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EXCLUSIVE: Robert Sirota on 'Spindrift' with Sandbox Percussion, Concerts in Park Slope and Why He's Not Going on Nadia's 'Meet The Composer' Podcast

With both European bona fides (that Watson fellowship with Nadia Boulanger in Paris) and studies with composers that can sound European (those PhD lessons with Leon Kirchner at Harvard), American composer Robert Sirota remains precisely that: a quintessentially American composer. In his mature works, thorny chromaticism often plays nicely within rounded, deliberate forms. And there's always a true economy of means -- no motive where none intended. European-inspired, maybe, but his is a curious blend, no doubt informed by Sirota's many academic appointments up and down America's eastern seaboard (NYU, BU, Peabody, Manhattan School of Music). Not that Robert Sirota is an ivory tower, himself. Case in point: Sirota's brand new, beguiling work for Sandbox Percussion, Spindrift.
By Maria Jean Sullivan

  • EXCLUSIVE: Loren Mazzacane Connors on Tinnitus Music Series, Miles Davis' "He Loved Him Madly," Wife Suzanne Langille and Analog vs. Digital

    The one, true guitar hero, Loren Connors is nothing if not prolific: 50-plus records as far flung as Drag City to Ecstatic Peace/Father Yod to Table of the Elements, as well as countless more via his own imprints (Daggett, St. Joan, Black Label, etc.) under at least as many aliases (Loren MazzaCane Connors, Loren Mattei, Guitar Roberts, ad inf.). Despite being diagnosed with Parkinson's in the early 1990s, live and in-person, Connors continues pretty much unabated (cf. with Keiji Haino at the Whitney, with Tim Hecker at the Wick, that sold-out show at ISSUE Project with girl-in-a-band du jour Kim Gordon). Faster than Derek Bailey, more powerful than Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca combined, able to leapfrog over Ry Cooder with a single, boundless bar of blues, his 65-year-old l'éminence grise answered some of Classicalite's none too pressing queries via e-mail.
    By Maria Jean Sullivan

  • PREMIERE: Roomful of Teeth, Ohio's Constella Festival Team Up for William Brittelle's "High Done No Why To" Music Video

    With Ward Swingle gone from the SATB earth and Tim Hauser transferring no more 'cross Manhattan, the timing couldn't be any more right for Roomful of Teeth to become our starriest vocal band. Fresh off one of the most exciting drones at the Met's Temple of Dendur since, well, Interpol's record release party, the GRAMMY Award-winning ensemble (Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance) with that youngest-ever Pulitzer recipient (Caroline Shaw) on one of the best labels in the new music biz (New Amsterdam) hasn't yet made a music vid proper. Until now, of course.
    By Logan K. Young