See Me, Hear Me: A/V Circa 2008
5/1/2008

NewMusicBox celebrates its 9th anniversary with a Cover featuring four interviews with audio/visual artists conducted on two coasts—Scott Arford, Betsey Biggs, R. Luke DuBois, and the duo LoVid (Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus). The overlap in the approaches of the featured artists was minimal, and all participants had a great deal to say. If there was a common thread to their efforts, it was this: As music continues its trend of trying to be everything, the musical art that actually does encompass everything will take on more significance.

Gabriela Lena Frank: Composite Identity
4/1/2008

Mestizaje, coming from the word mestizo, of mixed race, is a state in which cultures can co-exist without one subjugating another, without one devouring another, without one being co-opted by another. It is that unique sense of identity which informs the music that Gabriela Lena Frank creates.

Alvin Singleton: Intuitions and Reminders
3/1/2008

Alvin Singleton's voracious appetite for all kinds of music is a starting place for understanding his own musical creations. But the fluidity between musical genres and gestures in his compositional process is completely intuitive which is probably why it sounds so organic.

Breathing Ghosts and Dancing with the Devil: Sxip Shirey's Fractured Sonic Fairy Tales
2/1/2008

If your tastes run to serious music, Sxip Shirey might be easy to accidentally dismiss. With his wild curls, impresario suit jackets, and tables of stacked toys, you might assume his musical world is not for you. But then, if you're lucky, you hear the faint tinkling of a bell, the soft whisper of a tune, and before you know it you're standing shoulder to shoulder with 100 similarly entranced folks, and you are holding your breath because you don't want to miss what Shirey is doing with his.

Lois V Vierk: Slideways
1/1/2008

Lois V Vierk's extensive use of slides is a personal musical response to a reality of nature: everything around us is continuously changing. Hearing Lois explain the natural glissandos perceptible when listening to the motion of wind or water offers insights into her music that hardcore integer analysis probably never would. In fact, the disparity between the derivations of processes and how those processes are perceived has informed how she constructs larger musical forms.