Music
Deep Listening To Pauline Oliveros Across The Internet
By Vanessa AgueInternet-based collaboration may feel contemporary, but it is established. One of the artists at the forefront of this movement was pioneering composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros, who began working with the internet in the ’90s and 2000s. She saw technology as something that could open the door to new avenues of music making, and something that could extend musical partnerships across borders.
WOMAD Festival
By Martin LongleyWorld Of Music, Arts & Dance celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2022, a festival still dedicated to global sounds from numerous nations, and returning in full, following two years of virus-imposed hibernation. It’s a sprawling, outdoor camping experience, with five chief stages offering simultaneous choices, as well as smaller satellites for workshops, panels, poetry declamations and cookery masterclasses (given by musicians who divide their given hour between playing and stirring).
Diary of a Mad Composer
By George GrellaThe reason there are critics—and that there need to be critics in perpetuity—despite the general and ancient American cultural allergy to “negativism,” is that there are a hell of a lot of bad ideas out there, and more than a few of them are dangerous to the overall prospects for society. If anything, there’s more of a need for critics now than ever before, because it’s easier now than ever before for malevolent buffoons like Elon Musk or Andrew Yang to influence the direction of government.
Standard Deviation
By Scott GuttermanComposer and drummer Tyshawn Sorey has emerged as a major statesman on the scene. The New Yorker has called him “an extraordinary talent who can see across the entire musical landscape,” and the New York Times, raising the stakes, has described him as “an artist who is at the nexus of the music industry’s artistic and social concerns.”
