Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Princeton University

NJ Symphony Celebrates a Century in Princeton

A venerable orchestra, celebrating 100 years this season, will strike a balance with some-things-old and something new, when the @[100046173663486:2048:New Jersey Symphony] returns to Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Friday at 8 p.m.

Established classics by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Anton Bruckner will flank a world premiere by Princeton composer Steven Mackey. Vocal soloists and the Princeton University Glee Club will join the orchestra, led by music director Xian Zhang.

The program will be repeated at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark on Saturday at 8 p.m. and at the State Theatre New Brunswick on Sunday at 3:00.

Find out more about the concerts and a little bit of the orchestra’s colorful history in my article in this week’s @[100063792690234:2048:U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo], in area vending machines and local business, or online now.

April 20, 2023
Milton Babbitt Serial Simplicity

Who cares if you read this?

Milton Babbitt, a staple at Princeton University for many years, was born in Philadelphia on this date in 1916. Babbitt gained widespread notoriety for an essay he wrote for High Fidelity magazine, titled “Who Cares If You Listen?” It turns out the provocative stance was actually the result of an editorial decision, and that Babbitt’s original title had been “The Composer as Specialist” – not likely to generate nearly as much controversy.

While he frequently composed in a serial style, Babbitt’s music is often fairly lucid, without undo congestion and with a minimum of soul-crushing dissonances. On the contrary, he often achieved a paradoxical simplicity under the guise of complexity.

In the 1960s, Babbitt became interested in electronic music, apparently for its rhythmic precision, as opposed to any unusual timbral considerations. I find it endearing that he was also fond of jazz and musical theater and that late in life he enjoyed a friendship of sorts with film composer John Williams. (They bonded over Bernard Herrmann.) His one-time student, Stephen Sondheim characterized him as “a frustrated show composer.”

Babbitt himself was a saxophonist. In 1946, he penned a musical, “Fabulous Voyage,” a retelling of Homer’s “The Odyssey.”

He was the recipient of an honorary Pulitzer Prize in 1982. Babbitt died in Princeton in 2011, at the age of 94.

Listen here for “Penelope’s Night Song” from “Fabulous Voyage”:

https://soundcloud.com/phillipc…/penelopes-night-song-from

“Composition for Twelve Instruments” (1948):

“Reflections” (1974) for piano and synthesized tape:

Milton Babbitt on electronic music:

John Williams talks Babbitt in The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-force-is-still-strong-with-john-williams?fbclid=IwAR1-ndYl2wO4btjBdjgEBam70F8tEE7mLR51ykWmV5VHqb8ZcI5L_SgO5qI

If you’re interested in learning more about Princeton’s important role in the history of computer music and haven’t done so yet, do check out this podcast, produced by the Princeton University Engineering Department.

Composers & Computers, a podcast

I profiled the podcast’s creator, Aaron Nathans, in September for the Princeton weekly U.S. 1.

https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/artsandentertainment/a-good-ear-for-stories-and-electronic-music-inspires-a-princeton-podcast/article_93780110-3384-11ed-93a9-1ba8b9106ed7.html

Happy birthday, Milton Babbitt!

January 10, 2023
Eric Plutz Vierne Symphonies New Recording

I just completed an epic Zoom interview with Eric Plutz (while we were both doing laundry). Plutz, University Organist of Princeton University, has been deeply involved in the local music scene for years, so this conversation was long overdue.

Just released is a new CD set of the complete organ symphonies of Louis Vierne, performed by Plutz, and recorded on six different organs across this great nation of ours by John C. Baker of Affetto Records.

You can look forward to an in-depth profile and learn more about Eric (and Vierne) in my article in an upcoming edition of the Princeton weekly newspaper U.S. 1.

Watch this space for further developments. And thank you for your time, Eric Plutz!

PPM Collaborative Keyboard Artist Releases Recording

September 27, 2022
Princeton’s Lost Music: A Digital History

60 years ago, Princeton University engineers noticed members of the music department, staring agog at a recently-installed computer. It wasn’t long before a not-so-unlikely alliance was formed that helped to change history. New Jersey’s role in the creation of digital music is the subject of a new podcast, “Composers & Computers.”

The accessible, absorbing presentation illuminates the work of engineers at RCA Laboratories in Princeton in the 1950s, Princeton music faculty at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York, and musicians who first entered the computer center in the Princeton University EQuad in 1962, with the intention of harnessing a new IBM 7090 to synthesize music.

No less than 20 subjects were interviewed for the series, to create an oral history spanning six decades. Commentary, anecdotes, and insights are punctuated and underscored by samples of electronic music, from Milton Babbitt and Charles Wuorinen (his Pulitzer Prize-winning “Time’s Encomium”) to Stevie Wonder and The Beach Boys.

Aaron Nathans, Digital Media Editor at Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, is the mastermind behind the podcast. He too is an interesting, multifaceted individual, who became the unexpected co-subject of an article I wrote for this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo.

Learn more about electronic music pioneers Milton Babbitt, Godfrey Winham, Paul Lansky, Ken Steiglitz, and their colleagues and students, and the continued vitality of the Princeton computer scene as exemplified by the Princeton Laptop Orchestra and the multidisciplinary experimentation of Naomi Leonard and her “Rhythm Bots.”

Look for the story in print in area vending machines and local businesses, or find immediate gratification here:

https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/artsandentertainment/a-good-ear-for-stories-and-electronic-music-inspires-a-princeton-podcast/article_93780110-3384-11ed-93a9-1ba8b9106ed7.html

The “Composers & Computers” podcast, sponsored by Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, can be heard on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and other platforms. Show notes, including playlists, sources, rare photos, and podcast audio, are also available at https://engineering.princeton.edu/series/composers-computers-podcast

ONCE UPON A TIME IN NEW YORK: Princeton composer Milton Babbitt at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center

September 14, 2022
Princeton Pioneers Digital Music Podcast

60 years ago, Princeton University engineers noticed members of the music department, staring agog at a recently-installed computer. It wasn’t long before a not-so-unlikely alliance was formed that helped to change history.

The story of New Jersey’s role in the creation of digital music is the subject of a new podcast. “Composers & Computers” will span six decades in five installments and include interviews with 20 people. Their commentary will be punctuated by vintage computer and electronic music clips.

Princeton music faculty shared an analog synthesizer with Columbia University in the 1950s. In 1962, composers entered Princeton’s new Computer Center in the Engineering Quadrangle, and were soon engaged in trying to figure out how to harness the new IBM 7090 to make music. Then they worked to improve that music.

Some of the most complex works ever written drove numerous technological innovations, and vice versa. Princeton composers and computer engineers worked together to program some of the earliest music composition software, invented a device to hear the music they were creating, synthesized some of the earliest computer-generated speech for use in music, and more.

The story has a distinctly New Jersey flavor, illuminating the work of engineers at RCA in Princeton in the 1950s and Bell Labs in Murray Hill in the 1960s.

The podcast will tackle the science of sound in a refreshing and accessible way. The series promises to be full of human drama, as participants in the project became great friends in their shared quest to coax sound out of a previously-silent, room-sized machine.

The podcast will be available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, as well as the Princeton Engineering website, https://engineering.princeton.edu/series/composers-computers-podcast. The first two episodes will drop today, and one episode will run each week for the next three weeks.

Here’s a link to the series’ introduction:

Introducing “Composers & Computers,” a new podcast about digital music

Episode 1:

Episode 1: Serial(ism)

Episode 2:

Episode 2: Composers in the Computer Center

PHOTO (left to right): Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center personnel Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Pril Smiley, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, and Alice Shields, circa 1970

May 6, 2022

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS