In October, their first joint work—From Here on Out, a three-movement, 25-minute ballet for American Ballet Theatre—will premiere at City Center. The two got on the phone for a far-flung chat with Rebecca Milzoff: Muhly from a studio in Iceland, Millepied from Martha’s Vineyard.
…the most all-around-lovely concert I’ve ever attended…
“I’m much happier with a zillion things in a huge stack, just being thrown at your face.”
Wish You Were Here, a fanciful, engaging composition by 26-year-old Vermont native Nico Muhly…
Nico Muhly conjured up the end of the world in “Syllables,” with bright, tricky snatches of English and Old Icelandic scattered against shimmering Minimalist pulsations and keyboard arpeggios.
Muhly, who lives in a Chinatown loft with his cat, said he is less snobby about writing for an organization like the Pops than he might have been in years past. In fact, he spoke to Keith Lockhart on the phone, and contrary to the “complete nightmare” he expected, he found the Pops conductor “charming, smart and funny. “He was really great talking to me about Messiaen. I had an out-of-body experience.”
So, The Guardian asked Björk to take over their Film and Music section for today. She, in turn, asked me to write an article and here it is. In it, I discuss singing in a choir as a boy, how that music continues to be relevant to me today, as well as other [...]
To share a matrix with Tori Spelling, the Shake Shack, and the Airbus A380 is a joy beyond all telling.
Best Adaptation of an Extremely Unlikely Source: Nico Muhly’s The Elements of Style. Composers drew inspiration from French storybooks and the Manhattan Project this year, but a grammar guide? Muhly, a 24-year-old Juilliard graduate, brought a soprano, a tenor, an amateur percussion ensemble, and a few professional musicians into the New [...]
The humor of the piece lies more in its straight-faced seriousness. The vocal writing is cast in a distinctly early-music style, the textures as pure and pared down as Strunk and White liked their sentences. There are frequent moments of disarming beauty, as if Mr. Muhly were tempting the listener to forget the jokes and simply listen.