Trois Pièces Brèves

Hokusai's Wave from the cover of the 1905 edition of La Mer

     I.  The Charles Ives Society to the rescue!  Scholars and others will take the lead in raising the $1.5 million needed to buy Ives’ house, 18-acre property, a cottage and a barn.  Descendent Charles Ives Tyler, who put the house up for sale last year, says he’s happy about this development.  Read more here.    

II.  He’s not resting on his laurels.  Eastman grad-slash-2012 Pulitzer prize-winning composer Kevin Puts says he’s “very excited” about the upcoming premiere of To Touch the Sky (Nine Songs for Unaccompanied Chorus on Texts by Women) and also "If I Were a Swan" (with text by his aunt Fleda Brown) by choral ensemble Conspirare in Austin, Texas.  Craig Hella Johnson will conduct.  With round-trip flights from Rochester to Austin around $400, it’s tempting to make plans, isn’t it?  The singers are recording both pieces to be included, along with Puts’  Symphony No. 4 with the Baltimore Symphony and Marin Alsop, on a forthcoming Harmonia Mundi CD. The first all-Puts CD!  Stay tuned . . .

III.  The Eastman School is gearing up for a national Debussy festival.  Why Debussy?  Why not?  Maybe it has something to do with foresight and old money and a rare document. And maybe wildly fantastic music, too.  Just don't ask Marie Rolf about the composer's treatment of women . . .