Following the fiasco in which my audio files disappeared from Live365 a few months ago, I was pretty slow in getting Postclassic Radio back up and in running order, and it sat pretty stagnant for the month of August. (By way of apology, Live365 gave everyone affected a free month’s broadcasting.) But people kept adding on as listeners, and I finally took time out from other work to rev it back up. Having started with Eve Beglarian as July composer-of-the-month, the playlist took a female-intensive turn, and I thought about moving to an all-woman-composer playlist by September. I haven’t quite gone that far – there were some Noah Creshevsky pieces I wanted to play, and I refuse to take down John Cage’s In a Landscape, which some of you may have noticed is the station’s ever-present theme song. Nevertheless, September will be Women’s Month on the station, and I’ve got pieces up by Allison Cameron, Amy Knoles, Annea Lockwood, Annie Gosfield, Bernadette Speach, Connie Beckley, Eliane Radigue, Elizabeth Brown, Elodie Lauten, Eve Beglarian, Janice Giteck, Jewlia Eisenberg, Judith Sainte-Croix, Julia Wolfe, Maggi Payne, Maria de Alvear, Mary Jane Leach, Pauline Oliveros, Sarah Peebles, and Wendy Mae Chambers – plus I’ll soon be taking down some men’s pieces to add in Belinda Reynolds, Beth Anderson, Carolyn Yarnell, Laurie Spiegel, and Meredith Monk. Not that there’s ever any shortage of women composers on my playlist, in my writings – or in my heart (sigh).
Today happens to be the second anniversary of this blog. I notice that I wrote a little fewer entries this year than last – I suspect that decline will continue. I’m not finding a blog to be the most effective means for getting my ideas out, because I can’t accompany my arguments with sufficient evidence. I’m sitting on hundreds of scores by young composers, making statements about new music based on what I find in them, and it feels sometimes like all I do here is draw arguments from people who don’t know the music I’m talking about and won’t believe it exists. When I wrote my Nancarrow book I could include loads of score excerpts, and no one has ever accused me of not knowing what I was talking about with Nancarrow. It strikes me my time would be better spent on my proposed book about Postminimalism, with my assertions backed up by incontrovertible examples, rather than just sitting here drawing fire from skeptics.