Podcasts about judson dance theater

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Best podcasts about judson dance theater

Latest podcast episodes about judson dance theater

“Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey
Steven Melendez and Wendy Perron on Joining Hands: The Judson Dance Theater Legacy through the Lens of New York Theatre Ballet

“Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 22, 2025 58:05


Join "Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey and special guests Stevn Melendez and Wendy Perron.In this episode of "Dance Talk” ® , host Joanne Carey engages with Steven Melendez, the artistic director of New York Theatre Ballet, and Wendy Perron, a dance historian and former editor of Dance Magazine. They discuss the significance of Judson Dance Theater, its impact on modern dance, and how its philosophies resonate with contemporary dance practices.The conversation explores the challenges of restaging historical works, the importance of audience engagement, and the political context of dance as a form of protest and expression.The episode culminates in a preview of an upcoming performance that aims to bridge the past and present of dance April 23-26.The Judson Dance Theater was a pioneering experimental dance collective that operated in New York City from 1962 to 1964. They performed at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, known for its social and artistic activism. Judson Dance Theater is widely recognized as a key force in the development of postmodern dance and its avant-garde approach influenced subsequent generations of choreographers. Steven Melendez was born in New York City in 1986 and started his ballet training with the LIFT Program at Ballet School New York at the age of 7. He has danced as a Soloist dancer with Ballet Concierto in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a Principal dancer with The Vanemuine Theater Ballet Company in Tartu, Estonia, and for over 15 years with New York Theatre Ballet. He was a national and international guest artist and teacher and has worked across Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. Steven co-choreographed his first large-scale work, Song Before Spring, for New York Theatre Ballet which was named a Dance Europe critic's choice “Best Premiere” of 2016. Steven is currently a member of the alumni advisory committee on diversity and inclusion for School of American Ballet and served as the Hiland Artistic Director for National Dance Institute New Mexico. Steven was named as the Artistic Director of New York Theatre Ballet in April of 2022Wendy Perron is a dancer/choreographer turned writer/editor/scholar. She trained in modern dance and ballet and earned a BA from Bennington College and an MA from SUNY Empire State College. She danced with the Trisha Brown Company in the 1970s and choreographed more than 40 works for her own group, which received commissions from Lincoln Center Festival, the Joyce Theater, Jacob's Pillow, and the Danspace Project. Perron has taught at Bennington, Princeton, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and the Conservatory at SUNY Purchase. In the early 1990s she served as associate director of Jacob's Pillow. She was the editor in chief of Dance Magazine from 2004 to 2013, and has also written for the New York Times, the Village Voice, vanityfair.com, and journals in Europe and China. An authority on Judson Dance Theater and postmodern dance, Perron has lectured across the country and in Russia and China. In 2011 she was the first dance artist to be inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts' Hall of Fame. Her second book, The Grand Union: Accidental Anarchists of Downtown Dance, 1970-1975, met with acclaim when it was published in 2020. She has recently performed with Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks in downtown venues. Her new online series, “Unsung Heroes of Dance History,” presents research on dance artists outside the “canon.” She has been on the Juilliard faculty since 2019.To see this performancehttps://nytb.org/tickets“Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey wherever you listen to your podcasts. ⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://dancetalkwithjoannecarey.com/Follow Joanne on Instagram @westfieldschoolofdance Tune in. Follow. Like us. And Share. Please leave a review! “Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey "Where the Dance World Connects, the Conversations Inspire, and Where We Are Keeping Them Real."

