Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Sound art in padded rooms

For the past few weeks I've been entirely occupied with putting together an audition CD for a piano camp this summer. What a grueling, miserable task, enough to drive anyone to a padded cell! I chose Ravel's Valley of the Bells, Rain Tree Sketch II by Toru Takemitsu, and Cançion y danza no. 5 by Federico Mompou, which I played in a master class last fall. If playing the three pieces to death wasn't enough, then there's sifting through multiple recordings looking for the best one. I have boundless admiration for recording artists (although maybe they don't need as many takes as I did, and maybe they have producers to do the sifting).

So my consideration of other music has been minimized, except for a review of Steve Peters' CD of sound art, Three Rooms, which was recently published at furthernoise.org. I should get back to other, more interesting topics, real soon now.

No comments: