non-classical music
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Stuff you should listen to #1
Confession: I don’t spend a lot of my spare time listening to classical music. It’s mostly because of the fatigue – I hear enough of it at work and want to let my ears be open to something else on my off time, and my tastes are eclectic. But occasionally I’ll encounter an orchestral work that strikes me as that “something else”, music that gives me a slightly different perspective, music that inhabits a slightly different world than the one I work in daily. A few weeks back I was with the Virginia Symphony performing a program that included a new piece for me, Tan Dun’s Pipa concerto My soloist…
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Let us be well
I awoke to heartbreaking news this morning of the death of one of my favorite singers; Scott Hutchison, the lead singer of the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit was found dead at Port Edgar, Scotland. Although the cause of death was not determined, from the response of his family and bandmates (and indeed anyone who listened to his music, and knew his struggles), it was clearly suicide. Mental health among performers and artists has been in the news lately, and Scott’s death feels like a devastating but timely reminder of both the toll it can take and its prevalence in modern society. Yet it still feels like a taboo topic…
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My favorite Ben
One of the coolest things about being a conductor who specializes in the Pops side of orchestral music is that I work with an incredible diversity of artists from all kinds of non-classical genres. And while it’s amazing working with all of them, I have a special place in my heart for Ben Folds. (Holy crap we looks so young…) We first worked together at the Mann Center in Philly in 2005 and it was a watershed moment for me – here was an artist whose music I loved and we were performing onstage in a way that seemed to be bringing together the best of piano-based alt-rock and the…