Category: music composition

Twelve students sat in a downtown Phoenix classroom talking among themselves while three Phoenix Symphony musicians set up their instruments and readied to teach a lesson related to music theory at Hope Academy High School.

As the musicians began playing “Winter Wonderland,” the students stopped their conversations to listen.

After the performance, Tessa Gotman Bock, second violin for the Phoenix Symphony, began a lesson — about math. Gotman Bock explained the mathematical order of operations and how it is similar to the composition of a song. The lesson is part of the Phoenix Symphony’s Mind Over Music program, which started in 2015 with the goal of having teachers and Phoenix Symphony musicians collaborate to incorporate music into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

After the lecture, the musicians started a hands-on activity with the students. The students were instructed to arrange shuffled pieces of a song into the correct order. The musicians Michael and Dian D’Avanzo, along with Gotman Bock, helped the students along the way.

Since its launch, Mind Over Music has served Phoenix schools at all grade levels with significant low-income student populations. Hope Academy High School only has about 80 students on its campus, which helps create a more personalized learning environment. The musicians participating in Mind Over Music visit the school regularly and develop relationships with the students they teach.

The school is overseen by the Maricopa County Regional School District and has a student body ranging in age from 14 to 21. Hope Academy is an accommodation school, meaning it serves students who may not have a home address, may be without shelter or have been suspended from another public school.

“This whole job has been relationship first,” said Michael D’Avanzo, cellist for the Phoenix Symphony. “The hardest thing is to get the students to get over their skepticism, but they warm up quickly.”

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The COVID-19 pandemic greatly affected the ability of musicians participating in Mind Over Music to go to schools and teach. But Valerie Bontrager, the director of education and community engagement for the Phoenix Symphony Association, said the program is regaining its traction and lessons at Hope Academy and the Academies at South Mountain are scheduled for the 2023 spring semester.

Surveys given to students at Hope Academy show that the Mind Over Music program is an overwhelming favorite. The students even made hats for the Phoenix Symphony musicians who teach at their school.

Last year, Season for Sharing raised $1.8 million and distributed it among 164 nonprofit organizations. The Phoenix Symphony’s Mind Over Music program was among those organizations. With the $7,500 grant awarded to them by The Arizona Republic, the Phoenix Symphony is able to pay the participating Mind Over Music musicians to develop and teach lessons and continue building trust with the communities they serve.

Donate to Season for Sharing: sharing.azcentral.com.

Among the other music-centered nonprofits that received Season for Sharing grants last year were:

• Rosie’s House: A Music Academy for Children, Phoenix, $7,500: Free afterschool mariachi classes for underserved K-12 students.

• Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix, $7,500: To create a free virtual education program for Maricopa County children who attend under-resourced schools.

• Hospice of the Valley, Phoenix, $7,500: To fund the Musical Comfort for Persons Living with Dementia Program.

Ways to give

• Fill out the secure, online form at sharing.azcentral.com.

• Text “SHARING” to 91-999 and click on the link in the text message.

• Go online at facebook.com/seasonforsharing and look for the “DONATE HERE” post.

• Clip the coupon on Page 4A of The Arizona Republic, fill it out and mail it to P.O. Box 29250, Phoenix AZ 85038-9250.

• Make a donation when you buy tickets to Las Noches de las Luminarias at Desert Botanical Garden. dbg.org.

Where does the money go?

When you give to Season for Sharing, you are helping nonprofits that support education, feed the hungry and help struggling families and older adults. The Republic pays all administrative costs, so 100% of donations go back to the community.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How Season for Sharing helps low-income children connect with music

Film composer Carter Burwell has opened up about the challenge set him by movie director Martin McDonagh, when working on the music for his multiple award-nominated movie The Banshees of Inisherin.

urwell has worked with such directors as The Coen brothers and Spike Jones — and he composed, orchestrated and conducted the music for the Twilight movie franchise.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent after being nominated for a Golden Globe for his work on Banshees, Burwell said McDonagh gave him one golden rule for the film: no traditional Irish music.

The story involves an Irish fiddler on an Irish island during the Irish Civil War — so Burwell initially could see no reason the music wouldn’t be Irish. But McDonagh made it clear that he hated “diddly-eye” scores.

“Martin didn’t want any Irish music,” Burwell said. “He sincerely hates Hollywood versions of it in film scores, like The Quiet Man. That’s exactly what he didn’t want. He wanted to make it a little more like an allegory or a fable.”

Burwell stumbled upon a solution while reading the Brothers Grimm to his 11-year-old daughter. Unlike the Disney version, the stepmother in the earlier telling encourages her daughters to cut off parts of their feet, in order to fit into the slipper.

