The harpsichordist and ensemble leader William Christie could quite easily be mistaken for a patrician, 1960s-era CIA operative out of Norman Mailer’s novel Harlot’s Ghost. Yesterday morning, he was wearing a fitted black suit, blue shirt, beige pocket square, and polka dot socks, and spoke in aristocratic American English that clearly recalled his days studying […]
Author Archives: Jeffrey Arlo Brown
... has been an editor at VAN since 2015. His work has also appeared in Slate, The Baffler, The Outline, The Calvert Journal, and Electric Lit. He lives in Berlin.
Posted inInterview
Suspended States
In October, Erstwhile Records released a recording of the Swiss composer Jürg Frey’s six hour tape piece “l’àme est sans retenue I.” I took this opportunity to revisit and translate a conversation we had in August 2016 via Skype. VAN: Your piece “A Memory of Perfection,” for solo violin, takes its title from an interview […]
Posted inInterview
Malleable Structures
The composer and performer Tyshawn Sorey was in Berlin recently as the very first Artist in Residence at the Berlin Festival’s JazzFest. At a concert on November 2, he played an array of highly differentiated sounds, combining subtly with his trio colleagues Christopher Tordini and Cory Smythe. For large chunks of the work, Sorey’s face […]
Posted inReport
Critic Bashing
It’s a peculiar and alienating feeling to sit among a crowd of people and feel as defensive as the others feel delighted, as unmoved as they feel enthusiastic. That’s what happened to me on October 22, when Vladimir Jurowski, the conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and new music director of the Berlin Radio Symphony […]
Posted inInterview
Climbing Mountains
Unsuk Chin’s new work “Chorós Chordón” will be premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic under Simon Rattle tomorrow, November 3. In advance of the concert, we spoke with her about Ligeti’s tough side, the Korean new music scene, and glamor in classical music. VAN: How do you deal with loneliness, self-doubt, and frustration in your work? […]
Posted inReview
Two Sides of a Concert, Part I
Naively in retrospect, I came to the Deutsche Oper’s recent production of “Elektra” with an expectation that its reception would be mostly positive. The work is a staple of German opera, staged at a respected German opera house, seasonally appropriate with blood and gore in October, and featuring a world-renowned Wagnerian soprano, Catherine Foster, in […]
Posted inInterview
Good Giggles
The first time classical music humor on the internet was funny can be dated to approximately September 22, 2016, the launch of the page Classical Music Memes for Contemporary Teens. Once ruled by “Bach to the Future” and “You Can’t Handel It” type jokes, classical music humor now referenced Ferneyhough and conservatory anxiety and caused […]
Posted inPlaylist
A Francisco Guerrero Marín Playlist
The Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero Marín had a rare talent: he was a master of beginnings. More often than not, his pieces start with textures of blinding, gripping intensity. From there, they explore musical landscapes similar to those of Giacinto Scelsi at his most rugged and alpine. One Spanish critic described Guerrero Marín’s music as […]
Posted inInterview
Give Them A Vision
I studied with the violinist Roberto González-Monjas at the Mozarteum, in Salzburg, from 2009–2011. My age and once my neighbor in a dormitory, he is now principal concert master of the Swiss chamber orchestra Musikkollegium Winterthur and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Selfies of him with Yuja Wang appear from time […]
Posted inEssay
Sound in Flight
The Airbus A320 was quiet as it waited on the runway behind the other planes for takeoff. I put on a Guillaume de Machaut motet, “Tribulatio proxima est et non est qui adjuvet,” in my headphones. The pilot pushed the throttle forward and the plane picked up speed. A male voice joined the two female […]