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 issues stemming […]
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 York Public Library for […]
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.
Rulebooks of English grammar are not generally known for their longevity, or for their ability to implant themselves in the broader cultural imagination. But as even William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White conceded, every rule has its exceptions. Strunk and White’s legendary “Elements of Style” was first published in 1959, and in the intervening […]
But his textures are anything but minimal: this was active, refreshing, original music, engaging in its timbres, and penetrating far beyond mere text setting or tone painting to stand up to its poetry.
…Of the composers I heard, the one who seems best poised for a major career is Nico Muhly, a twenty-two year-old, spiky-haired, healthily irreverent student of Corigliano’s at Juilliard. He has formed his own private repertory, running from the purest, hootiest English choral music to minimalism in its raw, classic phase. These tastes reflect two […]
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