Armed with this insight, Burwell began to look at the self-mutilation of Brendan Gleeson’s character as a fairy tale — and that informed the music, playing on Colin Farrell’s character’s loss of innocence.

The approach paid off, and Burwell has been nominated for best musical score at the Golden Globes in January. The movie has also been nominated as best picture, as well as in the categories of director, screenplay, leading actor in a comedy or musical (Colin Farrell), supporting actress (Kerry Condon), and twice for best supporting actor (Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan).

Asked how working with McDonagh compared to the Coen brothers, Burwell said in the recording studio the brothers tended to “sit back and let it all happen”, while Martin was still “throwing ideas out there”. He described him as a “perfectionist”.

The pair met in 2007 when they worked on In Bruges. The collaboration was such a success they agreed to team up every four years. They have since worked on Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards.

Burwell said he understood and accepted that his job as composer involves toying with people’s emotions. “That’s what film music is — it’s very much emotionally manipulative. Manipulating the audience moment by moment,” he said.

Video of the Day

The new music video draws footage from Cairo Steps’ latest concert at the Marquee Theatre (Cairo Festival City, November 2022) in which El-Helbawy presented the song in a new musical packaging. 

The release comes ahead of the Cairo Steps’ upcoming concerts on 22 and 23 December at the Cairo Opera House, featuring Sheikh Ehab Younis and Ali El-Helbawy.

Released on 8 December, this composition is not the first musical collaboration between El-Helbawy and Cairo Steps’ founder and musical dynamo Basem Darwisch. El-Habawy was featured in the band’s composition titled Elahi, released on their Diwan Cafe album (2021).

Sultan, the new creative composition, fuses music by Darwisch with Mersal El-Habebti, one of El-Helbawy’s best-known songs. The latter was featured in Ahmad Abdalla’s multi-award-winning film Microphone (2010) which brought the singer to the limelight.

Cairo Steps’ Sultan is a new musical offering however, where Mersal changes the key and blends it into new creative phrasings and arrangement.

While Cairo Steps become important protagonists of the song, El-Helbawy’s interpretation that includes segments of recitative and his own improvisations, add important creative color to the whole output. The final result is a signature composition by Darwisch that benefited from a well known song, embellishing it while setting it into new contexts.

Equally, the song’s powerful lyrics, penned by Ashraf Tawfik and expressing one’s love for a woman set at the backdrop of life and cultural realities and expectations, give the whole composition warm and humane weight.

The composition gathers the known set of Cairo Steps’ musicians, with Basem Darwisch on oud accompanied by Rami Attallah (piano), Mulo Francel (saxophone), Evelyn Huber (harp), Rageed William (nay), Mounier Maher (e-bass), Hany Al Sawaf (req), Max Klaas (percussions), Jan Boshra (cello), Reham Mahmoud (viola), alongside violins: Emad Azmy, Radwa Sameh, Shereen Azmy and Nehad Gamaldin.

Cairo Steps has gained international acclaim for its many multicultural layers. The ensemble is a dense carpet, tightly woven with threads representing Coptic culture, Saeedi (or Upper Egyptian) music, Sufi chants, Egyptian and Nubian sounds, jazz, ethnic and classical music. The braided strings speak a single, uniform language, transferring the internalised narrative of their creator to the world beyond the oud.

Since its founding in 2002, Cairo Steps has featured prominent Egyptian musicians, including renowned soloists like Marwa Nagy, Ali El-Helbawy, Monica George, Peter Ghattas, and Sheikh Ehab Younis, among others. 

The ensemble has released five albums and multiple singles, including Oud Lounge (2012), followed by Arabiskan (2016), Silk Road (2016), and Flying Carpet (2017), born of a cooperation between Cairo Steps and the German jazz ensemble Quadro Nuevo.

In 2021, Darwisch and Quadro Nuevo were honored with a German Jazz Music Award for his composition Cafe Groppi in the album Mare. The composition was arranged by the renowned Egyptian jazz pianist Rami Atallah and features Darwisch on oud and Rafat Muhammad on percussion. The Cafe Groppi success took place while Darwisch was producing the album Diwan Cafe (2020-2021). 

Apart from creating music, Darwisch also has a rich portfolio in artistic management and shares his experience through workshops. 

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Asheville, NC, December 15, 2022 — Utopia Aerial View, a new four-piece album by composer and violinist Francesca Guccione, invites listeners to experience the distinctive relationship between electronic and organic sound.

In each composition, the artist brings together violin and an assortment of analog synthesizers. This marriage of compelling, cinematic strings and delicate modular soundscapes presents electronic musical instruments as expressive, adaptable tools for contemporary classical musicians.

