by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•International Contemporary Ensemble announces Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music
•Musical coffee breaks at your workplace, courtesy of The Music Settlement and Phoenix Coffee
•The musician who for twenty years “has been releasing album after album of songs with the object of producing a result to match nearly anything anybody could think to search for”
•Openings for volunteer ushers with Ohio Light Opera, and Early Childhood Classroom Teachers with The Music Settlement
•Almanac: Joseph Pulitzer and a look back at the history of Pulitzer Prizes for music
NEWS BRIEFS:
International Contemporary Ensemble has announced the establishment of the Arlene and Larry Dunn Fund for Afrodiasporic Music. The fund was made possible by a multi-year pledge from Oberlin residents Arlene and Larry Dunn (pictured), longtime supporters of the ensemble, with the aim of championing Afrodiasporic composers and performers. Read the announcement here.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Ohio Light Opera is looking for volunteer ushers for the upcoming summer season. Send an email or call 330-263-2345 to find out more.
The Music Settlement has openings for Early Childhood Classroom Teachers. More information here.
Another piece of news from The Music Settlement is that it is relaunching Sips n’ Strings. That collaboration with Phoenix Coffee brings musical coffee breaks to workplaces around the city, helping to relieve stress and inspire creativity, as TMS director of marketing Sydney Miller said in an appearance on “New Day Cleveland.” Click here to schedule a date for your organization.
INTERESTING READS:
After discovering a song about himself and dialing the songwriter, whose phone number and an invitation to call were part of the lyrics, writer Brett Martin found himself “ushered into the strange universe of Matt Farley,” a musician and filmmaker who for twenty years “has been releasing album after album of songs with the object of producing a result to match nearly anything anybody could think to search for.”
Farley uses around 80 pseudonyms to release his music, Martin writes. “As the Hungry Food Band, he sings songs about foods. As the Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns, he sings the atlas. He has 600 songs inviting different-named girls to the prom and 500 that are marriage proposals. He has an album of very specific apologies; albums devoted to sports teams in every city that has a sports team; hundreds of songs about animals, and jobs, and weather, and furniture, and one band that is simply called the Guy Who Sings Your Name Over and Over…He also has many, many songs about going to the bathroom.”
Read “Why Did This Guy Put a Song About Me on Spotify?” here from The New York Times Magazine.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
by Daniel Hathaway
On this date in 1847 newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the St. Louis Dispatch, was born in Mako, Hungary. His will (he died in 1911) left $2 million for the establishment of the school of journalism at Columbia University and endowed the Pulitzer Prizes, which, beginning in 1943, included an annual award for a classical musical composition by an American composer.
In the late 1990s, the entry rules were expanded to include a wider range of American music, and the first such prize recognized Wynton Marsalis’ 1997 Blood on the Fields. George Gershwin and Duke Ellington were subsequently honored on their anniversary years in 1998 and 1999.
It’s interesting to read down the list of Pulitzer Prize winners in music, both to see what works have passed into wide use and which seem to have fallen by the wayside. Click here to view.
Elsewhere on April 10, Brahms’ German Requiem received its first performance at a Good Friday concert in Bremen in 1868, and two major works for clarinet were premiered — Poulenc’s Sonata at Carnegie Hall by Benny (Goodman) and Lenny (Bernstein) in 1963, and Joan Tower’s Concerto by Charles Neidich and the American Symphony, led by Jorge Mester, in 1988.
And notable births on April 10 include French jazz pianist and composer Claude Bolling (1930, in Cannes) and Uzbek pianist Yefim Bronfman (1958 in Tashkent).