It’s been three years since Björk premiered the maximalist Cornucopia in New York, a psychedelic environmental cautionary tale that climate change has made permanently resonant (the ongoing tour is slated for Japan next year). If that project looks at our troubled planet with a macro lens, her new album Fossora zooms in Google Map-style, looking at people on the ground and in the room, measuring distances between them. The sonic landscape is still huge — awesome, as alien as it is familiar, full of otherworldly arrangements, tectonic beats, and craggy...
- 9/30/2022
- by Will Hermes
- Rollingstone.com
Joanna Bruzdowicz, the Polish-French composer whose wide-reaching work included several collaborations with Agnès Varda, has died at the age of 78.
Her family confirmed to Deadline that Bruzdowicz had passed away peacefully at her music studio in the French Pyrenees.
“The shock of her departure is so great and so sudden, it seems impossible to process our loss as a family,” her son Jörg Tittel commented. “We can take some comfort in knowing that she will continue talking to us through her music. I hope that her untimely departure will lead to more people discovering her seminal work.”
Born in Warsaw, Bruzdowicz was a child prodigy and wrote her first concerto at age 6. She studied at the Warsaw Music High School, at the State Higher School of Music, and earned her M.A. in 1966.
Receiving a scholarship from the French government, she continued her studies in Paris and became a student of Nadia Boulanger,...
Her family confirmed to Deadline that Bruzdowicz had passed away peacefully at her music studio in the French Pyrenees.
“The shock of her departure is so great and so sudden, it seems impossible to process our loss as a family,” her son Jörg Tittel commented. “We can take some comfort in knowing that she will continue talking to us through her music. I hope that her untimely departure will lead to more people discovering her seminal work.”
Born in Warsaw, Bruzdowicz was a child prodigy and wrote her first concerto at age 6. She studied at the Warsaw Music High School, at the State Higher School of Music, and earned her M.A. in 1966.
Receiving a scholarship from the French government, she continued her studies in Paris and became a student of Nadia Boulanger,...
- 11/9/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Now that Roma is available for all on Netflix, it’s as good a time as any to revisit the earliest work of Alfonso Cuarón. Made in 1983, when he was a 22 year-old film student in Mexico City, Quartet for the End of Time bares a strong semblance to the to the classics of the French New Wave. Named after the featured chamber music by Olivier Messiaen, the film explores the solitary life of a young man in and around his apartment. It was Cuarón’s last credited short before his 1991 feature length debut, Solo Con Tu Pareja.
- 12/14/2018
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Now that Roma is available for all on Netflix, it’s as good a time as any to revisit the earliest work of Alfonso Cuarón. Made in 1983, when he was a 22 year-old film student in Mexico City, Quartet for the End of Time bares a strong semblance to the to the classics of the French New Wave. Named after the featured chamber music by Olivier Messiaen, the film explores the solitary life of a young man in and around his apartment. It was Cuarón’s last credited short before his 1991 feature length debut, Solo Con Tu Pareja.
- 12/14/2018
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Director Yorgos Lanthimos continues to defy conventions with “The Favourite,” a funny and savage look at the court of England’s Queen Anne in the early 1700s.
“Period films are always challenging,” he tells Variety, “and with a limited budget, it takes a lot of work. So it was hard but fun.”
Lanthimos and his crew shot most of the film at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. The helmer says that his behind-the-camera team came up with unusual solutions to create the right tone for the film.
Robbie Ryan, Cinematographer
“We shot on film, which is always my preference. And I asked Robbie to not use artificial lighting. I like to do that with all my films. It was either daylight or practical, which for this period meant candles. It was challenging, especially for the dark night scenes. We were using very wide-angle lenses, and the camera was moving quite a bit.
“Period films are always challenging,” he tells Variety, “and with a limited budget, it takes a lot of work. So it was hard but fun.”
Lanthimos and his crew shot most of the film at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. The helmer says that his behind-the-camera team came up with unusual solutions to create the right tone for the film.
Robbie Ryan, Cinematographer
“We shot on film, which is always my preference. And I asked Robbie to not use artificial lighting. I like to do that with all my films. It was either daylight or practical, which for this period meant candles. It was challenging, especially for the dark night scenes. We were using very wide-angle lenses, and the camera was moving quite a bit.
