So, new? And: good things happen in threes

Though it's emphatically still summer, DOTDOTDOTMUSIC is eagerly looking forward to fall projects with two new clients: the mighty So Percussion (for Cantaloupe Music), and the simultaneously iconic and iconoclastic Anthony Braxton.

Hello, hello, hello, hello. Photo:Janette BeckmanSo Percussion is having a banner season this fall, with appearances on no fewer than three new CDs: Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 on Nonesuch, on which they perform the composer's new Mallet Quartet, written for So; Martin Bresnick's Caprichos Enfáticos (Canteloupe), which finds them joining forces with powerhouse pianist Lisa Moore; and their signature release for the season, Steven Mackey's It is Time, released September 27 on Cantaloupe as a dual CD/DVD set, featuring the entire piece in both formats. We're excited about the release event for It is Time at the Clocktower Gallery (geddit?) in lower Manhattan on 9/27, which will feature a full performance plus some special treats. There may even be a special cocktail created for the occasion...

Anthony Braxton is a composer dear to our Anthony Braxtonhearts. Like so many of our clients, he has spent his career stubbornly resisting efforts to pigeonhole his music. Roulette, celebrating its inaugural season in its expansive new Brooklyn space, is presenting a four-evening festival, "Energies, Ideas, Intuitions: Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Festival," October 5 - 8. The four programs will encompass Braxton's vast and utterly original body of work, including opera, orchestral, solo, chamber, electroacoustic, choral, and dance pieces, played by leading interpreters from both the classical and improvised-music worlds.

What's the Tri-Centric thing about? Braxton likes to blow the lid off customary dualities with a third, wild-card element. Other names considered for this festival: Mutable, Stable, Symbolic; Composition, Improvisation, Synthesis; Known, Unknown, Secret. On the eve of the festival, a four-CD set of his witty, surreal opera Trillium E will be issued on New Braxton House records - the first studio recording of any of his operas.

We're honored to be working with these artists (and their intrepid organizations), and hope to do them justice with some imaginative and effective PR work. Meanwhile, the fall also brings worthy concerts, CDs, and other delights from New Amsterdam Records, Maya Beiser, Kronos Quartet, and our other stellar clients. Watch this space!

What Spring Brings

Here at DOTDOTDOTMUSIC, spring brings forsythia blossoms, taxes, and an intensive schedule of concerts to attend. It makes for some long days, but there are worse things than, say, settling down with a nice cold drink at Le Poisson Rouge and catching a captivating set by violinist/composer/ tech wizard Todd Reynolds, Alarm Will Sound, or NOW Ensemble and the Chiara String Quartet with Matmos...just for starters. 'Cause after all the hustling and emails and follow-ups, that's what it's really all about: we simply love the music/artists we're working with.

Here's just a sample of what we've been up to this spring:

• Alarm Will Sound: 1969 at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
• Maya Beiser: "Resonating Light" at the Rubin Museum of Art
• Kronos Quartet: new CD, Uniko
• Meet The Composer's Three-City Dash festival at Symphony Space, Le Poisson Rouge, + Morgan
• Library
• New Amsterdam: new CDs from NOW Ensemble, Build, Shara Worden and friends, + Chiara String Quartet/Matmos
• Todd Reynolds: release show at Issue Project Room for his new CD, Outerborough

May and June bring the mighty MATA Festival and a stimulating series of concerts by the Philadelphia-based Dolce Suono Ensemble, and a major celebration of Morton Feldman's music presented by another Philly organization, Bowerbird. For the latest on all of these worthy events, follow us on Twitter at @dotdotdottweet and @sarahbaird. You never know what might happen next...

Alarming News

We're proud to announce our newest client, Alarm Will Sound. Known for its outstanding musicianship, innovative presentations, and a repertoire ranging from Harrison Birtwistle to Dirty Projectors, this 20-member band has been called "the future of classical music" by The New York Times. ASCAP recognized AWS's contributions to new music with a 2006 Concert Music Award for "the virtuosity, passion and commitment with which they perform and champion the repertory for the 21st century." Their performances have been described as "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity" by the London Financial Times and as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the San Francisco Chronicle. 

The versatility of Alarm Will Sound allows it to take on music from a wide variety of styles. Its repertoire ranges from European to American works, from the arch-modernist to the pop-influenced. The group fosters close relationships with contemporary composers and has commissioned and premiered pieces by Steve Reich, David Lang, Aaron Jay Kernis, Michael Gordon, Augusta Read Thomas, Stefan Freund, Wolfgang Rihm, Payton MacDonald, John Orfe, Gavin Chuck, Dennis DeSantis and Caleb Burhans.

Upcoming events include a January 30 appearance on Merkin Concert Hall's Ecstatic Music Festival, in which the group is joined by teen ensemble Face the Music in a performance of Steve Reich's Tehillim, and plays works on its own by Ben Frost, Aphex Twin, Preshish Moments and Matt Marks/Stefan Freund. But the biggest upcoming show may be its evening-length, multimedia theatrical presentation, 1969, heard in its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall on March 10 and repeated at the Newman Center in Denver on April 23.