PillowVoices: Dance Through Time
Trisha Brown: Choreographer and Visual Artist

PillowVoices: Dance Through Time

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2023 36:17


Jennifer Edwards hosts this episode focused on Trisha Brown, one of the most celebrated choreographers to emerge from Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern era. Brown is in conversation with Deborah Jowitt, the influential choreographer, scholar, dance critic, and educator. We also hear from art historian and Brown specialist Susan Rosenberg.Essay on Trisha  Brown: https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/themes-essays/women-in-dance/trisha-brown/ 

Art · The Creative Process
(Highlights) DOROTHEA ROCKBURNE

Art · The Creative Process

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2022


“The walks were amazing. We walked up every morning at eight o'clock. There's a waterfall on campus at Black Mountain, and we walked to this waterfall, and he explained water to me. He explained how things worked. You know, when I was a little kid, I used to take alarm clocks apart and put back together and things like that.” Dorothea Rockburne was born in 1932 in Montreal. She attended Black Mountain College where she met the mathematician Max Dehn, whose tutelage in concepts including harmonic intervals, topology, and set theory were deeply influential to her art practice. After moving to New York City in 1954, she became involved with Judson Dance Theater, and later participated in Carolee Schneemann's Meat Joy and other performances. In the late 60s, Rockburne began exhibiting paintings made with industrial materials and creating drawings from crude oil and graphite applied to paper and chipboard. Her “visual equations” based on set theory were first exhibited in New York in 1970. Her later paintings draw on ancient systems of proportion and astronomical phenomena. She's had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Dia:Beacon, and a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum. · www.dorothearockburne.com · www.creativeprocess.info

Art · The Creative Process

Dorothea Rockburne was born in 1932 in Montreal. She attended Black Mountain College where she met the mathematician Max Dehn, whose tutelage in concepts including harmonic intervals, topology, and set theory were deeply influential to her art practice. After moving to New York City in 1954, she became involved with Judson Dance Theater, and later participated in Carolee Schneemann's Meat Joy and other performances. In the late 60s, Rockburne began exhibiting paintings made with industrial materials and creating drawings from crude oil and graphite applied to paper and chipboard. Her “visual equations” based on set theory were first exhibited in New York in 1970. Her later paintings draw on ancient systems of proportion and astronomical phenomena. She's had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Dia:Beacon, and a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum. · www.dorothearockburne.com · www.creativeprocess.info

Les Nuits de France Culture
La Nuit rêvée de Jérôme Bel (4/11) : Yvonne Rainer : "Mes premiers solos étaient bâtis sur la répétition, une même phrase se répétait avec d'infimes variations"

Les Nuits de France Culture

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 18, 2021 35:00


durée : 00:35:00 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Philippe Garbit, Albane Penaranda, Mathilde Wagman - Yvonne Rainer figure de la "post-modern dance" américaine des années 60 et 70 est l'une des créatrices du célèbre Judson Dance Theater de New York aux côtés de Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown et Lucinda Childs. Retour sur ce moment historique grâce à un entretien dans "Studio Danse" le 29 juin 2002. - réalisation : Virginie Mourthé - invités : Yvonne Rainer Danseuse, chorégraphe, cinéaste, théoricienne et poète américaine née en 1934.; Christophe Wavelet

Les Nuits de France Culture
La Nuit rêvée de Jérôme Bel (4/11) : Yvonne Rainer : "Mes premiers solos étaient bâtis sur la répétition, une même phrase se répétait avec d’infimes variations"

Les Nuits de France Culture

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2020 35:00


durée : 00:35:00 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Philippe Garbit, Albane Penaranda, Mathilde Wagman - Yvonne Rainer figure de la "post-modern dance" américaine des années 60 et 70 est l'une des créatrices du célèbre Judson Dance Theater de New York aux côtés de Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown et Lucinda Childs. Retour sur ce moment historique grâce à un entretien dans "Studio Danse" le 29 juin 2002. - réalisation : Virginie Mourthé - invités : Yvonne Rainer Danseuse, chorégraphe, cinéaste, théoricienne et poète américaine née en 1934.; Christophe Wavelet

New Books in Dance
Yvonne Rainer, "Revisions: Essays by Apollo Musagète, Yvonne Rainer, and Others" (No Place Press, 2020)

