New Releasings
Labor Records in collaboration with Naxos is releasing a series of recordings of my work covering more than half a century! The most recent release is "Jukebox in the Tavern of Love" paired with a new work by Meredith Monk. "The Nude Paper Sermon" and "Wiretap" is a double album containing no fewer than five works; see below for details. "Civilization & its Discontents" is a words-and-music collaboration with Michael Sahl. More information, reviews and ordering (physical or digital editions) is available below or by going to Labor Records.
William Gibson Article on The Nude Paper Sermon in Signal to Noise Magazine
The Spring 2012, issue of Signal to Noise magazine has an article by William Gibson on the Nonesuch contemporary music recordings of the 1970s that is, in fact, mostly about The Nude Paper Sermon. This was the second Nonesuch commission (after Mort Subotnik’s Silver Apples of the Moon). It was written for the Nonesuch Consort, an early-music ensemble of voices and renaissance instruments (founded and directed by Joshua Rifkin), to which has been added an actor (Stacy Keach), a chorus (the N.Y. Motet Singers) and electronic sounds (Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio). It was one of the first works of contemporary music to be written for recordings, making original and creative use of the then-new multi-track recording technique to craft a multi-media or music-theater work in sound. This was also some of the first new music to be written for Renaissance instruments in half a millenium! The recording uses the illusion of depth produced by stereo to produce the effect of listening through the surface of the loudspeakers (defined by aural graffiti in the form of electronic sounds) to some distant, mythical golden age. Also close to the surface is the voice of Stacy Keach who is, in turn, a preacher, a politician, an evangelist, a new-age guru–in short, an amalgamation of all those bloviators who use language to control others. The actor’s text was created especially for this work by poet Steven Wade (Wade Stevenson), not as a parody, but as a prose poem about contemporary life; these words are scored with accents, rhythms, tempi and dynamics as they rise above and are submerged by the musical textures. The sung texts are John Ashbery’s Three Madrigals which he had coincidentally sent me just at the time that I was thinking about this work.
The Nude Paper Sermon is scheduled to be re-released by Labor Records in conjunction with Naxos this summer. More on this shortly.
Date Posted // April 20, 2012
In Categories // Music Theater, News, Recordings, Reviews, The Nude Paper Sermon
Workshop Performance of Big Jim & the Small-Time Investors
An atelier or workshop performance of Big Jim & the Small-Time Investors—music by Eric Salzman, libretto by Salzman after a text by Ned Jackson—will take place at the Flea Theater, 41 White Street, Tribeca, New York City, on March 29th at 8:00pm. This new work is about an L.A. con man who claims to have invented a virtual reality machine which allows the user to see his wildest fantasies come true. Matt Morgan plays Jim, Laila Salins is his wife Kim, Scott Bearden is his manager Stan, Marni Nixon his Mom and there is an ensemble of 8. Antoine Laprise will direct and Michael Fennelly is the music director. The production is part of a week-long event at the Center for Contemporary Opera at The Flea that includes three other workshops and a special evening honoring John Cage’s 100th birthday. Grethe Holby directs performances of Cage’s Europera 5 and a staging of the Satie Socrate that uses his arrangements.
Date Posted // February 28, 2012
In Categories // Big Jim and the Small-Time Investors, Events, Music Theater, News, Works and Productions
Now Available on CD—Civilization & Its Discontents
Civilization & Its Discontents—a lively and biting musical satire written and composed jointly by Eric Salzman and Michael Sahl—is now available on CD.
- Buy from Labor Records
- Read More
Date Posted // January 31, 2012
In Categories // Civilization and Its Discontents, Music Theater, News, Recordings
Now Available on iTunes—Civilization & Its Discontents
Salzman’s ground-breaking new music theater piece, Civilization & Its Discontents, is now available in digital format.
- Buy from iTunes
- Read More
Date Posted // January 03, 2012
In Categories // Civilization and Its Discontents, News, Recordings
Civilization & Its Discontents to be Released
Eric Salzman and Michael Sahl’s Civilization & Its Discontents is being released by Labor Records and distributed by Naxos. The digital format will be available on January 3, 2012 and the the CD will follow on January 31, 2012.
Date Posted // November 17, 2011
In Categories // Civilization and Its Discontents, News, Recordings