- 12/5/2018
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Lalo Schifrin has been writing movie and TV music for 60 years, including such iconic themes as “Mission: Impossible,” “Dirty Harry” and “Cool Hand Luke.” And while he has been nominated for six Oscars, he’s never won.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will rectify that oversight when it awards him an Honorary Oscar for his entire career at the 10th annual Governors Awards on Nov. 18 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom.
Schifrin is the third composer in Academy history to receive such an award. Alex North was voted one in 1985, Ennio Morricone another in 2006.
“It’s a great honor, and an incredible surprise,” says the Argentine-born composer, now 86. His numbers alone are staggering: more than 100 film scores, nearly 90 television projects and more than 50 classical works since the late 1950s. He’s also won four Grammys and received four Emmy nominations.
“Lalo is a model film composer,” says Academy music governor Laura Karpman.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will rectify that oversight when it awards him an Honorary Oscar for his entire career at the 10th annual Governors Awards on Nov. 18 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom.
Schifrin is the third composer in Academy history to receive such an award. Alex North was voted one in 1985, Ennio Morricone another in 2006.
“It’s a great honor, and an incredible surprise,” says the Argentine-born composer, now 86. His numbers alone are staggering: more than 100 film scores, nearly 90 television projects and more than 50 classical works since the late 1950s. He’s also won four Grammys and received four Emmy nominations.
“Lalo is a model film composer,” says Academy music governor Laura Karpman.
- 11/16/2018
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
In the wake of the terrible attacks in Paris, I found myself listening to a lot of French music and thinking about the Leonard Bernstein quote going around on Facebook: "This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." This list came to seem like my natural response. A very small response, I know. This list is chronological and leaves off people I should probably include. The forty [note: now forty-one] composers listed below are merely a start.
Léonin Aka Leoninus (c.1135-c.1201)
The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in the 1100s was a major musical center, and Léonin (the first named composer from whom we have notated polyphonic music) was a crucial figure for defining the liturgical use of organum, the first polyphony. Earlier organum was fairly simple, involving parallel intervals and later contrary motion, but the mid-12th century brought...
Léonin Aka Leoninus (c.1135-c.1201)
The Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in the 1100s was a major musical center, and Léonin (the first named composer from whom we have notated polyphonic music) was a crucial figure for defining the liturgical use of organum, the first polyphony. Earlier organum was fairly simple, involving parallel intervals and later contrary motion, but the mid-12th century brought...
- 11/15/2015
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Working on yesterday's article about recent classical Christmas albums and looking back at my original Christmas album article got me thinking about old favorites I hadn't included in my 2005 article. Here they are. It says something about their popularity that they have all stayed available, in some cases for decades.
Anonymous 4 On Yoolis Night (Harmonia Mundi) This gorgeous collection contains Advent and Christmas music from 13th through 15th century English sources -- with one piece traceable all the way back to the 5th century. The ethereal beauty of these devotional antiphons, motets, carols, etc. is about as far from the usual hackneyed Christmas carols as one could get. Some of the Latin texts are familiar (Hodie Christus natus est, Ave maria, Videntes stellam), but this is largely fresh, relatively unexplored repertoire. Russian Patriarchate Choir/Anatoly Grindenko Russian Christmas (Opus 111) This is no cheesy Red Army Chorus holiday collection, but insteada...
Anonymous 4 On Yoolis Night (Harmonia Mundi) This gorgeous collection contains Advent and Christmas music from 13th through 15th century English sources -- with one piece traceable all the way back to the 5th century. The ethereal beauty of these devotional antiphons, motets, carols, etc. is about as far from the usual hackneyed Christmas carols as one could get. Some of the Latin texts are familiar (Hodie Christus natus est, Ave maria, Videntes stellam), but this is largely fresh, relatively unexplored repertoire. Russian Patriarchate Choir/Anatoly Grindenko Russian Christmas (Opus 111) This is no cheesy Red Army Chorus holiday collection, but insteada...
