This is to commemorate Linda Shaver-Gleason who passed away last week, aged 36. A public musicologist, as she used to refer to herself, Linda appeared as a scholar of Mendelssohn’s reception history, as a highly valued author writing for diverse outlets, and not least as an influential blogger who reached out via her own website Not Another Music History Cliché. Her eloquence, commitment, and courage will be missed. May she rest in peace and her legacy continue.
Musicians Craving for Recognition
I find it deplorable that executives of the largest professional body of musicians in Germany, Deutscher Tonkünstlerverband, present themselves with misleading or plainly wrong information regarding their actual occupation. Here are three examples:
(1) Saxophonist Detlef Bensmann, current chairman of DTKV Berlin, claims to be a professor on his Instagram account. In fact, he holds no such position at any public institution.
(2) Flutist Adelheid Krause-Pichler, current vice president of DTKV Germany, refers to herself as a composer on her website. In fact, she does not appear in public with her own compositions, provided there are any.
(3) Composer Gabriel Iranyi, former board member of DTKV Berlin, claims to be a musicologist in several places. In fact, he has never published or lectured substantially in this discipline.
Youth Project in Magdeburg
Glad to be part of the music theatre education project YOUR_Street.Scene of Theater Magdeburg which is loosely based on Kurt Weill‘s opera Street Scene. During the next months I will be conducting a creative workshop with a class of 11th-graders at International Gymnasium Pierre Trudeau Barleben, resulting in a musical and choreographic performance which will be presented inside and outside the Magdeburg opera house in July 2020. Today has been the first session—the students show a promising level of musical understanding and vocal and instrumental skills, and I look forward to developing ideas for their collective improvisations and compositions. Thanks to the resourceful Matthias Brandt for initiating this collaboration!
Nikolai Medtner 140
It’s not that I attach particular importance to jubilees and anniversaries, and the upcoming BTHVN 2020 celebrations will leave me largely indifferent. However, I suppose I am unlikely to let this day pass unnoticed: Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was born 140 years ago. Happy birthday, mate, your music is an infinite source of inspiration to me, and will continue to give me moments of passion, joy, and utter beatitude. It is my sincere hope that you would have condoned the following arrangement which I prepared in 2018, and am now re-posting here as a posthumous present—I borrowed the catchiest tunes from your C major Sonata, Op. 11 No. 3, added an English translation of the Goethe lyrics which you chose as a motto for that work, and compiled these ingredients into a little jazz ballad named Atonement. I’ll be more than content if this trifle serves no other purpose than provide a humble delight for the fellow admirers of your art.
Turn of the Year
Happy holiday season to all of you, regardless of what you celebrate these days, and a pleasant end of the year! Here is a little thing that I wanted to share with you: a live recording of the most recent performance of my music. Petra Vidmar and Erazem Grafenauer of Duo Xylocorda appear in the duo suite At the Forest Verge for guitar and marimba, forming part of a concert in Ljubljana Town Hall, Slovenia, in October 2019. Hope you listen with as much delight as I did. So long—see you in 2020!