With what Dirk Meyer, DSSO Music Director, referred to as an "eclectic" program, the evening was unified with pieces that were sprightly and colorful, each with connections to dance.
"Ash," by contemporary American composer Michael Torke, was written in 1988, and is part of a suite called Color Music. Each of the five pieces is a different color, with "Ash" adding to the musical palette of orange, blue, green, and purple.
The piece is an example of synesthesia, defined as the blending of the senses in which "the stimulation of one sense simultaneously produces sensation in a different sense."
In Torke's case, he blends seeing colors and hearing music and relating colors with notes, keys and chords. The composer described it as seeing "different shades of paint splash around the orchestral forces."
The DSSO brilliantly captures Torke's inventiveness with his look backwards to the classical and forward to his modern stamp on contemporary music. "Ash" has also been used as the music for a showpiece for the New York City Ballet, as an exciting score for solo and ensemble dance.
The evening's second offering was "Piano Concerto in One Movement" by Florence Price, the first female African-American composer to earn a national reputation, and to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra. The "Piano Concerto in One Movement" premiered in Chicago in 1934 with Price as the piano soloist.
The guest piano soloist for the "Concerto" was Clayton Stephenson, named a 2017 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts and the winner of a few international competitions. He is a dual degree major at Harvard University as an Economics major and New England Conservatory as a Master of Music major in Piano.
Throughout the piece, Stephenson was engaged in a captivating dialogue between piano and orchestra. He and the orchestra thrillingly evoked the Concerto's homage to spirituals, call and response, and to a dance called Juba, originally brought to Charleston, South Carolina, by Kongo slaves.
A musical postcard, Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 in A Major, OP. 90 (Italian), was the final piece in the crisp hour-long concert.
Mickey Guyton will be the first Black woman to host Academy of Country Music Awards
After making history as the first Black solo female artist to earn a Grammy nomination in a country music category, Mickey Guyton's star is about to rise even further.
Though Sunday will mark Guyton's first time hosting an awards show, she promises a good performance and several outfit changes. She noted that having the support of co-host Urban while preparing for the show has proven to be fun and valuable.
"You know, Keith Urban is from Australia and he had an affinity for country music," she said. "I'm sure when he first started he wasn't getting the most welcoming arms and now he's here. He's using his platform to uplift me, and that means so much."
As of late, country music has witnessed a cultural shift in terms of representation. With artists like Rissi Palmer, Jimmie Allen, Willie Jones and Kane Brown, many people are seeing that country artists do not have to fit a certain mold.
When Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road'' started to gain traction in 2019, the song reached No. 19 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Billboard then removed the single from Hot Country Songs due to it not fitting the genre, according to Rolling Stone . Eventually, Billy Ray Cyrus joined Lil Nas X on the "Old Town Road" remix , and it went to No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100. "Old Town Road" never re-entered the country music chart.
This showed that country music, just like the rest of the world, has a long way to go in order to fully embrace what it means to be inclusive.
"Well, a lot of people, especially today, are only seeing Lil Nas X or think that country music is just white guys, beers and trucks, and that is not the case," Guyton said. "There's all types of country music. There have been a lot of Black people in country music pounding the pavement for a very long time."
Historically, Black artists have been pushed out of traditionally white music spaces, even if they had a significant hand in creating the music. Before Guyton, there was Linda Martell. Though her contributions went largely unnoticed, Martell found success with the release of "Color Him Father" in 1969, leading the way for the Black country artists who would come after her.
Guyton wants to continue to dispel outdated stereotypes and misconceptions by showing other aspiring Black artists that they can "sing country, pursue it and love it, too."
Non-socially distanced music festival to be trialed | CNN Travel
Apple Music Reveals How Much It Pays When You Stream a Song - WSJ
Apple Music told artists it pays a penny per stream, according to a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The disclosure, made in a letter to artists delivered Friday via the service's artist dashboard and sent to labels and publishers, reflects music-streaming services' increasing efforts to show they are artist-friendly. Apple Inc.'s move can be seen as a riposte to Spotify Technology SA, which last month shared some details of how it pays the music industry for streams on its platform.
Artists, managers and lawyers, still reeling from the loss of touring revenue during the pandemic, have been calling for higher payouts from music streaming, which has grown rapidly in the past year . Many fans have joined the push to raise artists' compensation.