The development of Utopia Aerial View began with an original arrangement for synth and violin that Francesca performed at this year’s Superbooth Berlin event. Drawing inspiration from film themes and visuals, physical surroundings, and the instruments at hand, the composer let her imagination flow freely to craft the rest of the album, she tells Moog Music.

“The music is characterized mainly by dialogue between the violin and Moog synthesizers, especially the Grandmother, DFAM, and Subharmonicon,” she shares. “I think Moog’s synthesizers, with their warm and unique sound, are perfect for playing with strings.”

The artist demonstrates the sound and character of these instruments in an emotive performance of “Utopia I,” the opening track on Utopia Aerial View. Watch the performance and read more about her creative process here.

Composer Francesca Guccione on the Connection between Strings & Synthesizers

In communication with Moog Music about her new album, Francesca Guccione discusses the role of semi-modular synthesizers in neoclassical music:

“As a fan of small ensembles and chamber music, it was a fun and exciting challenge for me to translate that kind of writing for instruments that are generally associated with other genres of music. Thus, for example, the Subharmonicon reiterates bichords from where the entire structure of a track unfolds, thus imitating what two cellos would do, or the Grandmother performs minimalist cells that, intertwined with the melodic line of the violin, makes it possible to create an intense dialogue and exchange of voices between the various instruments.” 

See and hear more from the artist on Moog’s website.

Utopia Aerial View by Francesca Guccione is now available to stream or purchase. To listen to the EP, visit Spotify or Bandcamp.

More about Francesa Guccione

Source: Francesca Guccione 

Francesca Guccione is an Italian composer and violinist.

Fascinated from the very beginning by the relation between sound and image, she combined her violin studies with those in composition and film scoring, earning a Master’s Degree in this discipline with the highest grades.

Her love for travelling and her need to always discover and learn about new realities lead her to perform in many cities around the world, including New York, Toronto, Dublin and Alexandria of Egypt.

In 2021 she released for Whales Records her first album of neoclassical music, “Muqataea”, featuring cellist and composer Giovanni Sollima as the project’s artistic director; afterwards, several international artists, including Robot Koch, Julien Marchal, Hélène Vogelsinger, and Throwing Snow will make and release reworks of some of the tracks on this album. In addition to Whales Records, she also collaborates with other record labels, including Little Symphony Records, InFiné Music, and 7K! Records with which she released in 2022 the single “Mare Tranquillitatis” included in the collection “String Layers Vol. II”.

On invitation from Moog Music she performed at Superbooth 22 in Berlin where she presented an original composition for violin and synths.

Her creativity is poetic and suspended between reality and imagination; a gateway to hidden worlds.

​More about Moog Music
​Moog Music is the world’s leading producer of theremins and analog synthesizers. The employee-owned company and its customers carry on the legacy of its founder, electronic musical instrument pioneer Dr. Bob Moog. All of Moog’s instruments are assembled by hand in its factory in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Learn more here.

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“Freedom on the Move” (FOTM), a Cornell-based database of “runaway ads” placed by enslavers in 18th- and 19th-century U.S. newspapers, was the starting point for a new song cycle entitled “Songs in Flight” that will premiere Jan. 12 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

“Songs in Flight” will also be performed on Jan. 15 at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, hosted by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society as part one of “Singing Freedom.” Part two of the series features the world premiere of a second work – “Freedom on the Move: Three Dialogues,” also inspired by FOTM, which will be performed on Jan. 16.

The ads compiled by the FOTM project “preserve snapshots of more than 30,000 enslaved individuals who took their fates into their own hands, resisting the surveillance and violence of slavery and the racialized policing that sustained it.,” said Edward Baptist, professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences and co-founder and lead faculty member of FOTM. “The creators and artists have responded to the courageous resistance of people who wrote themselves onto the historical records, and they’re sharing that blessing with us all. I am grateful that they are pouring out their gifts as an offering of memory and inspiration.”

In “Songs in Flight,” composer Shawn Okpebholo and Duke University Professor Tsitsi Ella Jaji, M.A. ’06, Ph.D. ‘08 bring the individual stories of the freedom-seekers depicted in the advertisements to life through song. Additional material, curated and performed by Grammy- and MacArthur Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens, poet and author Crystal Simone Smith, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess, contextualizes and reflects on the database’s primary source materials.

In addition to Giddens, performers will include soprano Karen Slack, baritone Will Liverman, countertenor Reginald Mobley and pianist Howard Watkins.