New Books in Dance

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2020 45:50


Yvonne Rainer is one of the most influential living choreographers. After studying with Merce Cunningham she co-founded the Judson Dance Theater, a center of post-modern dance whose influence far outlasted its three years of existence. In the 1970s Rainer transitioned into film directing. She released seven feature films between 1972 and 1996 before returning to choreography in 2000 with After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, a piece created for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. Her latest book Revisions: Essays by Apollo Musagète, Yvonne Rainer, and Others (No Place Press, 2020) features the text of her ongoing piece Revisions: A Truncated History of the Universe for Dummies along with essays and interviews reflecting on her life and work. Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA program at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts. His plays have been produced, developed, or presented at IRT, Pipeline Theatre Company, The Gingold Group, Dixon Place, Roundabout Theatre, Epic Theatre Company, Out Loud Theatre, Naked Theatre Company, Contemporary Theatre of Rhode Island, and The Trunk Space. He is currently working on a series of 50 plays about the 50 U.S. states. His website is AndyJBoyd.com, and he can be reached at andyjamesboyd@gmail.com.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books Network
Yvonne Rainer, "Revisions: Essays by Apollo Musagète, Yvonne Rainer, and Others" (No Place Press, 2020)

New Books Network

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2020 45:50


Yvonne Rainer is one of the most influential living choreographers. After studying with Merce Cunningham she co-founded the Judson Dance Theater, a center of post-modern dance whose influence far outlasted its three years of existence. In the 1970s Rainer transitioned into film directing. She released seven feature films between 1972 and 1996 before returning to choreography in 2000 with After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, a piece created for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. Her latest book Revisions: Essays by Apollo Musagète, Yvonne Rainer, and Others (No Place Press, 2020) features the text of her ongoing piece Revisions: A Truncated History of the Universe for Dummies along with essays and interviews reflecting on her life and work. Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA program at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts. His plays have been produced, developed, or presented at IRT, Pipeline Theatre Company, The Gingold Group, Dixon Place, Roundabout Theatre, Epic Theatre Company, Out Loud Theatre, Naked Theatre Company, Contemporary Theatre of Rhode Island, and The Trunk Space. He is currently working on a series of 50 plays about the 50 U.S. states. His website is AndyJBoyd.com, and he can be reached at andyjamesboyd@gmail.com.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Books in Film
Yvonne Rainer, "Revisions: Essays by Apollo Musagète, Yvonne Rainer, and Others" (No Place Press, 2020)

New Books in Film

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 14, 2020 45:50


Yvonne Rainer is one of the most influential living choreographers. After studying with Merce Cunningham she co-founded the Judson Dance Theater, a center of post-modern dance whose influence far outlasted its three years of existence. In the 1970s Rainer transitioned into film directing. She released seven feature films between 1972 and 1996 before returning to choreography in 2000 with After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, a piece created for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. Her latest book Revisions: Essays by Apollo Musagète, Yvonne Rainer, and Others (No Place Press, 2020) features the text of her ongoing piece Revisions: A Truncated History of the Universe for Dummies along with essays and interviews reflecting on her life and work. Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA program at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts. His plays have been produced, developed, or presented at IRT, Pipeline Theatre Company, The Gingold Group, Dixon Place, Roundabout Theatre, Epic Theatre Company, Out Loud Theatre, Naked Theatre Company, Contemporary Theatre of Rhode Island, and The Trunk Space. He is currently working on a series of 50 plays about the 50 U.S. states. His website is AndyJBoyd.com, and he can be reached at andyjamesboyd@gmail.com.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Creative Process Podcast

Dorothea Rockburne was born in 1932 in Montreal. She attended Black Mountain College where she met the mathematician Max Dehn, whose tutelage in concepts including harmonic intervals, topology, and set theory were deeply influential to her art practice. After moving to New York City in 1954, she became involved with Judson Dance Theater, and later participated in Carolee Schneemann's Meat Joy and other performances. In the late 60s, Rockburne began exhibiting paintings made with industrial materials and creating drawings from crude oil and graphite applied to paper and chipboard. Her “visual equations” based on set theory were first exhibited in New York in 1970. Her later paintings draw on ancient systems of proportion and astronomical phenomena. She's had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Dia:Beacon, and a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum. www.dorothearockburne.com · www.creativeprocess.info