As Music Creators Monetize Fandom, Gamer-Centric Spaces Will Be Key
An Apple iPhone 11 smartphone with the Twitch video streaming app logo on screen, taken on January ... [+] 27, 2020. (Photo by Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Today more music is created and distributed, and music is more accessible, than ever before. At the same time, the music industry's consumer boom is rapidly leading to a creator bust, according to MIDiA Research.
Artists are discovering the growing opportunity to leverage the games industry's fan economy to better connect with audiences, monetize their work and develop their careers. MIDiA Research report author and managing director Mark Mulligan says this can be accomplished by expanding and reimagining the ways in which they currently participate in the gaming opportunity, which largely focuses on marketing and promotion to drive streams on digital music services and ticket sales.
Gaming environments offer highly-engaged audiences that are growing more diverse by the day. The report finds that, in 2020, in-game spending was worth $97 billion and gaming revenue was almost four times the total size of the global music industry. The trend is expected to increase with a huge in-game monetization opportunity.
Gamer aficionado profile, US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, France, Sweden, South Korea, Brazil, ... [+] Q4 2020
"Twitch felt like a space where I could cultivate a community and share that love with other people," says mxmtoon in the report. "Starting streaming just seemed like a natural next step in trying to connect even further with my audience."
Johnny and Heidi report streaming performances for the past 20 months and says. "Streaming has given us the freedom and flexibility to perform and record the music we want, when we want, where we want. Just like in the gaming world, streaming music is a constant grind, but worth it."
"Artists and music companies should no longer think of gamers as a niche or simply a tangentially related segment," Severin says. "Gaming is now a mainstream cultural phenomenon and literally every music genre can find its sweet spot in a game-centric environment, which doesn't always have to be a game, if they identify the right partner and a way to execute."
As even classical and jazz music creators begin exploring gaming opportunities, Severin says that music companies and artists need to start thinking of gamers as a concentrated pool of valuable music fans, not niche consumers. Then the relationship between artist and fan can evolve.
Pittsburgh-area music venues, theaters hamstrung by issues with Small Business Administration
The Small Business Association website where venues are supposed to be able to submit an application for money is not working. The glitch is holding up federal relief money for venues and causing frustration.
The Save Our Stages Act was passed as part of a covid-19 relief bill in December to help with funding for local venues. The act led to Shuttered Venue Operators Grants which were to be available to apply for on April 8.
“They’ve been trying to get answers, but no answers are forthcoming, except that they are working on it and they will let everyone know exactly when they can apply,” Drusky said.
#SVOG UPDATE: Over the next few days, our tech team and vendors will remain focused on testing the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant application portal; it will not reopen this weekend. We are aiming to reopen the portal by the end of next week.
They haven’t said that too many people tried to log on at once, but Drusky said from what he understands it was upwards of 14,000 people on at one point.
Ron Esser, whose nickname is “Moondog” is owner of Moondog’s Pub and Starlite Lounge in Blawnox. The Starlite will be on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” on May 14. He said he’s had someone monitoring the Small Business Administration site but that person hasn’t been able to get through.
“I am not worried about me,” said Esser, of Frazer. “I’ve been around a while but I am worried about everyone else. How long do they expect people to hang on? I don’t understand it.”
Esser owns his buildings but there are clubs that have been paying rent for more than a year even though they weren’t open, he said. And all of them have to pay utilities even if they own the building.
This latest challenge to get funds is another roadblock, Esser said. He doesn’t plan to open Moondog’s until October. He plans to host music Thursday evenings beginning June 3 at the Pittsburgh Shrine Center’s outdoor pavilion in Harmar for 20 weeks.
Building Easter Island's first music school - CBS News
Concert pianist Mahani Teave has traveled the world, But Rapa Nui, sometimes known as Easter Island, is her home.
"Rapa Nui – that's what we call ourselves here also," she said. "That's our people, the Rapa Nui people."
It's a triangle-shaped island about the size of Washington, D.C., way out in the South Pacific. And it's best known for the 13-foot statues called Moai. Scholars think they were built to honor the island's elders.
