Here’s a live recording of the extraordinary National Youth Choir of Great Britain performing the two new E.E. cummings settings. Tali Tadmor is playing piano; I’m conducting:
I’m calling the piano part in these pieces the... continued
Just hitting the streets this week is another version of The Seal Lullaby, this time arranged for women’s chorus (or treble chorus). It’s distributed in North America by Hal Leonard, and everywhere else by Chester Music.
Here’s an excerpt,... continued
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field photograph has long been one of my favorites. Hila and I have a coffee table book of Hubble images, and sometimes I’ll open to that page and just… disappear.
I stumbled on this video this morning and thought I would share... continued
Poet Charles Anthony Silvestri (Sleep, Lux, Nox, Leonardo Dreams, Her Sacred Spirit Soars) has finally joined Twitter. He’s decided to celebrate by writing an original 140 character poem every day. My plan is to choose five or six... continued
The Wilhelm Scream is one of those great in-jokes amongst film and video sound designers. I always thought it was like the “Dies Irae” chant theme is to composers, because at some point in their careers it seems that every composer tries to use it in one of... continued
Paola Presitini was a composition student with me at Juilliard, and even back then she was writing incredibly haunting and beautiful music. Last year, Hila sang on the recording of Paola’s Body Maps (that’s the album cover above), a delicate,... continued
Last year I wrote this post encouraging composers to work without computer notation software and write using only good old-fashioned pencil and paper. It was meant as a friendly bit of advice for emerging composers, but oh my god did it stir up some... continued
This really is an extraordinary video, a simple and silly idea executed with genuine elegance and craft. Incredibly, it actually makes for a pretty nice piece of music:
John Corigliano was my composition teacher at Juilliard, and he was easily the best composition teacher I’ve ever had – a true mentor. On top of that, he wrote Mr. Tambourine Man, an unbelievably beautiful and poignant work for soprano... continued
If you are planning on attending the August 7th Disney Hall concert in Los Angeles, but have yet to buy tickets, you may want to do so soon. I just got the seating chart reports and it looks like almost all of the premium seats (those seats... continued
I’m finally getting a chance to write about the week I spent in Montreal. What a city! The people are filled with such warmth and gentleness, extremely kind and full of light and life. And the food rocked.
I worked the entire week with the excellent... continued
Jan Kellet is an artist who makes, among other things, gorgeous miniature hand-made limited edition books. For her next project she has chosen for a text Charles Anthony Silvestri’s original poem Leonardo Dreams of His... continued