The Creative Process Podcast

Dorothea Rockburne was born in 1932 in Montreal. She attended Black Mountain College where she met the mathematician Max Dehn, whose tutelage in concepts including harmonic intervals, topology, and set theory were deeply influential to her art practice. After moving to New York City in 1954, she became involved with Judson Dance Theater, and later participated in Carolee Schneemann's Meat Joy and other performances. In the late 60s, Rockburne began exhibiting paintings made with industrial materials and creating drawings from crude oil and graphite applied to paper and chipboard. Her “visual equations” based on set theory were first exhibited in New York in 1970. Her later paintings draw on ancient systems of proportion and astronomical phenomena. She's had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Dia:Beacon, and a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum. www.dorothearockburne.com · www.creativeprocess.info

Dance And Stuff
Episode 80: With The Best of 2018

Dance And Stuff

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 28, 2018 53:54


After catching up about their respective Christmases (Jack wants T and Reid is allergic to pineapple) the queens do their tops of 2018. Find out what they loved this year in dance, TV, and film. Dance: Singlet. Erin Markey. Bushwick Starr. Pitkin Grove. Beth Gill. The Joyce. The Runaway. Kyle Abraham. New York City Ballet. Judson Dance Theater. Museum of Modern Art. Reid and Harriet Works & Process. The Guggenheim. Folk Incest. Juliana F. May. Abrons Arts Center. The Man In Black. James Kudelka. The National Ballet of Canada. The Six Brandenburg Concertos. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The Armory. Four Quartets. Pam Tanowitz. The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Everything Is Imaginable. Jack Ferver. New York Live Arts. TV: My Brilliant Friend. Saverio Costanzo and Elena Ferrante. HBO. Queer Eye. David Collins. Netflix. The Great British Bake Off. Channel 4. Sharp Objects. Jean-Marc Vallée. HBO. Search Party. (Season 2 Premiered in 2017). TBS. Bon Appétit. Youtube. The Assassination of Gianni Versace. FX. Killing Eve. BBC America. Film: Roma. Alfonso Cuarón. Greta (2019 Release Date). The Favourite. Yorgos Lanthimos. Suspiria. Luca Guadagnino. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Audiostage
DEBORAH JOWITT / THE VALUE OF DANCE CRITICISM - Audiostage

Audiostage

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 5, 2016 51:33


"I have not seen anything in the US as extreme as what I have seen [in Australia] in the past week." - Deborah Jowitt In the second episode of season three, Angela, Jana, and Beth speak to Deborah Jowitt, legendary dance critic and the idol of everyone in the room. A long-term critical columnist for The Village Voice (1967-2011), Jowitt has created an immensely influential body of work that includes four books - the latest of which, on Jerome Robbins, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2004. Having lectured at Princeton, Barnard, and Tisch School of the Arts, and recipient of two Bessies, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Deborah Jowitt is one of the seminal voices of and for the 20th century dance. "People were concerned, there seemed to be disaster all round: enmity between countries, the possibility of bombs falling. I really thought: we're going aerobic. We're going to tone our bodies so we can run all the way from New York to Westchester county without getting hit." - Deborah Jowitt The conversation took place during the Keir Choreographic Awards, as we were recovering from an intense week of seeing Australian emerging contemporary dance, discussing contemporary dance, and making contemporary dance happen, and there was a sense of intense camaraderie in the room. It was really beautiful, being able to speak about the value of criticism, the worth it creates, by drawing on the experiences of someone who has seen half a century of dance go by, who wrote its history, who taught us how to see dance when we had no storyline, no character, and no balletic vocabulary to hook onto. This was very, very special. Discussed in this episode: it's not 'the body', but 'the dancers'; the 1960s revolution against elitism; incorporating the building janitor into a choreography; pilates; Keir Choreographic Awards, and where is the dancing in contemporary dancing?; ideas that cannot be physically fleshed out – what fuels it in Australia?; the overuse of the word 'ephemeral'; how to legitimise a new form; Judson Dance Theater; how criticism creates desire; and that not being a good artist doesn't mean you're not a good person. "The work reveals itself to you, if you’re open and receptive." - Deborah Jowitt Enjoy and stay tuned: we have more exciting and stimulating conversations to come. Podcast bibliography: Deborah Jowitt: Time and the Dancing Image Deborah Jowitt writes about her Australian visit Deborah Jowitt: Carolyn Carlson—From France to Jersey; Russell Dumas—Up From Oz Deborah Jowitt Archive on Sarma.be For more information about Deborah Jowitt’s work, and to read her contemporary writing, visit her blog DanceBeat on ArtsJournal. This series of AUDIOSTAGE has been commissioned by DANCEHOUSE as part of the 2016 Keir Choreographic Award Public Program and was generously supported by the Keir Foundation.

