Music Review: Robert Paterson and American Modern Ensemble - The Four Seasons
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Jon Sobel, BLOGCRITICS.ORG
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As one of the most celebrated present-day American composers, Robert Paterson does not fear the shadow of a luminous predecessor like Antonio Vivaldi. Paterson s new album
The Four Seasons is the culmination of a 20-year project comprising four song cycles, one for each of our earthly seasons. The prolific composer set texts by well-known poets - Edna St. Vincent Millay, William Carlos Williams, Rita Dove, Billy Collins and others - all on seasonal themes.
A different voice gives life to each cycle, accompanied by the musicians of the composer s own American Modern Ensemble on flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion. Paterson is a master at composing and arranging for this lineup. Known as a Pierrot ensemble, it gives a composer a wide range of colors in a compact and economical form
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Photographs (left to right) by M. Stan Reaves / Shutterstock; Stephen Lovekin / Shutterstock; Thos Robinson / Norman Mailer Center / Getty; Rivkah Gevinson
In a special episode of the Poetry Podcast, Kimiko Hahn, Monica Youn, Paul Tran, and Megan Fernandes join Kevin Young to read their work, and to discuss Asian-American poetics and the role of poetry in our tumultuous times.
Kimiko Hahn, a distinguished professor at Queens College, City University of New York, has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. She has published ten books of poems, including, most recently, âForeign Bodies.â
Czech poetry has been enjoying something of a renaissance in the new millennium. Following a decline in the 1990s, in the past two decades poetry has been shaped by lively literary activity, revolving around literary cafés, festivals and public poetry readings.
Despite being a marginal genre, poetry has been receiving significant publicity in dedicated literary magazines and websites, but also in special radio programmes and poetry awards.
Describing the present-day Czech poetry scene is quite difficult, as it is not dominated by poetic trends or schools, but rather by a number of distinctive individuals.
Among the leading contemporary poets are those who made their debuts in the 1990s but also during the first decade of the new millennium. What connects most of these authors is the predominance of free verse.
7.
“Charlie,” I said to break the silence, “I was going through some poems and prose pieces you sent me a while back, among which was a prose poem I don’t think you ever published called “War for Peace.” Remember?”
“Sure, of course,” he said.
“Seems like,” I said, “no matter who’s in charge the circular reasoning political power uses to legitimize itself is always the same.”
He waved his hand, and the tree branches on the walls dissolved into a black, quivering mass, like an army of ants that then reshaped itself into words and sentences slowly scrolling up into the sky:
NEW YORK — The Poetry Foundation has chosen Michelle T. Boone as its new president, the first time a woman and a person of colour will be leading the wealthy, Chicago-based institution that oversees . . .