Anyone who has listened to a lot of new music has heard a lot of saxophone playing. A lot of players have been interested in exploring new territory and a lot of composers have been attracted by the variety of wild noises one can get from that instrument. So when I heard of the latest [...]

The SEAMUS 2008 review has just been updated with clips, including one of Jason Bolte’s Change in the Summation, mention of which was unaccountably left out of the original review.  Take a look here.

SEAMUS 2008 took place in the dramatic setting of the University of Utah, surrounded by the Wasatch, Oquirrhs, and Traverse mountain ranges. Spectacular scenery outside, spectacular music inside. Thirteen concerts in three days may seem a trifle too spectacular, but there were plenty of gaps in between, filled with eating and drinking, talking and laughing; [...]

On April 4, 2009, SFU Contemporary Arts put on a show of electroacoustic music that included a new piece by Barry Truax, Chalice Well, three pieces for flute and “tape” played by visiting flautist Mark McGregor, a live laptop piece, and several other treats by SFU faculty and students.
Prominent in many pieces were water sounds—rain, [...]

The concert on Thursday evening the 5th of March was a special one for me, its being the first time I’d heard Doug Theriault live. From the first CD of his I owned, Unidentified, I have been enormously taken by the music of this enormously talented Portlander. What’s more, the first set of the evening [...]

I have attended a lot of exhilarating concerts in Portland, and the exceptional concert on Monday, February 23, was no exception. Four extraordinary musicians from Europe played in three sets, very different from each other but all concerned with pushing acoustic instruments to their limits–to beyond their limits. (To making a mockery of the idea [...]

The first Portland New Music Society concert took place at Enterbeing on the 22nd of January. Featured were Christopher Penrose, Peter Karman, Michael Hallenbeck, J.P. Jenkins, and Drew Adams.
Penrose opened the show with a Cosmovox set, laptop music files controlled by two i-Phones. This was subtle and graceful music, three short “pieces” of intricately shifting [...]

The October Portland New Music Society concert was a little bit of a departure from the usual eclectic mix of live electronics and improvisation. This evening was all composed music, although compositions with very open structures, to be sure, with electronics and improv.
 The unusually cold evening kept the usual Jáce Gáce crowd away, but [...]

In Portland, OR, the weekend of September 19-21 2008 was devoted, at least in part, to the music of Messiaen, along with that of some other notable twentieth century figures. Asymmetry unfortunately was in Southern California at the time, but fortunately listening to some very skillful jam-rock by Dr. Gorilla. Portland blogger James Bash, however, [...]

If you’re in Portland on the second Wednesday of the month, and you like new music, you might want to visit Jáce Gáce on SE Belmont around 8 o’clock in the evening for the monthly offering of the Portland New Music Society. As Jáce Gáce is also an art gallery and a waffle house, you [...]