ZKM | Karlsruhe /// Gespräche /// Talks
Interview mit Simone Forti

ZKM | Karlsruhe /// Gespräche /// Talks

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 31, 2012 60:28


Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten | Artist Talk Exhibition 08.03.2012 – 29.04.2012 Topographic reading points, which Simone Forti noted when travelling through urban areas, encouraged her to produce the work Face Tunes in 1967. In this work, she transfers the outline of human portraits in codified contoured lines. As musical scores, these scaled lines embody movement, whereby the scales are wandered through by following the traces recorded in a score with a flute. Face Tunes stands for a phase in the work where the choreographer propagates her minimalistic scores as applied to the analysis of movement with music. Forti’s systematic method of working also reveals itself in the archiving of her works for which she makes use of a many-sided historical approach: she began documenting her works in sketches and in artist’s books early on in her career. Today, she develops training videos which facilitate specific and authorized live transmission of her performances. During the exhibition, Simone Forti reenacts Face Tunes thereby conveying the ability to restage the performance to the witnesses. Short Biography The artist Simone Forti (*1935 in Florence, immigrated to the USA in 1939) works in the media of dance, text and drawing. As co-founder of the Judson Dance Theater, she played an important role in the new orientation of dance in New York during the 1960s. In pieces such as Huddle or See-Saw, she united the methods of improvisation she learned from Anna Halprin along with the conceptual freedom and precision through which John Cage exercised his influence at that time. In the reconstruction of works such as Dance Constructions, produced in 1961 and shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2009, the contemporaneity of approach continues to be perceptible.

ZKM | Karlsruhe /// Ausstellungen /// Exhibitions

Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten | Artist Talk Exhibition 08.03.2012 – 29.04.2012 Topographic reading points, which Simone Forti noted when travelling through urban areas, encouraged her to produce the work Face Tunes in 1967. In this work, she transfers the outline of human portraits in codified contoured lines. As musical scores, these scaled lines embody movement, whereby the scales are wandered through by following the traces recorded in a score with a flute. Face Tunes stands for a phase in the work where the choreographer propagates her minimalistic scores as applied to the analysis of movement with music. Forti’s systematic method of working also reveals itself in the archiving of her works for which she makes use of a many-sided historical approach: she began documenting her works in sketches and in artist’s books early on in her career. Today, she develops training videos which facilitate specific and authorized live transmission of her performances. During the exhibition, Simone Forti reenacts Face Tunes thereby conveying the ability to restage the performance to the witnesses. Short Biography The artist Simone Forti (*1935 in Florence, immigrated to the USA in 1939) works in the media of dance, text and drawing. As co-founder of the Judson Dance Theater, she played an important role in the new orientation of dance in New York during the 1960s. In pieces such as Huddle or See-Saw, she united the methods of improvisation she learned from Anna Halprin along with the conceptual freedom and precision through which John Cage exercised his influence at that time. In the reconstruction of works such as Dance Constructions, produced in 1961 and shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2009, the contemporaneity of approach continues to be perceptible.

