Well, this is great, but there are two (2) problems. First, in my mind there's only one "Telephone" song, and it's this:Second, none of my classical NPR people are in this video! Maybe they'll go ahead and make a cover of the real "Telephone" song above. All the publicists can participate! Hi-ya Thomas, Hi Amanda. What's the story, morning glory? What's the word, hummingbird? Did you hear about Hel-ene-Grimaud? … [Read more...]
More fun with other people’s money
First, does everybody/anybody remember Crystal Pepsi? Maybe my Refresh Everything project submission for June will be to bring back Crystal Pepsi. The NYC community will be better off if my clothes aren't stained.Second, we have another worthy cause for your votes this month! In addition to my senior prom date's Reclaim Concrete project in South Philly (which jumped from 73rd place to 57th place today, obviously due to the Life's a Pitch Bump), the Contemporary Artists Center in Troy, NY is seeking to open a new cultural center in a … [Read more...]
Doesn’t that make you just want to…
I walked to 96th street from Jazz at Lincoln Center (at 59th street) tonight. It was just so nice outside, and since I went to a 6:30pm concert, it wasn't a Completely Idiotic move on my part. I'm glad I did, since I realized that I've never actually been on Broadway between 79th street and 72nd street before, which is bizarre but not entirely surprising (thank you, seven-blocks-apart-subway stops). If I had been on Broadway between 79th street and 72nd street before this fine August...I mean May...evening, I surely would have noticed … [Read more...]
The American Dream
Oh, hey - did you miss me? Like a bad rash?In case you didn't notice, and shame on you if you didn't, ArtsJournal was down last week. Doug has written up the whole sad tale, and I'm fairly certain the ordeal shaved Many Years off his life. Thanks, Doug, for getting us back on the interwebz. World, feel free to start spinning again: Life's a Pitch is back. I powered through the month of April's magazines this weekend, and one thing that stood out in a TimeOut NY was a review of this movie The Joneses. Another was a Carnegie Hall ad, but we'll … [Read more...]
Talk to me about Music Marathon
Remember when I was really awesome and posting interviews every week? Well, I'm less awesome now, but here's an interview with Billy Robin of Northwestern University. He started Music Marathon on campus last year and is gearing up for another successful 26 (!) hours on April 30th. If you're not in the Chicago area, you can watch the entire concert live on their website. Billy Robin is a senior at Northwestern University studying musicology and saxophone performance. Born in Chappaqua, NY, he spends time in both Chicago and New York City, … [Read more...]
Show off
It's like, I want to roll my eyes but it's really just pretty great. Lang Lang, Christoph Eschenbach, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, an iPad, and the .99 cent Magic Piano app in San Francisco on Monday night:It really makes iDude seem so 2009. … [Read more...]
The Balding Twelve Tones Announce US Tour
I'm not entirely sure why BrooklynVegan, Stereogum, Pitchfork, Hipster Runoff, etc. haven't picked this up, but should you be in San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or sunny Kalamazoo this weekend, you can see that famous Alex Ross byline in the flesh. Tour dates can be found on Alex's mostly-but-not-entirely retired blog, The Rest is Noise:This weekend, Ethan Iverson and I will launch our globe-spanning, three-city modern-music tour, touching down in San Francisco (rise and shine with Schoenberg at 10AM on Saturday), Ann Arbor (Sunday at 4PM), and … [Read more...]
What Not to Design
Maybe one day TLC will give me my own show where I get to go into graphic designers' computers and Move to Trash - Empty Trash all of their bad graphics and fonts. And they'll be all "noooooo my mom gave me that horn graphic for my 16th birthday" and "oh come on: I wore that Orientalist Graffiti font to my sister's wedding," and I'll just say IT ALL HAS TO GO YOU'LL THANK ME LATER, delete. Where, pray tell, are my poor eyes expected to go on this graphic? I guess to the fire burst? And now for some excellent marketing: a YouTube trailer for … [Read more...]
Is this a ~challenge~?
I'm still furious with Ben & Jerry's for removing Mint Chocolate Cookie from their Scoop Shops, but I will take the high road and post this news regardless.[drum(stick?)-roll]From Nylon magazine's website:Last night, I got a preview of Bonnaroo Buzz, a new Ben and Jerry's flavor. The Manchester, Tennessee music festival's combo, though free of any illegal substances, still promises to give you a bit of a kick, with a blend of light coffee and malt ice creams, whiskey caramel swirls, and English toffee pieces....Although we do wonder wha's … [Read more...]
And here is my worst nightmare
From Macy Halford on The New Yorker's Book Bench blog:While enjoying a typical New York Sunday morning yesterday--coffee, two eggs on a roll, the Times, NPR--I had an unexpected moment of empathy for someone much, much richer than myself: Yann Martel, who reportedly got three million dollars for his new novel, "Beatrice and Virgil," a Holocaust parable about a donkey and a monkey who meet a terrible fate at the hands of a taxidermist. Also about a writer who resembles Martel....I am sitting there, rereading Michiko Kakutani's … [Read more...]
Chopin till you drop
Did not see this coming, in Time Out New York's weekly sample sale round-up: Record Show and CD and Classical Music Expo Eighteen vendors from across the tristate area will congregate and unload new, rare and used records, 45s and CDs, most tagged at $5 or less. Classical-music enthusiasts will be in heaven rifling through the expanded classical section, featuring orchestral, symphonic, opera and soloist discs. Mention TONY to receive $1 off admission. The Holiday Inn, 440 W 57th St between Ninth and Tenth Aves (973-209-6067, … [Read more...]
So you wanna put on a show
Maybe it's just the blogs I read, but it seems to me you can't swing a dead Grizabella the Glamor Cat without hitting a new ridiculous idea for a musical these days. Currently on Broadway, we have the Green Day musical (which I saw at Berkley Rep last spring - I mean, I like Green Day concerts, too, almost as much as I like plots) and an Enron musical. Ah well: it's possible that a musical roughly about a 35-year-old single guy's birthday seemed ridiculous at the time, too, but I can't help but highlight these upcoming projects. In no … [Read more...]
I like to experiment
For the first time in mini-career, I offered a free download of an aria to a blog. I've worked with Sequenza21 on free track giveaways before, but never for what we in the biz (groan) call a "Core Classical" artist. So let's see how we do. Somewhere beyond the sea, OperaChic is giving away an MP3 from Sondra's debut CD, Verdi Arias. It comes out on April 27, but is available now in a tiny record shop in Cupertino, CA called "iTunes." Google Maps can tell you how to get there. The folks at Naxos, the distributor, and Delos, the label, were … [Read more...]
What’s with all these awards
Many congratulations to composer Jennifer Higdon, whose Violin Concerto for Hilary just won the Pulitzer Prize for Music! Many additional congratulations to my client Julia Wolfe, whose Steel Hammer was a Pulitzer finalist. Sadly, Life's a Pitch did not win for Explanatory Reporting like I had hoped, so I'll just have to be satisfied by loose affiliation with Jennifer and Julia's wins this year. Here are Hilary and Jennifer discussing the concerto just after the premiere in Indianapolis last year: As always, updates from the road and composer … [Read more...]