Opera in the Present Tense

If you're not an active opera fan you may not know that there's opera other than La Bohème performed in America. No, I don't mean Carmen. Or The Mikado.

I mean opera composed by people who are still alive. This is exciting to me not only due to the excellence of the music, the brilliance of the singers, and the incredible vistas of the sets which are art in themselves. It excites me because there is new life constantly being breathed into the genre.


Here's a sampling of some new American opera that's making waves.

Il Postino--Daniel Catán
Based on the 1994 film by the same name as well as the 1985 novel Ardiente Paciencia by Antonio Skármeta, this opera addresses the end of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's life in exile from his homeland. Premiered at LA Opera in August 2010.

Shadowboxer--Frank Proto and John Chenault
Based on the tumultuous personal life of boxer Joe Louis. Premiered at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in April 2010. Along with the pit, the opera calls for an 8-piece jazz combo onstage.

Moby Dick--Jake Heggie
Exactly what it sounds like. This adaptation of the classical Melville novel had a positively triumphant premiere with an all-star cast at the Dallas Opera in April 2010.

The Inspector--John Musto
To be premiered in April 2011 by the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. Loosely based on Gogol's satire The Government Inspector.

Orpheus and Euridice--Ricky Ian Gordon
Orpheus and Euridice saw a smashing success in 2008 at Long Beach Opera. The work casts a soprano as Euridice and a clarinetist as Orpheus, both of whom dance throughout the opera.

Paradise Lost--Eric Whitacre
Whitacre is primarily known for his choral works and caused quite a stir when, at a very high point in his popularity, he announced this work. A mixture of styles was used in what he calls "music theatre." Inspired heavily by Japanese anime and manga, the show melds opera with musical theatre, electronica, film score, and Asian drumming.

Madame White Snake--Zhou Long
A classical Chinese transformation myth about a white snake demon who turns into a beautiful woman in order to experience love. Premiered February 2010, Opera Boston.

Before Night Falls--Jorge Martín
Produced by the Fort Worth Opera (my hometown, by the way) in May 2010, this work is based on the book and subsequent film of the same name. The story is autobiographical, a look at the life, imprisonment, and escape of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas.

Two Boys--Nico Muhly
The first opera from the 28-year old darling of the "nonclassical" genre, this is said to be the story of a murder hatched by two young men in a chat room. To be premiered at the ENO in 2011.


National Opera Week wraps up on Sunday, November 7. I hope that you will enjoy some more opera before that day and beyond!




Pro musica,

Mo
nmlhelp@naxousa.com

National Opera Week Festivities!

National Opera Week is October 29-November 7, 2010!

I find that people rarely take a neutral position on opera.* They tend to love or hate opera, laud or lambaste it. But at least during National Opera Week, I encourage you to have equal-opportunity ears--you might just find something you'll love.
Below you will find some links and catalog numbers so you can check this out for yourself!


According to OPERA America, National Opera Week is not only a week to promote opera across the country, but is also a time to continue celebrating the accomplishments of the 2010 NEA Opera Honors recipients: Soprano Martina Arroyo, General Director David DiChiera, Composer Philip Glass and Music Director Eve Queler. If you are lucky enough to live somewhere fancy, you might have access to a free event, open recitals, and more.

If your hometown doesn't have these types of offerings, you can always worship at the temple of La Divina from home** by reading, watching, and listening. You can even sing if you are so inclined and your neighbors are out of town.***


Blogs
People Who Talk About Opera:
Opera Chic- If you were unaware, snarkiness is beloved in opera, and Opera Chic knows how to do it right. There's also opera news.
Operagasm- Don't worry about the name, the site is both practical for opera singers and hilarious for all parties.
Opera Tattler- Opera reviews and chat in San Fran and beyond.
An Unamplified Voice- Met Opera Reviews.


People Who Do Opera and Talk About It (Or Have Their Publicists Talk About It) Later:
Joyce DiDonato
Nicholas Phan
Anna Netrebko


Opera Houses:
Metropolitan Opera (Also check out the fabulous Met Player!!!)
New York City Opera
Washington National Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Royal Opera House
Teatro Colon


In the NML:
Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro-- 8.660102-04
Verdi, Tosca-- HCD31096-97
Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxos--C67166-67
Bellini, La Sonnambula--NEI232475
Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin--ALC2007
Wagner, Tristan und Isolde--8.660152-54
Britten, Peter Grimes--LSO0054
Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor--CDS576
Adams, Nixon in China--8.669022-24









So get in the spirit, will you?




