I look through the concert series around me, and the major ones are full of music I am only interested in tangentially (Poulenc, Schubert, Beethoven, Debussy) or not at all (Mozart, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky). I am fortunate in that I live in a city which has a reasonably lively new music scene with Intersections and NUMUS and Open Ears (although I am shockingly only interested in a few NUMUS concerts this year), and in that I live so close to Toronto with its treasure chest of contemporary classical jewels so I do not go unindulged in my niche tastes. But I live vicariously through the blogs and the hype and the excitement of the New York City contemporary classical scene – it is so brilliant.

I went to the Bang on a Can Marathon this past weekend and listened for all 13 glorious hours! It was fantastic to be around all the composers and musicians who I’ve read about and listened to, as well as the bloggers who provide the reading material. It was even more fantastic to get a chance to hear the music live – Evan Ziporyn is my new hero (“Tire Fire” performed by Gamelan Galak Tika blew my mind, as did Mr. Ziporyn’s clarinetting in the Bang on a Can All-Stars’ several performances), Tim Brady did Canada-dee-doo-dee-da proud with his brand of GuitArt, Florent Ghys took double bass to new heights, Buke and Gass were fantastic (and their CDs sold out before I started my volunteer shift behind the table), German composer Moritz Eggert was engaging and entertaining and played the piano with his ass, and I love love new music recorder quartets. When the QNG played Paul Moravec’s Mortal Flesh I knew it was Meant To Be.

I slept at my awesome friend Agatha Kasprzyk‘s house – she is a Masters student at NYU – and saw this program. Inside: Aggie’s piece, performed in Merkin Hall as part of a Takemitsu tribute concert.

On the back: featured upcoming concerts including THREE (3) artists whose blogs I read.

She also told me about a concert that she and her film-scoring-friends (soon-to-be composition collective) who call themselves “Vision Fugitive” just put on at (Le) Poisson Rouge. I went “!” because of course, everyone and their mother blog about (Le) Poisson Rouge, and I would just about kill puppies to get in on that. I wish I could’ve gone to see it!

Anyway, all this to say: NYC, I am way jealous of your scene!

Also, your baristas know how to spell!

Sorry about the miserable quality of this – I had to scan it on my work scanner and I don’t actually know how it works. But look! A comic!

It’s so amazing.