulez and Stockhausen). -- ______________________________________________________________ Richard Zvonar, PhD (818) 788-2202 http://www.zvonar.com http://RZCybernetics.com http://www.cybmotion.com/aliaszone http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?autostart=rz