Pro musica,
Mo
nmlhelp@naxosusa.com





*My position is staunchly pro-opera.
**Preferably in pajamas with a glass of wine.
***Just kidding, who cares if your neighbors are there?

Oh, there's more.

I expect that many of you are quite familiar with the classical realm of the NML. It’s what most institutions and individuals subscribe for, it makes up the greatest portion of our catalogue, and Naxos is a classical record label. It all makes sense.
What you may not know is that we have other stuff on the NML. Lots of other stuff.

We’re going to do a few posts on that “other stuff,” highlighting certain labels, popular artists and albums on the NML, different genres that can be found, and more.

To open this up, let’s talk about one of our favorite popular music sources in the NML: selections from the Sun Records catalogue.




You may be familiar with Sun Records as an historic record company in Memphis, TN or simply as the place where Elvis got his start. If you’re interested in learning more about the history, artists, recordings, and future of Sun Records, check out their website at www.sunrecords.com.

Sun Records
Founded: 1952, Memphis, TN
Founder: Sam Phillips
Styles: Rockabilly, gospel, blues, hillbilly, country, boogie, western swing
Key Artists: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, Conway Twitty, Howlin’ Wolf


Found it on the NML:

Johnny Cash: Greatest Hits-Finest Performances
015047800711










Patsy Cline: Classics
015047800049










Howlin’ Wolf: The Memphis Sessions
015047800094










Jerry Lee Lewis: Jerry Lee’s Greatest
015047800247










Roy Orbison: At the Rock House
015047800254










Charlie Rich: The Memphis Sound
015047801596










Merle Haggard: Classics
015047800056










The Dixie Cups: Chapel of Love
015074800029










So anyway, lend an ear to those golden sounds of the past.
And don't shoot me if you contend that this music doesn't belong to the past.

I am, as always, pro musica-
Mo


nmlhelp@naxosusa.com

Spooky Playlist Part II

Some people I know like it when the spooky sneaks up on them. They listen to those songs that you don’t notice creeping you out until you’re already totally creeped out. Some of these are like that, all chamber-y and quietly weird. But some of them are big and intense like the sounds that always happen in horror movies. Those creep me out at my desk at work in the middle of the day. In April.

Where Part 1 was mostly programmatic symphonic music of the romantic period, these pieces tend to be less traditional in their instrumentation and their sound. So. Enjoy!

Spooky Playlist Part the Second:

Kodaly
Sonata for Solo Cello, op. 8

HCD31046 Tr. 3-5

Ligeti
Volumina

BIS-CD-509 Tr. 8

Crumb

Black Angels "13 Images from the Dark Land", "Images I"

BCD9139 Tr. 9-21

Feeney

Dracula

8.553964

Ligeti

Atmospheres
9.50022 Tr. 1

Penderecki

Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima

0010122BC Disc 2 Tr. 5

Bartok
Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (Mvmt III- Adagio)

HSACD32510 Tr. 3

Xenakis
ST/48

1C1113 Tr. 3

Messiaen

Quatour pour la fin du temps
CHAN10480 Tr. 8-15

And of course, my favorite:

Pro musica,

Mo

nmlhelp@naxosusa.com

Spooky Playlist Part I

I know that October has barely managed to arrive and I'm already bludgeoning it to death with autumn/harvest/Halloween hoodlum-ery. I can't help it. I'm just excitable.
In honor of the advent of The Spookiest of Months I give you:

Spooky Playlist: Part the First*
A sampling of the creepy classics to suit all of your spooky needs

Bach
Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538, "Dorian"
PSC1152 Tr. 10-11

Bach
Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542
8.550652 Tr. 4

Liszt
Prelude and Fugue on the name B-A-C-H, S260/R381
Carus83.171 Tr. 1-2

Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition –The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga)
8.553249 Tr. 20

