Fern Hill, choral work by John Corigliano

I just heard a marvelous choral work by John Corigliano on WQXR's Q2 Music's program, ' The Choral Mix With Kent Tritle'.

It is Fern Hill, set to the poem by Dylan Thomas, composed in 1959 when he was 21.

This performance (directed by Kent Tritle) starts one third of the way into the program. (Press the Full Player button; find the August 5, 2012 program; click 'ADD THIS'.) To position to Fern Hill: pause the WQXR website player; wait awhile for buffering. Then click just left of the host's last name (in the series title).

There's a review of a previous performance in the New York Times.

Copyright (c) 2012 Mark D. Blackwell.

Q2 radio

I discovered an all new-music classical radio station, Q2, from New York City! To listen, click.

It just came online October, 2009 (Internet only) and streams a nice 128Kbps. A playlist is available. It has New York Philharmonic commissions from 12 to 4 o'clock.

Copyright (c) 2010 Mark D. Blackwell.

_why the lucky stiff

Suddenly I am struck with sadness for our loss of the highly creative _why the lucky stiff. (I discovered this while researching Ruby Shoes.) Not just in programming, but creative also in drawing and prose.

There is more here, here and here, and a cute sample of his early writing. Also, I found a _why-related, compilation blog post.

On last.fm, a radio station in his name contains some strange and intelligent things.

His June, 2009 talk on "Hackety Hack" at an ART && CODE Symposium shows his general aim of convincing others (besides his own creative work) to expand the learning opportunities available to children for programming. Perhaps this was the original basis for his pseudonym? Perhaps the reason for his disappearance was promotion: to generate large-scale publicity for this worthy cause.

Copyright (c) 2010 Mark D. Blackwell.