Maestro: Independent Classical Spotlight
Maestro 019: New World Records

Maestro: Independent Classical Spotlight

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 28, 2010 18:53


New World Records We will be featuring New World Records in today's episode. New World started in 1975; they were given a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation with a mandate to produce a 100-disc anthology of American music. New world continues to preserve neglected music of the past and support the creative future of American music with over 400 recordings, representing up to 700 American composers. Rick Benjamin from "Black Manhattan: Theater and Dance Music of James Reese Europe, Will Marion Cook, and Members of the Legendary Clef Club" (New World Records) Buy at iTunes Music Store More On This Album Theater and Dance Music of James Reese Europe, Will Marion Cook, and Member of the Legendary Clef Club The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra Rick Benjamin, director The Clef Club of New York City, Inc. was a fraternal and professional organization for the advancement of African-American musicians and entertainers; all of the composers on this recording were members or closely affiliated with the Club. The "Clef Club" was founded toward the end of 1909 in New York by James Reese Europe and his associates. Their mission to highlight the value, dignity, and professionalism of African-American performers was a great success and did much to change racial attitudes at all levels of white society. It quickly became a "who's who" of early twentieth-century black music and show business. With its reputation for reliability, gentility, and quality performances, the Clef Club soon gained the favor of the loftiest of New York's white society; it became the very height of fashion to announce that one had secured a genuine "Clef Club Orchestra" for an upcoming social event. The composers featured on this revelatory recording represent the cream of Black Bohemia's musical life-the movers and shakers who paved the way for the music of the better remembered "Harlem Renaissance" of the 1920s. And while their names are obscure today, all once enjoyed national reputations in white America as well, feeding its burgeoning interest in black music, theater, and dance. Taken altogether, the talent, persistence, cooperation, and courage of these pioneers is an amazing American story that deserves to be better known. The recording features nineteen works by ten composers and is accompanied by a 40-page booklet. In addition to those by Europe and Cook, highlights include works by Will Vodery, an acknowledged influence on Ellington, and the first instrumental rag ever published, Sambo: A Characteristic Two Step March (1896), by Will Tyers. Tom Varner from "Tom Varner: Window Up Above" (New World Records) Buy at iTunes Music Store More On This Album The Window Up Above: American Songs 1770-1998 Tom Varner, French horn; Pete McCann, guitar; George Schuller, drums; Lindsey Horner, bass; Mark Feldman, violin; Dave Ballou, trumpet; Steve Alcott, bass; Thirsty Dave Hansen, vocals "I wanted to do something different for this record. Instead of playing my own compositions, I wanted to simply explore a variety of songs that have an inner resonance, whether from family, religion, nation, or culture. " - Tom Varner What Tom Varner has attempted on The Window Up Above is nothing less than a survey of the whole American song book, a millenium review of the last three centuries-and he succeeds brilliantly. Every song he has chosen has that American "thing," and his approach to every song is patently jazz, even where he chooses to play the melody "straight" to let its qualities shine through. Highlights abound: The witty, off-center de- and reconstruction of the Revolutionary and Civil War smash hits "Stone Grinds All," "When Jesus Wept," "Kingdom Come, " and "Battle Cry of Freedom" will forever change the way you hear them; his understated, heartfelt renditions of "Lorena," "All Quiet on the Potomac," and "There is a Balm in Gilead" would make a stone weep; to say nothing of his splendid reimaginings of standards like "Over the Rainbow" and "When the Saints Go Marching In." Even Bruce Springsteen gets the treatment, his "With Every Wish" joining George Jonesís "The Window Up Above," Hank Williams's "Ramblin' Man,"(check out Mark Feldman's and Varner's hair-raising solos and closing duet) and Tammy Wynette's "Till I Get it Right" from the country canon. In Varnerís unique arrangements, every song on this collection emerges freshly minted. Once heard, not soon forgotten. Music Amici, Charles Yasskyfrom "Ben Johnston: Ponder Nothing"(New World Records) Buy at iTunes Music