“Freedom on the Move: Three Dialogues” was composed by Mason Bynes. In her piece, she says, she explores: “How does one create music for joy and sorrow, for challenge and triumph, for jubilance and anguish? Can sorrow, strife and yearning inform joy, peace and attainment?” Her composition will be performed by the Pine Forge Academy Honors Choir with director Jarrett Roseborough. Bynes will visit Cornell on March 4 along with Mobley to present elements of the project.

The development of the libretto and score for “Songs in Flight” was supported by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Linda B. Glaser is news and media relations manager for the College of Arts and Sciences.

© Mark Allan/BBC
Conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, founder of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, at the Albert Hall – Mark Allan/BBC

In classical music, as in all the arts, 2022 was supposed to be a new dawn, a joyous surging back to life after the dismalness of two lockdown years. In the event, it was – but only up to a point. 

Numerous events were curtailed or hampered because of illness, and the Proms lost two headline artists, Jonas Kaufmann and Freddie De Tommaso, to bouts of Covid. And the return of audiences to live events has been tentative. Only for the biggest names have venues been able to fill every seat, and most orchestras report audiences are still about 15 per cent down on pre-pandemic figures. 

Brexit continues to exert a huge drag, imposing maddening bureaucratic delays and costs on anyone who wants to travel to the EU to perform – and vice versa. The ­Russian invasion of Ukraine was another blow, as organisations rushed to disinvite Russian soloists, give back tainted Russian money, and cancel concerts with Russian music (though there was also an upside, in the rush to programme fine Ukrainian composers we’d never heard of).

These headwinds were expected. What was not expected, and came as a nasty shock, was the sharp dec­line in listeners to the BBC’s classical music station, Radio 3, which lost one in six of its listeners in the third quarter of 2022. Commercial stations Classic FM and Scala Radio were also sharply down, by 6.5 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively. There was much anxious speculation that just as listeners were losing the habit of going to concerts, they were also losing the habit of turning on the radio, as well.

Underneath the temporary choppy seas of rising costs and falling revenues run deeper, less vis­ible currents of social and cultural change, to which musicians and organisations must adapt. Classic FM now offers playlists organised by “mood”. In a nod to younger listeners’ preference for spiritually “immersive” music, Radio 3, once the home of strenuous high-mindedness, has invited Icelandic musician Ólafur Arnalds to curate his own series, Ultimate Calm, which explores “how classical, contemporary and ambient music can soothe the soul”. The fact that some musicians still talk in terms of musical experience as a effortful “going on a journey”, whereas others now see it as a lucid, thoroughly wide-awake process of following the unfolding logic of a piece, shows that there are competing visions of what classical music is or should be.

© Provided by The Telegraph
Spine-tingling: Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Your servant, Elizabeth was first performed at the Proms – David Shepherd

Another factor that continued to grow in 2022 was “diversity”. Organisations that promote it, such as Black Lives in Music and the black-and-ethnic-majority orchestra Chineke!, were more handsomely rewarded in the recent round of Arts Council England funding than any other sort of client, which shows which way the wind is blowing. Another growing trend is composers turning to nature for inspiration. This is as old as Renaissance-era songs in praise of hunting, but these days it takes on an environmental twist. The most striking manifestation of this was the Recycling Concerto premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival, a piece for hundreds of bits of recycled rubbish, conceived by percussionist Vivi Vassileva and composer Gregor Mayrhofer.

It was one of 41 premieres at this year’s Aldeburgh Festival, which was expanded from two weeks to three, one of many signs that the classical sector, despite the obstacles, has been determined to break out of the lockdown “stay small, stay safe” mentality. The Hallé Orchestra’s magnificent performance of Verdi’s immense ­Requiem, conducted by Mark Elder, and the Royal Philharmonic’s no less magnificent performance of Mahler’s even bigger Eighth Symphony, were eloquent evidence of that.

Another example of lavishness allied to superbly high standards was an occasion that, though not a “classical concert” in the conventional sense, was easily the most widely appreciated event containing classical music of the whole year – the funeral of the late Queen. The singing from the choirs of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey and the high quality of new pieces from Judith Weir and James MacMillan show that the art of sacred choral singing and composing – perhaps this country’s most distinctive contribution to the Western musical tradition – is alive and flourishing.

Oddly, it was another piece inspired by royalty – Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Your servant, Elizabeth – that was, for me, the standout in this year’s gratifyingly lavish Prom season. As I said in my review: “This intermingled the words of two Queen Elizabeths in music which moved from quiet intimacy to a radiant mystery, as if the two Queens were communing across the centuries.” Like all the best “classical music”, it was fresh and surprising, yet rooted in tradition, and gave hope that an embattled art form has plenty of life in it yet.

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