May 3rd, 2023
"Tár"- Music From and Inspired By The Motion Picture Hildur Guðnadóttir and Todd Field assemble an interesting sonic companion to their 2022 arthouse sensationBy: Michael Johnson
Back in 2014 when I was an undergraduate student at the Manhattan School of Music, I remember the Jazz department in a perpetual uproar over the release of the film Whiplash. It seems every Jazz musician I knew had something to say about that movie, from praise to condemnation, from astonishment at what it got right, to a laundry list of everything it got wrong (it didn’t help that supposedly the fictional “Schaefer Conservatory” was based on our own institution).... Read More
January 2nd, 2023
A Musically Satisfying Mendelssohn Octet in E Flat Major Demo Disc From Chasing the Dragon lets you compare analog vs. digital, 33 1/3 vs, 45, 1/2 speed to normal, tube vs. transistor micsBy: Michael Fremer
Mendelssohn completed his Octet in E Flat Major when he was 16 years old. Good thing he started composing brilliant pieces while young because he was dead at 38. After completing the piece, dedicated to his violin teacher Eduard Rietz, Mendelssohn gave him the score as a birthday present on October 17, 1825. Rietz copied out all of the parts and it was quickly performed in an informal family gathering. Rietz lived an even shorter life. Tuberculosis got him at age 30.... Read More
September 16th, 2022
Rachel's' 'Music For Egon Schiele' Floats Above Cliche From the archives: You’ll feel this the first play and you’ll play it repeatedlyBy: Michael Fremer
(This review originally appeared in Issue 7, Spring 1996.)Rachel’s’ 1995 release Handwriting LP (Quarterstick 30 LP) is on my top 10 of ‘95 list and this enchanting record may end up on the ‘96 list. The music here was composed by pianist Rachel Grimes for a dance and theater piece based on the life of turn of the century Viennese painter Egon Schiele.The stage work was written and directed by Stephan Mazurek for Chicago’s Itinerant Theater Guild, which he heads. The... Read More