Berlioz
Symphony Fantastique (Mvmt. V- Ronde du Sabbat)
LSO0007 Tr. 5

Britten
4 Sea Interludes (Mvmt. 1- Dawn and mvmt. 4- Storm)
CHAN9221 Tr. 34-37

Prokofiev
Alexander Nevsky (Mvmt. V- The Battle on Ice)
DOR-90169 Tr. 5

Mussorgsky (arr. Rimsky-Korsakov)
St. John’s Night on Bald Mountain, “A Night on the Bare Mountain”
BIS-CD-325 Tr. 17

Verdi
Messa da Requiem (Dies irae, dies illa)
CHAN9490 Tr. 2

Stravinsky
Le Sacre du Printemps (esp. Patr II, The Sacrifice: Sacrificial Dance)
KMHCD20 Tr. 14

Grieg
Peer Gynt Suite (Mvmt. IV- In the Hall of the Mountain King)
KMHCD20 Tr. 4

Orff
Carmina Burana (Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: O Fortuna)
8.570033 Tr. 1

Stravinsky
Firebird Suite (mvmt. 5- Danse infernale du roi Kastchei)
900706 Tr. 5

Rachmaninoff
The Isle of the Dead
HCD31551 Tr. 1

Saint-Saens
Danse Macabre
0094652BC Tr. 4

Falla
El Amor Brujo (Danza Ritual del Fuego)
V4768 Tr. 8

Kodaly
Sonata for Solo Cello, op. 8
HCD31046 Tr. 3-5

I leave you with this gem, which is unfortunately not in the NML and therefore does not qualify for the playlist but is excellent all the same.

*Part the Second is forthcoming and will contain other brands of creepiness.

Icons for Sign and Website Use

Here are a few icons just in case you need them! You can use these:

1. on your library signage to promote your subscriptions to the Naxos Online Libraries
2. on your library site to link directly to the services
3. in other places because you are so creative! I was thinking maybe buttons to show your music library pride. Or a knitting pattern! Maybe? It's up to you.


If you are using this on your library's site, be sure to link to your school/library's unique URL if you want users to log in automatically. For example, link to http://yourschool.naxosmusiclibrary.com instead of http://naxosmusiclibrary.com.
















I hope these will cover your needs for now!
Please drop me a line if you have questions or ideas to share (or if you need more icons!).



Pro musica,

Mo

nmlhelp@naxosusa.com

Calling All App Users!

So you have downloaded an app for the NML, NMLJ or NSWL.

That's great…unless you can’t use it.

What I have heard from a lot of librarians and professors lately is that they need an easy step-by-step guide to setting the app up for first time use. Here by popular demand is just such a guide!

Creating a Personal/Student Playlist for Naxos Apps

The iPhone app was designed with our institutional users in mind, so a subscription through a university, library, school, or orchestra works. It just works little differently on an iPhone than on a computer.

For one thing, it does NOT require any work with IP authentication or the university's proxy server.

To generate a login for the NML app, you should:

1. Visit the NML page for your institution (library, university, school, orchestra, etc.) from a computer by going through the institution’s unique URL: http://example.naxosmusiclibrary.com

2. Navigate to the Playlist area and click “Sign Up” in the "Personal/Student" playlist account area.

3. Create a login on the sign up page. This login, consisting of your email address and a custom password, then becomes your login for the app.

See the tutorial below if you need help creating a personal/student playlist account.

Once you are fully signed up you will have access to the institution’s playlists and you can create your own customized playlists as well. I recommend creating a playlist on a computer before attempting to access through the app. For some reason it seems to make your first access run more smoothly.

You can also use the app to search and browse the full NML anytime, anywhere! That means you can stream music anytime, anywhere!

Happy Mobile Browsing, Music Lovers!

Pro musica,
Mo

nmlhelp@naxosusa.com

Librarians: Please feel free to share or link this on your library’s website, as well as share or embed the YouTube tutorial to help your patrons use the NML more effectively.

Lions and Tigers and Dragons, Oh My! The Music of Video Games

Hi Friends,

Ever wonder what we're really like - as the "voices" behind the NML in the US? Well look no further than the latest blog posting on the official Naxos of America blog, Portara! Head on over and have a listen - it's music you may have never heard before!

Happy Gaming!
Nick

Nick@NaxosUSA.com
615.465.3836

Join in the conversation!

