michael nyman

For director Jane Campion to have as noted a composer as Michael Nyman to score the soundtrack for her film The Piano was as simple as a phone call. From his home in Toulouse, Nyman -- whose extensive career is best known for his soundtracks to Peter Greenaway films – acknowledges that he knew Campion’s previous films...
> culturalelsewhere/3694/michael-nyman-interviewed-1993-play-us-a-film-piano-man/

Those many of us seduced by Dudley Benson's previous album (and EPs which preceded it) might not have anticipated the manner of this new one, an entirely a capella art music project based on the poems (birds, the spider) by the late Hirini Melbourne who, with Richard Nunns, led the revival of taonga puoru (tradional Maori instruments) . . . and...
> music/3695/dudley-benson-forest-songs-by-hirini-melbourne-golden-retriever/

The story is such an improbable cliché it can only be true: one night in the late 70s while driving between Stuttgart and Zurich, the famous jazz producer Manfred Eicher heard music on the radio so entrancing he had to pull over to listen more closely. Eicher – founder of the ECM label which has a reputation for music of often...
> culturalelsewhere/3713/arvo-part-tabula-rasa-the-sound-of-angel-wings/

It was disappointing to recently see a blurb on the top of an article about Dudley Benson repeat the hoary line that he "bridges the gap between the pop music of Kylie Minogue" and  . . . in this case . . . the waiata of Hirini Melbourne. The Kylie reference -- something I suspect Benson made some years ago -- is utterly...
> fromthevaults/3718/the-fleetwoods-runaround-1960/

When Tony Palmer made this acclaimed and insightful documentary about Igor Stravinsky on the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth, the great man had been dead less than a decade. As with the other docos by Palmer previously mentioned at Elsewhere (notably All You Need is Love), the filmmaker was therefore close to the lifetime and...
> film/3767/stravinsky-once-at-a-border-a-doco-by-tony-palmer-voiceprint-dvd/

Curiously, it has only been in recent years that the British music press "discovered" Arthur Russell. But maybe not so curious: Russell died of Aids-related illnesses in '92 and although he left behind literally many hundreds of reels of recordings (everything from disco through experimental pop to Russell singing with just his cello...
> fromthevaults/3783/arthur-russell-another-thought-1985/

In many ways Rory Johnston looked exactly what he was, the vice-president of A&R (artists and repertoire) of a contemporary classical music label. It was there in the high, broad forehead and clear eyes, in the modulated speech and the vocabulary which didn't shy from a polysyllable or two. When I met him in the mid Nineties in...
> culturalelsewhere/3878/point-music-1992-2002-a-decade-of-delivering-new-music/

When the Kronos Quartet closed their first album for the Nonesuch label in '86 with this brittle version of Jimi Hendrix's '67 hit even liner note writer Gregory Sandow had to concede that, after a programme of works by Peter Sculthorpe, Aulis Sallinen, Philip Glass and Conlon Nancarrow, it had all the hallmarks of a built-in encore. Known...
> fromthevaults/3972/kronos-quartet-purple-haze-1986/

After John Psathas won best classical album of 1999 at the New Zealand Music Awards in March, nothing happened. No arts writers called wanting to profile this prolific composer, sales of the album Rhythm Spike on the independent Rattle label didn't jump, and no critics decided to belatedly acknowledge this exceptional album which, on...
> culturalelsewhere/4044/john-psathas-interviewed-2000-rattle-of-a-complex-man/

Myth making and hype attached itself to Beethoven at an early age. When he was eight his father -- a boozer -- presented him at a recital as being just six in order to pass him off as a child prodigy like Mozart. Not that Ludwig needed much help in the prodigy stakes. And although he was a genius, it wasn't without a struggle and...
> film/4170/in-the-footsteps-of-famous-composers-time-life-shock-dvd/