Saturday, November 24, 2012

Hurricane Sandy and New Amsterdam

This is a bit of a delayed response (school, teaching, and fall madness have gotten in the way of my blogging in general...), but in case you haven't read or heard about this, Hurricane Sandy devastated New Amsterdam's brand new headquarters.

New Amsterdam has done wonderful things for the new music community and if there is any way that you can give back to them, it would be a huge help.

You can read about their situation and donate by clicking here. Much of New York is still recovering from the destruction of this storm. Please help if you can afford to do so!

Posted by Natalie

Friday, November 16, 2012

Wedding Music for Composers/New Music Performers

I have an idea about a new market segment that I bet most composers (and new music performers) have not thought to tap (or maybe you have, maybe I'm just late to the party): WEDDING MUSIC. I know, it sounds crazy, but hear me out. I actually think it might not be a terrible idea.

Here is the scene: You are a composer (and/or someone who performs new music a lot). You are getting married. You realize you need to think about music for the ceremony. Suddenly, you have a panic attack: "I'm a composer! Everyone is going to expect me to have SUPER AWESOME MUSIC AT THIS WEDDING!!!" Or at least that's what I did. You're probably all wondering why I didn't just write a ton of new music for my own wedding, since that would have (probably) been the most meaningful music to have- but wedding planning can be very stressful. Add to that the stress of writing the music for your own wedding- clearly whatever you write has to be absolutely perfect and meaningful, while still being "you"- and maybe you can understand why I didn't go down that path. I know people who do, and I admire them. But for those of us who decide we can't write our own music but still want something a little more true to us than Pachelbel's Canon (no matter how lovely a piece it is), what do we do?