Ives Vocal Marathon, Day 3

Come back with your 129 songs or on it.

Ives Vocal Marathon Day 2

You haven’t lived until you’ve ivesed.

Ives Vocal Marathon – Day 1

So I’m field reporting from Wesleyan this weekend, as a participant in the Ives Vocal Marathon (http://ivesvocalmarathon.com). Festivities started this afternoon, after checking in to the fashionable Inn at Middletown (the former armory), with a keynote by Kyle Gann. He gave an extremely eloquent exposition of why Ives’s songs in particular benefit from a six-concert ur-listening, and also gave a whirlwind tour of some of the highpoints to come. This was followed by a pair of videos by Michael Pestel, an “Environmental Installaction artist,” one of which incorporated a prepared piano version of “Sunrise”, accompanied to a visual of a river (at – you got it – sunrise), and then a blog-description-defying piece about Ives, the Hale Bopp Comet, and the Heaven’s Gate Cult.

Things get underway in earnest tomorrow with two panels, two concerts (I’m part of the pre concert one tomorrow – please come!) and, a performance by the world reknowned Wesleyan Gamelan.

August Wilson and Musicology

Ryan Raul Bañagale spends part of Martin Luther King Day thinking about the work of August Wilson, fictionalized music history, its musicological potential.