"Our ancestors were all voyagers," Teave told correspondent Kelefa Sanneh, "and maybe that's what's in my blood, too, this coming and going."
In the 1700s, Dutch explorers came to Rapa Nui. They landed on Easter, so they called it Easter Island.
"We're talking about a place that's only been inhabited by humans for maybe 1,000 years?" Sanneh said.
"That is true, right, but a lot has happened," said Miki Makihara, a linguistic anthropologist at Queens College in New York, who has been studying Rapa Nui culture for 30 years. "It's a remarkable history of survival and reconstruction."
Nowadays, Rapa Nui is part of Chile, which is the closest mainland – 2,000 miles away. And Teave is a descendant of those 111.
Teave was born in Hawaii to an American mother. But her father is from Rapa Nui, and she spent most of her childhood there: "I feel, like, so strongly about the island, and here are my roots. This is where I learned all my first everything."
Career Reboot: A Music Director Gets an M.B.A. to Land a Job at Ford - WSJ
It was a sharp turn from his original career dream: Mr. Owens, 35 years old and a Detroit native, had fallen in love with music at an early age. After participating in activities like his school's choir and drama club, he decided to pursue it professionally.
How these Black women are reshaping country music | PBS NewsHour
In the past year, Black women have been creating a space for themselves in the world of country music, an industry that has long kept them on the sidelines — or out of the game altogether.
This Sunday, Mickey Guyton will become the first Black woman to co-host the Academy of Country Music Awards. She released her debut EP in 2014, but it wasn't until last summer when she released "Black Like Me" amid the national racial justice protests, that she started to receive more attention for her music.
The song was nominated for a Grammy, making her the first Black solo female artist to be nominated in a country music category.
A number of other Black artists are hoping to gain similar traction. CMT's "Next Women in Country Class of 2021," includes six Black artists like Brittney Spencer and the group Chapel Hart. Other singers are finding ways to build audiences outside the typical avenues of country music, through social media and streaming platforms.
That's in part because they haven't been supported by major labels and country radio. A recent study from the University of Ottawa found a mere .03 percent of all songs on country radio from 2002 to 2020 were by Black women. Less than 1 percent of the 411 artists signed to the three major country music labels are people of color, according to the study.
Still, Black women artists are hopeful. They see the industry changing and say their music can resonate not only with existing country music lovers, but with an entirely new group of fans who have been turned off by a genre that has almost exclusively been marketed to white audiences.
The PBS NewsHour spoke to several of the country music singers who are reshaping country music to be more inclusive. We asked them what country music means to them, what they think needs to change about Nashville and what makes them hopeful. In their own words:
Brittney Spencer garnered attention last fall when singer Maren Morris gave her a shoutout at the 2020 Country Music Association Awards. The month before, Spencer had posted a cover of "Crowded Table" by The Highwomen, a country supergroup of which Morris is a member. Spencer released her debut EP last fall, and she has since been named to CMT's "Next Women in Country Class of 2021."
A Baltimore native who moved to Nashville in 2013, Spencer says she was inspired by crossover artists like The Chicks and Dolly Parton. But Spencer's sound and the subjects she sings about are entirely her own.
Beckville ISD music education program earns national recognition | Local News | news-journal.com
The Beckville High School marching band performs in November in the UIL high school marching contest at Carthage High School.
Beckville ISD has been honored with the Best Communities for Music Education designation from The NAMM Foundation.
Now in its 22nd year, the Best Communities for Music Education designation is awarded to school districts that demonstrate outstanding achievement in efforts to provide music access and education to all students.
To qualify for the designation, Beckville ISD answered questions about funding, graduation requirements, music class participation, instruction time, facilities, support for the music program and community music-making programs. Responses were verified with school officials and reviewed by The Music Research Institute at the University of Kansas.
"I couldn't be more excited for our students, district, and our community," said Director of Bands Josh King. "This distinction proves that we are doing good work and are excited to continue building a stronger foundation for music education in East Texas."
The high school band most recently took part in the UIL state narching contest for the first time in the history of Beckville schools.
Beckville ISD's band department provides performance opportunities for its students by way of marching band, concert bands, jazz ensembles, small chamber groups and several opportunities for individual competition. Beckville music students have gone on to perform with ensembles throughout Texas and surrounding areas.
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