Summer Festival Preview: Lincoln Center Festival

No symphonies. No concertos. No opera. No problem?

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The legendary saxophonist Ornette Coleman's spirit lives on at this year's Lincoln Center Festival.

The Lincoln Center Festival continues to push the cutting edge, leaving symphony, concerto (and yes, opera) behind for a bold poutpurri of world music, electronica and one of the most innovative voices in American jazz: Ornette Coleman.

Concert Review: It Came From Inner Space!

The Orb descend on Webster Hall.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Orb: Thomas Fehlmann and Dr. Alex Patterson at Webster Hall.
Photo by the author.

The sound came as a low, throbbing pulse, teasing at the senses and swelling, growing in volume and rising slightly, ever so slightly in pitch. It beckoned from two rooms away, deep in the maze that is Webster Hall, crooning and crooning its tendril-like fingers. The swelling sound called again, drawing the hypnotized and helpless listeners into the vast, lounges cavern of the Marlin Room, where The Orb were making their New York stop on their current North American tour.

Obituary: Edgar Froese: 1944-2016

The Tangerine Dream founder was 70.

Plugged in: Edgar Froese at work in the studio.

Edgar Froese, the electronic music pioneer who founded the pioneering German group Tangerine Dream, died at the age of 70. The keyboardist suffered an unexpected pulmonary embolism on January 20 while in Vienna, Austria.

Some Words on Electronic Music

Cos sometimes it ain't all Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll, better known as Orbital.

Longtime readers of this blog may know that my interest in music extends beyond the concert stage and the opera house. And in this two week period before the launch of the 2013 season (with the first New York performances of the opera Anna Nicole) I'd like to write about some different genres far outside the "normal" parade of Mozart, Mahler and modernism that makes up the bulk of Superconductor content.

Today, let's talk about electronica.

Robbery, Shootout, Revelation

Turning up the Heat with Elliot Goldenthal's soundtrack.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Robert De Niro as robber Neil McCauley in a still the Michael Mann film Heat.
Image © 1995 Regency Entertainment-Warner Bros.

I don't write much about film music on this blog. Sure, movies and so-called classical or art music have been joined at the hip since the heady Hollywood days of Franz Waxman and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. But in today's column I'd like to talk about composer Elliot Goldenthal, and the extraordinary soundtrack for Michael Mann's 1995 heist movie Heat.

Heat is more than just a cops-and-robbers story: it is an epic three-hour Los Angeles saga with an all-star cast (the leads are Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, along with a "laundry list" of skilled actors, many of them in tiny supporting parts) Shot entirely on location and taking place mostly at night (although De Niro's "crew" of robbers stages their two most spectacular thefts in daylight) it immerses you in the lives of both the crooks and the cops, exploring their characters with a depth that goes far beyond the usual formulas of the genre.

But what I really want to talk about is the music.

Concert Review: The Cult of Light

The Park Avenue Armory presents Stockhausen's Oktophonie.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This didn't actually happen on Saturday.
The late Karlheinz Stockhausen. © Stockhausen-Verlag

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s seven-part opera cycle Licht is regarded as one of the most important, possibly unperformable  monster works produced in the last decades of the composer’s life. Perhaps recognizing the difficulty of getting a seven-day 29-hour opera performed, Stockhausen made his work "modular", enabling sections of Licht to be broken out and played for an audience of less fortitude.

Putting Ideas Together III

Today's selection is a Journey Through a Burning Brain: really old stuff by German electro-nauts Tangerine Dream, made (believe it or not) on a two-track ReVox tape recorder. 
Enjoy the ride.

A ReVox two-track A77 Tape Recorder: the machine used to record Electronic Meditation.