Store Buy at Amazon MP3 More On This Album Ponder Nothing, Septet, Three Chinese Lyrics, Gambit, Five Fragments, Trio Music Amici Ben Johnston's (b 1926) music shows the confluence of several traditions of music-making that have flourished within the United States. In the 1950s his output was characterized by the neoclassicism of his teacher Darius Milhaud. In the 1960s he explored serial techniques and, at the end of the decade, indeterminacy. From 1960 onward the overriding technical preoccupation of his music has been its use of just intonation, the tuning system of the music of ancient cultures as well as that of many living traditions worldwide. The six works represented on this disc span Johnston's journey through atonality, neoclassicism, serial technique, and finally, his pioneering use of just intonation. Septet (1956-58) for woodwind quintet with cello and contrabass, marks the height of Johnston's early neoclassic period. Debts to Stravinsky recurring structural figures, ostinatos that repeat pitches in unpredictable rhythms-are obvious. The more direct influence of Johnston's first important teacher, Darius Milhaud, is apparent in the bitonal textures. In his 1955 Three Chinese Lyrics, scored for soprano and two violins, Johnston has set three poems by the Chinese T'ang dynasty poet Li Po (701-762) in translations by Ezra Pound (his early mentor Harry Partch already had set seventeen of the poems; Johnston set the remaining three). Commissioned by choreographer Merce Cunningham, Gambit (1959) is scored for twelve instruments and consists of six movements, three of which-Interlude 1, Prelude 2, and Interlude 2-use twelve-tone rows. Gambit, a mixed-genre work, precipitated the crucial decision of Johnston's career, his switch to extended "just intonation." For most composers, just intonation implies tonality, but Johnston is unique for his works that fuse pure tuning with the twelve-tone system including Five Fragments (1960). Fragments 1, 2, 3, and 5 modulate systematically from one twelve-tone row to another and, here and in general, Johnston's early just intonation counterpoint moves carefully among consonant intervals. A much later work, Trio for clarinet, violin, and cello (1982), is a gem of Johnston's mature style, rhythmically engaging and harmonically subtle. Phrases return, sometimes with altered continuations, or transposed to different pitch levels, or using an undertone scale rather than an overtone scale. As a result, and typical of Johnston's late work, the Trio's lithe counterpoint falls sweetly on the ear; the complexity is below the surface. Ponder Nothing (1989), is a set of solo clarinet variations on the traditional French hymn "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence." If the hymn gives voice to Johnston's Catholicism, the title, taken from the hymn's third line-"Ponder nothing earthly minded"-refers to his interest in the no-mind meditation of Zen. Malcolm Goldsteinfrom "Malcolm Goldstein: a sounding of sources"(New World Records) Buy at iTunes Music Store Buy at Amazon MP3 More On This Album Malcolm Goldstein, solo violin; Radu Malfatti, trombone; Philippe Micol, bass clarinet; Philippe Racine, flute; Beat Schneider, violoncello As a composer/violinist/improviser Malcolm Goldstein (b. 1936) has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s in New York City as a co-founder with James Tenney and Philip Corner of the Tone Roads Ensemble and as a participant in the Judson Dance Theater, the New York Festival of the Avant-Garde, and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. His "Soundings" improvisations have received international acclaim for having "reinvented violin playing," extending the range of tonal/sound-texture possibilities of the instrument and revealing new dimensions of expressivity. Since the mid-1960s he has integrated structured improvisation aspects into his compositions, exploring the rich sound-textures of new performance techniques within a variety of instrumental and vocal frameworks. Goldstein has been labeled an "improviser" and a "composer-violinist" (or merely a violinist). What this CD once and for all shows is that he is indeed those things, but encompassing them all is the fact that, profoundly, he is a composer. As he points out, "At the core of Baroque music was the integration of composition and improvisation," and Goldstein brings the perspective and focus of a seasoned performer to this undertaking. In this way his music represents a further evolution of that compositional-improvisational dialogue begun in the early 1950s in the aleatoric, "chance" pieces of composers like John Cage, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff and Morton Feldman.