Working in the open as a composer

I live among the worlds of technology, art, and philanthropy. A lot of my job is based on learning lessons from one of those and figuring out how to apply them to the other two; it’s pretty fun. Usually I get to bring new insights to my job at New Music USA. But recently I …

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 …

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 …

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 USA project grants awarded

So this thing that I work on, the platform for New Music USA’s grantmaking, is once again in high gear. Yesterday we awarded 62 more projects with almost $300,000. But the best part is that you can follow any of the projects you like. The project pages let you hear everything we awarded, and you …

Speaking at the Dance/NYC Symposium

Sydney Skybetter is hosting something really fun at the Dance/NYC symposium on February 22nd of next year. Instead of a panel discussion where 3-5 people get rambly for an hour, Sydney is getting bunch of his ‘culture warriors’ together (including me) and grilling us one by one. I think he’ll get better stuff out of …

Speaking at the New Music Gathering

The inaugural New Music Gathering just announced its line-up, and it’s really fun. I’m pretty excited to be speaking on some issues related to careers in the arts, and also to be doing what they’re billing as “therapy”, which is mostly “career therapy”. Given how much stress there is associated with being an artist, and …