Last night the mutantrumpet was played at Zankel Hall. But not by me. In a rare performance by another trumpeter, Brandon Ridenour played my instrument in a piece by Hungarian composer Peter Eotvos. It’s a chamber concerto for double belled trumpet, voice and a small ensemble.  Another trumpet player, Marco Blaauw was (I believe) responsible for the inclusion of a double belled trumpet in the work, titled Snatches of a Conversation. Some years ago Blaauw emailed me and told me about his double bell trumpet, acknowledging that he was aware of my work with the mutantrumpet for a number of years before. His instrument does not have electronics, it is purely acoustic. But he performs and commissions a lot of contemporary music for it. Ridenour played the mutantrumpet once before in a performance of this work at Juilliard. (more…)
Over the last few months I’ve been really enjoying Appleblim’s podcasts and tracks…you can watch a 2 hour interview on Resident Advisor with him here, he plays some nice tracks during the interview too:
As the new year gets going I feel more optimistic than usual; while I think my viewpoint tends toward the pessimistic, with the new administration coming in there are plenty of reasons to be excited, even in the wake of economic difficulties. I think slow economic periods can bring more interesting creative expression. The last downturn was synchronous with the birth of electronica. That’s the other thing I’m excited about for 2009, dubstep, grime, wonky, uk funky, all of these new dance music genres are developing, making the connection with drum and bass, garage, and other intelligent dance music styles from the last decade. It’s about time all of that great energy got rechanneled!