I've been working on this line of research for over a year, and the first publications are out today. Above, we've got video of the talk I gave at Seattle Pacific University last month for their Futures of Music Series, hosted by Brian Chin. And today NewMusicBox has published my first written account of this …
The News and The Arts Have Similar Problems
Today Melody Kramer (who is awesome) published this essay on public media. She talks about how public media serves a public, and how a lot of the current fight over "traditional NPR" vs. "podcasts" misses the point of what's happening. Linda Holmes also wrote a great re-framing of that debate. I've been following a lot …
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Cost Disease at Seattle Pacific University
I'm back on the road again. Next week I'll be giving the next iteration of my talk applying the lessons of Baumol's Cost Disease to the situation of individual artists. Brian Chin is my host for this instance, and the media team at the university will be filming, so that should be up shortly afterwards. …
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Awesome Premiere
I have now been described in print, in Dutch, without my having submitted a bio in any language. The venue for yesterday's premiere of Finishing The Rose had very short notice that I was coming to the performance, and managed to sneak in a hastily written bio that they assembled themselves. In Dutch. I trust …
For my grandfather
Gramps died. You may have heard about it. It was sudden, but peaceful. Losing him was really hard, but the memorial service and other rituals of mourning did help to handle the grief. Gramps, Wesley A. Clark, designed the first personal computer, and that's what most people knew about him. If you're curious about his …
Finishing the Rose is Finished!
Thanks first to the commissioning consortium without whom this project wouldn't have happened, and you wouldn't have a chance to hear the piece performed so many times in the next year: Ian Richter Hanna Van Rooijen Zachary Herchen Elisabeth Halliday Ben Learish Sean Meyers Tyrone Page Ana Kupstas Thanks especially to Ian for being the …
Speaking at Brown
Next week I'm joining a really interesting conference that Sydney Skybetter has put together at Brown University. It's a conference on the future of gestural interfaces. But Sydney calls them, I think rightly, choreographic interfaces. Sydney's a choreographer, not a sensor designer or any kind of engineer. He's looking at a serious set of problems …
Mellon Foundation artist survey
Artists - help gather some data. I just took this survey, and I think it's worthwhile to participate. The questions are about income and health insurance, work/life balance, etc.: in other words, stuff that's really important to artists. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't write a full blog post about a survey. But the Mellon Foundation …
53 More Projects
We awarded another 53 projects yesterday at New Music USA. It was the fifth round of project grants awarded under the platform that's been the center of my life for the last few years. We've made it possible for fans to find new music through the granting process, made applying for funding like promoting your …
Even More New Grantmaking at New Music USA
We just opened a new grant program at New Music USA, providing general operating support (that is, unrestricted money) to small new music ensembles and venues based in New York City. If that's you, go apply to the New Music Impact Fund. I'm writing about it because my team has launched a couple of other …
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Composing on Trello
I've never written a piece using a project management tool before. It's almost certainly not for everyone, but I totally love it. The best part is being able to easily sort & rearrange my notes. With a paper notebook, or loose paper, you can't move individual sentences around. I tend to write out verbal descriptions …
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 …