Marina López Marina López In Pittsburgh we live and breathe every day amongst the ruins of the furnaces in which the foundations of this great nation were forged. The people of this city tell stories about their fathers and grandfathers working at these furnaces; the hell on earth upon which the skyscrapers of New York and Chicago were born. (I highly recommend my teacher Leonardo Balada’s Steel Symphony to get a sense of what these places sounded like.) Through the 1970s and ’80s, as the steel industry moved abroad, the city shrank and had to reinvent itself. Today, it likes to picture itse ..read more

Life can be unpredictable at times, and that is how I came back to playing baritone saxophone after twenty years of the horn collecting dust in my attic. It was the most unlikely course of events, but I am a firm believer that those are the times to make adventurous choices. I had no idea how life-changing that “sure, why not?” moment would be and how it would end up being one of the most rewarding choices of my life. I would like to say that the opinions I am about to express are about my personal journey and how I feel about my own evolution and self-discovery. I am fully aware of the amount ..read more

This is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to write in my life. After nearly a quarter century of continuous work (more than half my adult life) as the Editor of NewMusicBox and also eventually as Composer Advocate for what was originally the American Music Center and which in 2011 became New Music USA, I am resigning from my full time work here to devote more of my energies to being an educator. I have accepted a full time faculty position as Assistant Professor of Musicology at The New School’s College of Performing Arts (which includes The Mannes School of Music). Back in the ..read more

“There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.” ― Martha Graham Let’s face it – the world of contemporary concert music has never been as diverse and engaging as it is presently. As someone who grew up during the age of Serialism versus Minimalism, I feel so fortunate to be exposed to music being written today that connects with and welcomes an ever-broader and larger audience. This music has inspired me to create my own music and to release the composer within myself. Background From ..read more

Growing up in Soviet-era Lithuania, where people were often afraid to express their real feelings, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė discovered early on that music was safer than language and that it could enable her to express her innermost feelings without self censoring. It ultimately led her on the path to becoming a composer whose music is performed all over the world.  Although Žibuoklė now divides her time between a democratic Lithuania and the United States, her formative experiences have led her to explore a sonic vocabulary, which though frequently inspired by nature and always deeply emoti ..read more

Dear T—–, As your father, I want to welcome you to this world. I understand that you are only 16 months old, and so your ability to fully comprehend this letter may take some time. But, I wanted to write this now, while your mother’s pregnancy, your birth, and the newborn and infant days of your life are still so fresh in my memory. So much joy and suffering has already happened that I fear I will intentionally or unintentionally block out all the bad memories, and in the process, lose the opportunity to save the good ones. Or maybe I’ll just simply forget everything—the bad and the good—with ..read more

I’ve been a violinist for forty years and I have made a living from it since completing school twenty years ago. I’ve also been afflicted with chronic neurological Lyme Disease and co-infections for thirty-three years, and boy oh boy, does it get in the way. So, how do I deal with it, you ask?  Well, write a trio about it, of course. I started learning the violin just before my fifth birthday through a Suzuki program in New Jersey. My teacher was Louise Butler, a Suzuki guru who studied with the Sevcik student, Scott Willitts. (I have autographed photos of Willitts, Suzuki, and Sevcik on ..read more

Yesterday, after almost a month of rain and floods here in California — unreal and biblical — Jeremy and I enjoyed several hours of very welcome sunshine. What struck us was how much life there was everywhere, a testament to how the earth wants to grow, to exist in health, to be a paradise even after the stresses humans have imposed on it. We found groves of matsutake mushrooms that are currently drying in front of our fireplace, and I fried up cat’s ear leaves (a bit like sweeter dandelion greens) for dinner. New yarrow, lavender, and Cleveland sage went into bedtime tea for little old lady m ..read more

Composer inti figgis-vizueta creates music that carefully balances experimentation and practicality. She likens her compositions to plants which have the ability to grow and change when different people perform them. “We’re able to continue to revisit them and see how they’ve changed,” she explained when we met over Zoom in mid-June. “I’ll hear people come back and play something that I haven’t heard in years. I thought I had a stable sense of that piece in my mind and suddenly someone just blows me away with a completely different place that they go with it. And to me, that has to feel really ..read more

More than anything, our climate change studies have helped me gain tremendous perspective, to understand climate change from the vantage point of the individuals experiencing and digesting it, and to hear of their struggles, worries, and aspirations as they ride the rogue waves of this crisis. And while it is necessary to learn about the experiences of those most immediately affected by climate change in various parts of the world, I am equally interested in the stories I have heard from every one of you. As a fellow musician, I often find your thoughts and solutions to be more easily applicab ..read more