Classical Notes: November 4, 2008 Archive

Future Classics

Posted at 1:32 PM on November 4, 2008 by Rex Levang (2 Comments)

This is the week of the Minnesota Orchestra's annual Future Classics concert, featuring pieces by talented young composers. More details here; there's a Friday night broadcast, too.

The concert is the finale to a week-long Composer Institute presented by the Orchestra and the American Composers Forum.

For the composers themselves, it's an absorbing though grueling week. A couple of them are blogging about it, on the always lively page, NewMusicBox. (One good overheard line: "Well, Vivian, I thought all the composers were dead.")

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Beethoven on Broadway

Posted at 3:37 PM on November 4, 2008 by Gillian Martin

Publisher Anton Diabelli wrote a short waltz and sent it to 50 composers, asking each of them to write a variation on it. Beethoven turned him down--but then ultimately wrote 33 variations on it. Why?

That's the question at the heart of a Broadway-bound play called 33 Variations. It's by Moises Kaufmann, the same playwright who created The Laramie Project and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. Jane Fonda has been announced in the role of a modern-day musicologist trying to unravel the mystery.

Read more about the upcoming Broadway production here; find the website for the play's world premiere at Washington's Arena Stage here.