Ian is organizing a consortium

Hey there sports fans. Ian Richter is organizing a commissioning consortium for my new saxophone and soprano duet, Finishing The Rose. I wrote about my initial thoughts before Thanksgiving. I really like the way Ian is structuring the consortium, with very low fees for co-commissioners, and even lower for students. For a composer like me, …

Help me write my talk for the New Music Gathering

This morning my plea for help went up on NewMusicBox. I’ll let you read the whole thing there, but basically I’m looking for case studies of decisions new music types are making in their careers. I want to hear how you’re thinking about a decision, and see if the work I’m doing on how arts …

How to be Machaut

So I’m writing this piece for Ian Richter and Hanna van Rooijen. It’s a saxophone and soprano piece, meant to be performable alongside Lori Laitman’s saxophone and soprano pieces. In fact, that’s how they’re going to premiere it in March of next year while Ian is still on his Fulbright). And it’s kinda weird. It’s …

Economics at the New Music Gathering

I’m doing it again. I’m going to a conference full of composers and new music freaks to talk about the inflation curve. I love the New Music Gathering. It’s a great event full of love for the music, and for the people who make it. It’s fantastic. And this year it’s coming to my alma …

Speaking at NY Music Tech

This Thursday I’ll be joined by some of my colleagues from New Music USA to present our platform at the NY Music Tech meetup. I’ll be speaking along with Madeline Bohm and Debbie Milburn, two of our developers, and Sam Reising, who does grantmaking and social media at New Music USA. We’re presenting our grantmaking …

Kickstarter’s 5% Pledge

This week, Kickstarter announced their reincorporation as a benefit corporation. They’re not a non-profit, but this is still a significant move for the company. A key part of their new charter is a pledge to contribute 5% of their profits to charity. There’s a certain symmetry to that: Kickstarter users pay 5% of their revenue …

Con Vivo’s Fall Concerts

Since moving to Jersey City in 2009, I’ve become more and more involved in the city’s cultural scene, and I’ve been constantly impressed by the warmth, community, and raw talent that our city has to offer. A while back, Zach Herchen took over as artistic director of Con Vivo Music, Jersey City’s leading classical music …

Product management is at the forefront of regular management

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I care so much about product management specifically. And I think it’s because of something I believe about the future of work overall. Product management right now is an emerging field, largely in software, to do with (roughly) how to lead teams of developers effectively. There are a …

two classes I’m watching

This semester I’m really enjoying following along with two different classes being taught in totally different circumstances. Both professors are blogging about their methods and motivations, and there’s some reaction from the students as well. I love that they’re both blogging their processes, and I’m particularly enjoying the bizarre contrast that they make in my …

Lucy Bernholz on New Music USA

One of my favorite things about my work is when someone I really respect and admire just gets it. That doesn’t happen very much, but today it did. Lucy Bernholz is an amzing scholar of digital civil society, and pretty much the smartest philanthropy thinker around. She doesn’t just look at the non-profit sector or …

The Seafarer to screen at CSU Fullerton

CSU Fullerton is hosting a fascinating festival of new music that incorporates images and text. Performances by Elliott Sharp, the Either/Or ensembles, and Carla Kihlstedt are going to be amazing. And on Saturday night, February 28th, the festival is screening four hours of films and video art that incorporate words and images along with new …

New Music Gathering talk on Baumol’s Cost Disease

Usually, I like to write out my talks completely in advance. It forces me to clear up my thinking, and lets me publish everything at the same time I give the talk. I’m a big fan of sharing thinking as widely as possible. But at the New Music Gathering, I couldn’t do that. The New …