Living Music

When most people think of classical music they think of the tried and true standbys of opera and orchestra—Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Verdi, Debussy, and so on.
You know, the dead white guys.
But when you love classical music like we do, you know that we also need to look forward in order to keep it growing and vital.
Today I want to briefly look at a few living composers who continue to change the face of art music by pushing boundaries, blending uncommon elements, or just quietly filling the world with the beautiful.




David Lang (b. 1957)
I have a slight obsession with the work of Bang On A Can co-founder David Lang. I’m deep in score study on his Pulitzer Prize-winning Little Match Girl Passion for SATB soli and percussion. Lang’s work is known to be quite easy on the ear-- especially as far as postminimalist composers go—but it is in truth mathematically conceived, heavily structured, and driven by fidelity to meter. Pieces like his orchestral work Pierced demonstrate the surprisingly accessible result of this percussionist’s metrical attention.
Lang also pushes the boundaries of art music by bringing in popular references. From Jimi Hendrix (Are You Experienced?) to reworking the Velvet Underground tune “Heroin” into an 11-minute, lush motivic meditation for voice and cello.

Found it on the NML:
- Pierced / 8.559615 / orch
- Heroin / 8.559615 / chamber
- Are you Experienced? / CHAN9363 / orch
- Memory Pieces / INNOVA734 / solo piano





Hilary Tann ( b. 1947)
Tann is a Welsh-born composer now living and working in the U.S. Her compositional style is often described as being reflective of her environmental background in Wales: lyrical, unvarnished, spare. The lyricism in her works, however, is at little risk for mawkishness by virtue of the composer’s astute attention to texture and harmony.
The Moor, an a cappella duet for soprano and mezzo-soprano, pits two voices, two textures, two rhythmic functions, against one another and allows them to rub and pass one another like feet on a bare floor. Though Tann’s Welsh heritage informs much of her output, she is known to draw inspiration from yet another culture noted for appreciation of simplicity. After cultivating a musicological interest for some time, Tann took a short teaching residence in the Kansai region of Japan and pursued study of the shakuhachi, or Japanese bamboo flute, which appears in several of her works.

Found it on the NML:
- Llef / PH05019 / chamber
- The Cresset Stone / PH05019 / chamber
- Shakkei / NSR1048 / orch





Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960)
Born in Argentina to Eastern-European Jewish parents, Osvaldo Golijov spent his early life surrounded by tango, klezmer, Jewish liturgical, and classical chamber music. From this uncommon musical soup came a composer with a singular voice and a broad compositional scope.
Golijov’s music can swing between Jewish and Latin American cultures with astonishing speed, though most of his pieces have a prevailing cultural language. His work La Pasion Segun San Marcos (St. Mark Passion) is a massive bombshell of a piece, turning the genre dominated by Bach on its ear with blaring brass, pulsating percussion, and Spanish text. Other pieces, such as klezmer-influenced works Yiddishbbuk and Rocketeyka, have a distinctly Jewish tone. Still others, like Mariel for cello and marimba and much of his vocal work recorded by Dawn Upshaw, simply showcase a composer with an acutely advanced harmonic language.

Found it on the NML:
- La Pasion Segun San Marcos / CD98.404 / oratorio
- Yiddishbbuk / DSL-92108 / chamber
- Tenebrae / ORC100012 / chamber



Pro musica,

Mo
nmlhelp@naxosusa.com

Hey, Good-Lookin'

You may have noticed some changes taking place that are starting to make this blog look pretty good. For instance, the orange-and-tan combo is gone! Things have been streamlined and reorganized! It could be 2010 instead of 1999!

But upping the pretty factor is not the only change that will be taking place on the NML blog.
In fact, we are going to blow this thing wide open.

From now on we plan to make this blog more functional and up-to-date. We want to make getting information a simple and enjoyable experience for you. We want to open up our content to include things that we are passionate about: more music content, more arts education content, more in general as we will be posting every week.

Don’t worry; you will still get your updates on the tech and usage side of the NML.

But along with those updates, maybe you’ll find something excellent to listen to, a point to raise in class, or a new angle on an issue. Maybe you’ll just get to know us better and feel more comfortable asking questions.

Want to get involved in what we’ve got cooking? Let us know what you want to see here by commenting, e-mailing, tweeting, or facebooking us.

We wanted to make things better for you because that’s what we are about--making classical music accessible.

Pro musica,

Mo

nmlhelp@naxosusa.com