- 12/23/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Working on yesterday's article about recent classical Christmas albums and looking back at my original Christmas album article got me thinking about old favorites I hadn't included in my 2005 article. Here they are. It says something about their popularity that they have all stayed available, in some cases for decades.
Anonymous 4 On Yoolis Night (Harmonia Mundi) This gorgeous collection contains Advent and Christmas music from 13th through 15th century English sources -- with one piece traceable all the way back to the 5th century. The ethereal beauty of these devotional antiphons, motets, carols, etc. is about as far from the usual hackneyed Christmas carols as one could get. Some of the Latin texts are familiar (Hodie Christus natus est, Ave maria, Videntes stellam), but this is largely fresh, relatively unexplored repertoire. Russian Patriarchate Choir/Anatoly Grindenko Russian Christmas (Opus 111) This is no cheesy Red Army Chorus holiday collection, but insteada...
Anonymous 4 On Yoolis Night (Harmonia Mundi) This gorgeous collection contains Advent and Christmas music from 13th through 15th century English sources -- with one piece traceable all the way back to the 5th century. The ethereal beauty of these devotional antiphons, motets, carols, etc. is about as far from the usual hackneyed Christmas carols as one could get. Some of the Latin texts are familiar (Hodie Christus natus est, Ave maria, Videntes stellam), but this is largely fresh, relatively unexplored repertoire. Russian Patriarchate Choir/Anatoly Grindenko Russian Christmas (Opus 111) This is no cheesy Red Army Chorus holiday collection, but insteada...
- 12/23/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Though French composer Jean Barraqué (January 17, 1928 - August 17, 1973) was not destined to be the best-known of the post-wwii Serialists, he was perhaps the most dedicated to 12-tone technique. Though this naturally limited his appeal to mainstream listeners, it did make his life's work more coherent than, for instance, Karlheinz Stockhausen's. It is also considerably more concentrated. Due to the painstaking compositional process inherent in his sizeable and extremely complex works, alcoholism, a 1964 car accident, and a 1968 house fire, and his early demise of a cerebral hæmorrhage, Barraqué's published output comprises just seven completed pieces, not counting juvenilia. Yet the concentrated essence of those works is so intense that in total they seem quite a satisfactory output for the two-decade span of his career.
Barraqué's family moved to Paris when he was three years old. Eventually he studied there with Jean Langlais and Olivier Messiaen; it was the latter who prompted Barraqué's interest in Serialism.
Barraqué's family moved to Paris when he was three years old. Eventually he studied there with Jean Langlais and Olivier Messiaen; it was the latter who prompted Barraqué's interest in Serialism.
- 1/17/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Part of catching up with the many releases on Leo Records that I haven't reviewed (first installment here) includes covering the label's latest offerings. It just released eight CDs in January; I review half of them here, meanwhile looking back at older related Leo albums (most of the other January releases I will look at in the next installment in this series, which I hope to finish writing within a week). As before, dates in parentheses after album titles are recording dates, where listed; if not available, then year of release ("p." for "published")
François Carrier (photo above) is a 50-year-old Canadian saxophonist. Beyond his work on Leo, he has been documented by several of the other labels that focus on free jazz, including a seven-cd set on Ayler.
François Carrier/Michel Lambert/Alexey Lapin In Motion (live 12/21/10)
This is Carrier's January release, his second in this trio with pianist...
François Carrier (photo above) is a 50-year-old Canadian saxophonist. Beyond his work on Leo, he has been documented by several of the other labels that focus on free jazz, including a seven-cd set on Ayler.
François Carrier/Michel Lambert/Alexey Lapin In Motion (live 12/21/10)
This is Carrier's January release, his second in this trio with pianist...
- 1/31/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
His life was as romantic and colourful as his exquisite music, yet his works are rarely performed today. Delius deserves better, writes Julian Lloyd Webber
No other composer polarises opinion like Delius. You either love or loathe his music. And it is rare to find someone who has grown to like it. Although this coming year – the 150th anniversary of his birth – will bring opportunities to reassess his work, that central fact will never change.
I feel as if I have known Delius's music forever. My father was a devotee and I must have heard all of his most famous works (On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, The Walk to the Paradise Garden, La Calinda, et al) well before I started playing his cello music. I always felt instinctively attuned to Delius's unique musical language, which seemed akin to watching a painting that is slowly changing in a constantly moving canvas of sound.
