New Stockhausen Piece “Balance” Premiered in Cologne

Since his untimely death last year, several new pieces by Karlheinz Stockhausen have been premiered posthumously. Yesterday night, the newest of these premieres was given in the Klaus-von-Bismarck-Saal at the WDR in Cologne. The composition is part of the larger cycle KLANG which was to contain 24 pieces for each hour of the day. “Balance” [...]

The Ideal eReader

Following up on a comment by Myke Cuthbert and a previous post at TechCrunch, here is my wishlist for an ideal eReader / Internet tablet. This list is compiled from a research / academic perspective, so I guess that basically everyone who is in academia or research will be a potential customer. Hopefully academic publishers [...]

Raum und Zeit: Orgelfeierstunden im Kölner Dom

Cologne Cathedral

Betrachtet man die Situation nüchtern und als Aussenstehender, so sollte man als Musikbegeisterter die sommerlichen Orgelfeierstunden im Kölner Dom aus rein musikalischen Gründen meiden. Die Akustik in der riesigen Kathedrale des 13. Jahrhunderts ist einem differenzierten Musikgenuss ebenso abträglich, wie ein komplett verdunkeltes Museum dem Betrachten von Gemälden. Der exzessive Nachhall verwischt jeden Klang [...]

The SCRIBE Project is online

Dear colleagues:
It is my pleasure to invite you to SCRIBE, an interdisciplinary and open research group that develops a software system for searches of music manuscripts by handwriting similarity.
The group is designed as an open collaboration between individuals, which means that anyone is welcome to join.
At the moment the project is seeking music scholars and [...]

Discussion with Helmut Lachenmann

The department of music at the Humboldt University hosts a panel discussion with noted composer Helmut Lachenmann on Monday, June 18 at 6pm. Members of the panel include Lachenmann, Cornelius Lejeune and Pietro Cavallotti.
Where? - Room 501, Am Kupfergraben 5, 10099 Berlin. Right across from the Pergamon Museum, next door from the chancellor’s flat [...]

Conference on Mathematics and Computation in Music

From May 18 - 20, the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung will host the inaugural conference of the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music (SMCM). The conference will feature a diverse set of promising papers on topics such as Metalanguage and Representation, Computational Models in Music Psychology, Mathematical Approaches to Composition, Mathematical Approaches to Musical [...]

Again, the first prize goes to… schoenberg.at

not only do they have the best composer website of all times. No, this time they really surprized everyone. Check it out for yourself. 38 videos produced by the Arnold Schoenberg Center at YouTube. Amongst them this interesting interview with Mitsuko Uchida:

Free Mozart Edition Online

The Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (ISM) has launched the free online version of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe (NMA). The website contains scans of the complete works of Mozart as well as the accompanying critical commentaries. Check out the site at http://dme.mozarteum.at/.
In a next step the ISM will work on a new Digital Mozart Edition that will [...]

Mozart in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

Since today, visitors of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin can marvel at fifty Mozart autographs from the library’s collection. Among the items on display are the scores of Idomeneo, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte and La clemenza di Tito.
This is a page from the Posthornserenade, K 320 [...]

musica reanimata revives music of Karel Reiner

musica reanimata is the name of an ambitious association of musicians and musicologists in Berlin that revives the music of composers persecuted by the Nazis. The association organizes concerts, conferences, and publishes books. For their efforts they have recently been awarded the prestigious Kritikerpreis für Musik 2006.
Yesterday, at the Konzerthaus Berlin, musica reanimata hosted a [...]

Musikfest Berlin 06

Berlin is overflowing with classical music: there are three opera houses, seven symphony orchestras, and concert events ad infinitum. But the city seems to be in need of yet another music institution. A new festival, the Musikfest Berlin, was inaugurated last year and although ticket sales seem to go somewhat slowly this year, the Musikfest [...]

Die-hardism and music

Thank you to Jonathan Bellman for an inspiring post on Bach and the lunatic musician’s life style we all adhere to!
Dial “M” to see the details!

New Bach Manuscripts Discovered

Since I am currently in Austria, and therefore not reading any news, I did not realize until today that our colleagues Peter Wollny and Michael Maul at the Bach-Archiv have come up with yet another Bach discovery. A couple of months after the spectacular find of an unknown Bach aria, they uncovered two music [...]

A Music Search Engine

UMI is a good thing. If you ask them nicely they will send you information about and links to all the newly uploaded doctoral dissertations in North America. Today I came across an interesting thesis from McGill University by Ian Knopke (reference below). Ian worked on a music search engine that, unlike the standard search [...]

Great Conversations in Music

Summer leaves town. It’s getting colder, darker, and rainier in Berlin these days, and yet no opera season begins. What can one do? Listen to music, read books, write dissertations, and - of course - browse the web. Let me tell you, there is a lot to discover when you type “conversations about music” into [...]