Master American composer John Adams will deliver the 2009 Tanner Lectures on Human Values on October 28 and 29 at the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall Street. His first talk, “Doctor Faustus and His Composition: Reflections on Thomas Mann’s Fictional Composer,” will be held on October 28, and his second, “Doctor Atomic and His Gadget: Composing the American Mythology,” on October 29. Both talks will take place at 4:30 pm.

Recognized worldwide for the expressive depth, technical range, and compelling themes of his work, Mr. Adams has broadened the aesthetics of contemporary American concert music, moving it away from academic modernism and toward a more expansive, profoundly humanist musical language.

I studied John Adams’ controversial opera The Death of Klinghoffer based on a terrorist hijacking of a cruiseliner in the mid 1980s. Despite the controversy that Adams romanticized terrorists or some crazy idea like that, the opera itself was quite good. If you’re familiar with the minimalism writing style made popular by Phillip Glass and Steve Reich, there’s much of that here.

Links: John Adams, Klinghoffer @ Wikipedia, Music @ Yale

I found this blog via Rion of a John Maloof who discovered 30 to 40,000 film negatives taken by Vivian Maier from the mide 1900s in Chicago. He’s only developed a small portion of the negatives so far but what he’s already developed and posted on the blog are excellent examples of great photography. I can’t imagine how excited he must feel to see her pictures and try to imagine the kind of life she lived along with developing the same eye she had in the way she photographed her subjects in Chicago at that time. It’s like he opened a time capsule and have opened my eyes to the city life in the 1950s. It’s fascinating indeed. I can’t wait to see more photos as he publishes them.

Vivian Maier

Last night I had the pleasure of listening to the Tokyo String Quartet perform at Yale in New Haven. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to be in attendance at Morse Recital Hall, so I listened to the whole program live over the internet from home. (I honestly wanted to be there because nothing beats a live performance in an acoustically sound venue but I had to study for class.) I was really happy to know that I could still listen to an exceptional ensemble in real-time, thanks to the Yale School of Music‘s website.

One great thing about wider accessibility to world class performances like this is if you’re not able to attend a performance in person, you still have an opportunity to “be there” as long as you have an internet connection. Obstacles such as inability to afford ticket prices, transportation, babysitting, etc. can be overlooked because all you need is a computer. With speakers. And access to high speed internet. That’s all!

Other venues like the Metropolitan Opera have brought their shows outside of Lincoln Center. They offer live audio streams on their website as well as for satellite radio subscribers and through Rhapsody and Real Player. They’ve broadcasted in Times Square and have recently started broadcasting live in HD in movie theaters across the country. So no more excuses that you can’t see/hear big productions because you live all the way out there!

Sorry for being away for a while.