No other composer polarises opinion like Delius. You either love or loathe his music. And it is rare to find someone who has grown to like it. Although this coming year – the 150th anniversary of his birth – will bring opportunities to reassess his work, that central fact will never change.
I feel as if I have known Delius's music forever. My father was a devotee and I must have heard all of his most famous works (On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, The Walk to the Paradise Garden, La Calinda, et al) well before I started playing his cello music. I always felt instinctively attuned to Delius's unique musical language, which seemed akin to watching a painting that is slowly changing in a constantly moving canvas of sound.
- 1/6/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Top British orchestral trumpeter with the Lso, he played on the Star Wars films
Maurice Murphy, who has died aged 75, was the leading British orchestral trumpet player of his generation. During the 30 years in which he was principal trumpet with the London Symphony Orchestra (Lso), he defined the sound of the brass section with the clarity, precision and diamond-sharp brilliance of his playing. In the concert hall he was an inspiration and could lift the orchestra with his exhilarating, visceral sound.
Millions more thrilled to the ringing top Cs he played on the soundtracks for the Star Wars films. The blazing sonority of the brass section led by Murphy was the aural equivalent of spinning through space. For the composer of the scores, John Williams, Murphy was a "heraldic spirit" whose instrument articulated "the ideal voice of a hero". After the first Star Wars film, Williams wrote the subsequent scores with Murphy's sound in mind.
Maurice Murphy, who has died aged 75, was the leading British orchestral trumpet player of his generation. During the 30 years in which he was principal trumpet with the London Symphony Orchestra (Lso), he defined the sound of the brass section with the clarity, precision and diamond-sharp brilliance of his playing. In the concert hall he was an inspiration and could lift the orchestra with his exhilarating, visceral sound.
Millions more thrilled to the ringing top Cs he played on the soundtracks for the Star Wars films. The blazing sonority of the brass section led by Murphy was the aural equivalent of spinning through space. For the composer of the scores, John Williams, Murphy was a "heraldic spirit" whose instrument articulated "the ideal voice of a hero". After the first Star Wars film, Williams wrote the subsequent scores with Murphy's sound in mind.
- 11/29/2010
- by Barry Millington
- The Guardian - Film News
Andrea Arnold, from Fish Tank, Red Road and Wasp fame, will be hitting Wuthering Heights next, but she might be following that up with another original piece called The Cleaner. Peter Strickland (see pic above) who made waves last year with his film Katalin Varga, will be going to Italy for his next project - a horror film called who is developing The Berberian Sound Studio. - Thanks to the workaholic folks at thePlaylist for making this press release "more" public, as there are plenty of noteworthy projects in development mentioned in the UK Film Council from talented filmmakers who've yet to even mention these future films. While we are aware of what Winterbottom, Ramsay, Hirschbiegel and Terry Gilliam, there is some fresh stuff in here to be excited about. Here are a half dozen that are now on my radar, I've include the press release below or you...
- 2/25/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
Following the success of last year's centenary celebration of Olivier Messiaen's birth, the Yale School of Music (Ysm) turns again to a great musician on his 100th birthday. On Saturday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m., Ysm opens its third annual Yale in New York series with The Classical Legacy of Benny Goodman. The gifted alumni, students, and faculty of Ysm present six 20th-century works linked with the legendary clarinetist.
- 8/19/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
The great French composer Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen was born in Avignon on December 10, 1908. He was the first son of extraordinary parents: Cécile Sauvage, his mother, was a poet of note, and his father, Pierre Messiaen, was an English teacher who translated Shakespeare’s plays into French. At the precocious age of eleven Olivier entered the Paris Conservatory, where he studied with Paul Dukas, Charles-Marie Widor, and Marcel Dupré – a famed composer and two famous organists – and, most crucially, Maurice Emmanuel, who though not as well known as the above-named would prove to have arguably the greatest influence on Messiaen’s music through Emmanuel’s interests in birdsong and scales and rhythms of other cultures, notably India and ancient Greece.
read more...
read more...
- 12/10/2008
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.