Like I mentioned in my introductory post; the event that I attended, The Wordless Music Series, was a two day, back-to-back showcase aimed at exposing the parallel between indie/experimental/ambient/drone music and chamber/classical music. All-in-all, it was a definite success that managed to illustrate the correlation between the two "mediums" and hinted that there is a growing rapport between the oft-pereceived proletariat rock sect and the almost (at least from an outsider's perspective) lofty and impenetrable world of classical music.
The boundaries between the two realms of music have gradually been blurred through the last 50 years or so, but it has reached an almost fever-pitch in recent years with indie labels pretty much co-opting classical aesthetics, but slightly subverting and skewing them to stay within somewhat tenuous "rock" boundaries. Now it seems like convention is being completely thrown out the window, and these "scene parameters" are starting to erode from within. If anything, I think that mass-communication in the form of the internet has added some momentum/propulsion to this.
Kids who, formerly, spent their lives being spoonfed vapid, paint-by-numbers rock and pop now have this vast resource at their fingertips -- and for the first time in history, they have complete say in what they want to be exposed to. This is where classical music that has, previously, been very "exclusive", in a sense, is now starting to make in in-road into more contemporary forms of music -- and for the better; as Eluvium (aka Matthew Cooper) and the Third Angle New Music Ensemble (Ron Blessinger, Peter Frajola, Brian Quincey and Hamilton Cheifetz) have aptly displayed.
Now here's what I'm sure everyone really wants to see: the pictures. And...
The boundaries between the two realms of music have gradually been blurred through the last 50 years or so, but it has reached an almost fever-pitch in recent years with indie labels pretty much co-opting classical aesthetics, but slightly subverting and skewing them to stay within somewhat tenuous "rock" boundaries. Now it seems like convention is being completely thrown out the window, and these "scene parameters" are starting to erode from within. If anything, I think that mass-communication in the form of the internet has added some momentum/propulsion to this.
Kids who, formerly, spent their lives being spoonfed vapid, paint-by-numbers rock and pop now have this vast resource at their fingertips -- and for the first time in history, they have complete say in what they want to be exposed to. This is where classical music that has, previously, been very "exclusive", in a sense, is now starting to make in in-road into more contemporary forms of music -- and for the better; as Eluvium (aka Matthew Cooper) and the Third Angle New Music Ensemble (Ron Blessinger, Peter Frajola, Brian Quincey and Hamilton Cheifetz) have aptly displayed.
Now here's what I'm sure everyone really wants to see: the pictures. And...
Eluvium
Third Angle New Music Ensemble
1 comment:
great pix jeff; those were some fun shows. maybe we can work together again in the future; james used your picture for the headline of the review piece @ nw reverb. keep me posted on any good shows you find coming up.
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