The Cereal List / Get Your Kix!

There has been a disturbing trend in recent music journalism pertaining to the classification of the unclassifiable music being created by an elite subset of musicians connected to the contemporary music scene. Two terms, in particular, have made an especially egregious entrance into the discourse: “indie-classical” and “bandsemble”.

Painstaking research indicates that the term “bandsemble” as it relates to the “new music” zeitgeist was first used in a September 12, 2008 broadcast of WNYC’s New Sounds in reference to the group Signal Ensemble though we credit the term’s meteoric rise to prominence in the lexicon of music journalism to New York Times and Time Out New York critic Steve Smith, who first used the term on his blog, Night After Night, to describe Missy Mazzoli’s girl-group Victoire. The term “indie-classical,” on the other hand, seems to have emerged from within the “scene” itself possibly as a ploy to attract more women in short skirts with small white tank-tops and black bras to shows.

Regardless of why these terms were invented—practical or perverted—they are illegitimate and need to be banished from contemporary musical discourse immediately. Sign the petition to show your support.

The New York Philharmonic recently announced a $10 million donation to support new music. The gift allows the New York Philharmonic to award a $250,000 grant every two years to a working composer.  The Cereal List has obtained a partial draft of the guidelines for this grant:

HOW TO APPLY:

Please send a completed application form along with work samples to the address below.  Applications will be accepted via FedEx only.  Applications delivered via USPS or UPS will not be accepted as these institutions are not sponsors of the NY Philharmonic.

There is a $250 application fee which will be refunded if and only if your application is awarded.  An additional donation to the NY Philharmonic is strongly encouraged but not required.

WORK SAMPLES:

Composers should submit one “Fanfare”-style work and one “Encore”-style work.  All submitted works must be completed final drafts and MUST NOT HAVE BEEN PERFORMED in public.  A recording of the submitted works is required, but it must be a private recording (as per previous sentence).

IF AWARDED:

Should your submission be accepted, the Artistic Advisory Board of the NY Philharmonic reserves the right to stipulate any number of changes to your composition before it is commissioned by the NY Philharmonic.  You will also be required to meet with each musician in the orchestra (at their convenience and at your expense) for advice on how to better extract individual players’ parts from your score and to consider any compositional changes they request.  If a musician requests a compositional change that conflicts with the Artistic Advisory Board’s stipulations, you must report the musician’s requested change to the Artistic Advisory Board before proceeding.

Apart from the changes requested and stipulated by the musicians and Artistic Advisory Board, there should be no difference between the work sample submitted and the commissioned composition.

A couple weeks ago, we noticed some interesting chatter about an article written by Time Out New York theater critic David Cote. In his article, Cote issued a call to arms, suggesting that what the boring theater scene really needed was “more arguments, more dirt, more bloody knock-down-drag-out fights.” Well, if Cote thinks the theater scene is boring, he’s in for an even duller time once his opera career takes off! Seriously, besides poetry readings, there’s no other scene that puts people to sleep more quickly than a chamber music concert, and at least poets are known to enjoy the occasional narcotic. Classicians are too sensitive for that.

Or are they?

Maybe all the classical new contemporary classical music world needs is a little something to spice it up. That’s where The Cereal List comes in.

We’re making it our mission to attend every single post-concert wine reception and report the latest juicy gossip. We’ll patrol Starbucks and Whole Foods armed with cell phone cameras and cello cases with guitars inside.

But we can’t do it alone! And this is where you come in. Did you spot a singer damaging her vocal cords with a Lisa Loeb impression in the green room? Has a violinist confessed to you that he has fallen to seven hours instead of nine hours of practice per day? Did you stumble upon an oboist drinking bourbon and smoking a cigarette? Email your tips, photos, videos, and juiciest tidbits to us at tips@thecereallist.com and we’ll dig up all the dirt. All correspondence is strictly confidential.

Sincerely,
The Cereal List Aggregate