1969 is inspired by a concert that The Beatles had hoped to present with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Although it never took place - their meeting with the composer was derailed by a snowstorm - the notion encapsulates a cultural moment very much like our own, when pop culture and the avant-garde collided at full force against the backdrop of a violently divided American electorate. Luciano Berio's O King and Leonard Bernstein's Mass are two of the works excerpted in this fascinating program, along with an ingenious arrangement by Matt Marks of The Beatles' musique concrète masterpiece Revolution No. 9. Here's the ensemble in an earlier performance of the work.

Our expert opinion?

Earlier this month, Steven had the privilege of addressing Tanya Kalmanovitch's Entreprenurial Musicianship class at New England Conservatory in Boston. The topic was free internet resources for self-promotion and brand-building; the class consisted of undergraduates in their junior year. Steven outlined the basic elements of a press kit, then (through the magic of video projection) walked the students through building a website from scratch in real time, using the versatile and incredibly user-friendly Posterous platform. We can't praise Posterous enough - among other things, it automatically turns batches of jpgs into galleries, MP3s into elegant players at the click of a mouse. And it's free.

Few would argue that as the cultural landscape changes -- driven by unmistakable social, economic, and technological uphevals -- musicians need to develop new strategies for building their careers. Yet informed guidance isn't easy to come by. DOTDOTDOTMUSIC heartily salutes NEC's freshly-launched, visionary Entreprenurial Musicianship program for making this training an intergral part of a young musician's education.

But even if you're not an NEC student, you can still benefit from our expertise. DOTDOTDOTMUSIC offers a variety of consultation packages. We can arrange a three-hour standalone career-building/troubleshooting session; revamp your biography, website copy, or presentation materials to make them more effective; and even develop a new website for you, in tandem with a talented designer. Any of these services are available alone or in attractive packages. Contact us and we'll run down the options for you.

By the way, entirely without our prompting  (or even, initially, our knowledge!) NEC's Entreprenurial Musicianship program created a Facebook community page devoted to DOTDOTDOTMUSIC. If you like what we're doing, we invite you to "Like" what we're doing. And while you're at it, do pay a visit the EM program's own FB group. (Right: EM Director Rachel Roberts ["IT"] and Program Manager Eva Heinstein ["LAUNCHED"] mark the August 2010 debut of the program.)

UPDATE: NEC's EM department has a new Facebook Page with some interesting videos in which recipients of the program's Entreprenurial Grants describe their projects. Definitely worth a visit.

News, News, News has a kind of mystery

That mysterious news we've been promising for the past few weeks? Wonder no more! As many of you know, the magnificent Sarah Baird Knight has joined DOTDOTDOTMUSIC as a Partner, ushering in a new era of wonderfulness for our enterprise. "But who will she be working with?," you might ask.

We are excited to announce that Sarah's first client is none other than John Adams. Sarah is representing John in preparation for the Metropolitan Opera debut of his 1987 collaboration with Peter Sellars, Nixon in China. In addition to handling press relations, Sarah is putting her promotional skills to work, consulting on strategic partnerships and event planning to deepen the impact of the opera's run, in New York City and beyond. Sarah and John have worked together before, in her capacity as Director, Media & Public Relations for Boosey & Hawkes, where she succeeded DOTDOTDOTMUSIC's Founder + Director Steven Swartz in the same role.

Trained in music education, Sarah Baird Knight studied French horn, piano, and voice, learning to play every other orchestral instrument on an eighth grade level at James Madison University in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. After teaching elementary and middle school music in both Florida and Virginia, she left the public education system to pursue a career in music publicity with a position at Shuman Associates in New York City. In 2005, she joined Boosey & Hawkes, working with Steven, and in 2006 succeeded him to serve as Director, Media & Public Relations. Sarah’s calling card is innovation: in her time at B&H, she rang in the 21st century with fresh new practices for e-marketing, contests, social media, content production, and event planning at Sundance and SxSW. 

Publicity successes include running Elliott Carter’s 100th birthday campaign, resulting in features on WNBC-Channel 4’s 10 O’clock News, The Today Show, and the cover of The New York Times; serving as John Adams’s primary publicist from Doctor Atomic’s New York premiere and the launch of his memoirs, Hallelujah Junction, to the opening of the Tilda Swinton film, I Am Love; securing a placement of Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet on the “Who’s Not Honoring Me Now?” segment of The Colbert Report; pitching Mexican composer Enrico Chapela’s first review in The New York Times; and securing Michael Daugherty’s first profile in the Los Angeles Times.

In addition to her impressive resumé, Sarah brings abundant creative energy, spark, and commitment to the often challenging business of publicity and promotion. We're excited to have her on our team, and look forward to a long and fruitful association!