The Classical test Source For All The Performing, Visual And Literary Arts & Entertainment News
Percussion

EXCLUSIVE: Robert Sirota on 'Spindrift' with Sandbox Percussion, Concerts in Park Slope and Why He's Not Going on Nadia's 'Meet The Composer' Podcast

With both European bona fides (that Watson fellowship with Nadia Boulanger in Paris) and studies with composers that can sound European (those PhD lessons with Leon Kirchner at Harvard), American composer Robert Sirota remains precisely that: a quintessentially American composer. In his mature works, thorny chromaticism often plays nicely within rounded, deliberate forms. And there's always a true economy of means -- no motive where none intended. European-inspired, maybe, but his is a curious blend, no doubt informed by Sirota's many academic appointments up and down America's eastern seaboard (NYU, BU, Peabody, Manhattan School of Music). Not that Robert Sirota is an ivory tower, himself. Case in point: Sirota's brand new, beguiling work for Sandbox Percussion, Spindrift.
By Maria Jean Sullivan

  • Stayin' Alive: Swingers Marty and Elayne Roberts Celebrate 34 Years at The Dresden [VIDEO]

    No trip to eastside Los Angeles is complete without supping among the friendly, Continental-meets-Mandarin confines of The Dresden. And no visit to that Los Feliz institution there on N. Vermont Ave. can ever be fully appreciated without then stepping one room over to catch the truly dynamic duo of Marty and Elayne Roberts. As of April 1, this all-purpose husband and wife band has been swinging five nights a week for 34 gloriously camp years--long before Jon Favoreau put them in Swingers, proper. (And eons, respectively, before the hipsters damn near destroyed the neigborhood.)
    By Logan K. Young

  • Arthur Russell Tribute at BAM to Feat. Scissor Sister Jake Shears, Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and Dev Hynes

    Following the release of Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell tribute album featuring Hot Chip, Sufjan Stevens, Phosphorescent, Blood Orange and 16 more via Red Hot Organization and Yep Roc; BAM is hosting an evening of performances in honor of the late composer, cellist and electronic musician. Paying tribute to Russell is Devonté Hynes, Richard Reed Parry, Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters, Sam Amidon, Cults, Lonnie Holley, Redding Hunter, Little Scream, Thao Nguyen of Thao & The Get Down Stay Down and Rubblebucket.
    By Maria Jean Sullivan
Real Time Analytics