My email inbox likes to throw a curveball at me every now and then. Much as I hadn’t expected spring in the UK to announce its arrival with freezing temperatures and pistol whips of arctic hail, the suggestion from VAN’s dear editors that I undertake some of the stranger habits of composers was one I […]
Author Archives: Zack Ferriday
Posted inReport
Schism Symphony
In my adopted home of Berlin, it’s possible to cycle past the Konzerthaus, the Staatsoper, the Komische Oper and the Philharmonie in the space of around 10 minutes, 15 if you’re pedaling flaneur-style. On a warm weekend, tourists drift down Unter den Linden, a large boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate, like schools of fish; […]
Posted inEssay
Platétudes
Musical activism reached its zenith in the wake of the political turbulence of the 1960s and ‘70s. From Bob Dylan’s “With God on Our Side” to Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” the cold war era was a time when people, even faced with the prospect of global annihilation, still believed in the power […]
Posted inReview
I Tried to do Yoga to “Classical Music for Yoga” Playlists
It was the nicest day in months that I’d set aside to once again experiment with “art” music’s more pragmatic uses, and see whether classical music playlists for yoga could realign my chakras and bring my sun-starved, cold-ridden body back to life. Unfortunately, the sudden warm weather meant that after a couple of beers in […]
Posted inOpinion
The Maestro Will See You Now
“The situation is rather complicated because Maestro himself is not yet in Wrocław…” read the email. The wheels had just come off an interview we’d already spent 10 Polskibus hours (equivalent to around 100 earth-hours) traveling to. “Maestro,” first name Krzysztof, last name Penderecki, written as if there was and could only ever be one. […]
Posted inReport
Death and the Theater
On the evening of November 21, 2015, a scrum of protesters blocked the glass doors of the Teatr Polski in Wrocław, Poland. They were members of the Catholic organization Krucjata Różańcowa za Ojczyznę (Society of the Rosary) and far-right groups such as the All Polish Youth and the National Resurrection of Poland. Piotr Rybak, a […]
Posted inReview
Constructed Deconstruction
In four separate, darkened rooms sit five performers. One prepared piano, a Hardanger fiddle, clarinet, and guitar with electronics. It’s a chamber concert for wanderers, with each instrument piped into the other rooms via wires and speakers. The format has been exploded, and while the fragmentary sounds of Stephen Mediell’s “Metrics,” which they’re performing, are […]
Posted inPlaylist
A Women Film Composers Playlist
“If I may be so honored,” said Frances McDormand in her acceptance speech for Best Actress at last Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, “to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me tonight,” and they did—actors, directors, writers. But how many standing were composers? Although there were three women nominated for the original song […]
Posted inInterview
Time and Labor
I first heard about Terre Thaemlitz a few years ago, under her DJ Sprinkles moniker, as my thing for electronic music became a thing, and friends shared her tracks with me, particularly the dubbed-out reworks of some of his sample-heavy deep house. As my dance music taste got progressively darker and harder, I heard less […]
Posted inReview
Deep Listen: Maryanne Amacher
Magic Eye images, or autostereograms, are those illusory images you used to see in books and magazines back in the ‘90s. If looked at in the right way or for the right amount of time, parts of the image would appear on a separate plane and acquire a kind of three-dimensionality produced entirely within the […]