Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a major avant garde composer in post WWII Germany. He is considered to be one of the heralds of electronic music. His early life is wrought with tragedy. His mother, a singer in her early life, was committed to an asylum in 1933 where she later died during the height of the Nazi eugenics movement. Karlheinz later worked in a military hospital during the war when his father died in Hungary as a German soldier. He later studied at the Cologne University of Music and the University of Bonn. While studying in the musical conservatory at the University of Cologne, Stockhausen developed his radical reinterpretation of musical sounds that was later typical of a Stockhausen piece

Stockhausen’s piece, Kontakte, is characterized by shattering clangs, bangs, bongs, whistles, and static that all pierce the sonorous space produced within the work. The amplified reverb produces an aura of spaciousness colored by distorted bouncing percussive elements that seem to just splat onto the auditory background like a Pollock piece on canvas. The sounds, while definitely products of the technological revolution of 20^th century, nevertheless emit a sense of naturalness. At moments, the wobbling distortions coming from Stockhausen’s electronic manipulations appear as a scene in the woods. One can hear a frog, a bird’s whistle, and the patter of a woodpecker. These sounds all appear randomly, which parallels the unpredictability of nature and yet, at the same time, organizes itself into an organic and aesthetic whole. 

Justin Brown, Conductor

Justin Brown

Conductor

Justin Brown is an English born conductor and performer who has become the Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director Laureate after six seasons performing with them.  He is also recognized as the General Music Director of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in Germany.  In his youth, Brown studied at Cambridge University and Tanglewood, becoming both an assistant and mentee to names such as Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein.  In Bernstein’s production Mass, Brown made his debut performance as conductor.  Brown’s career grew rapidly as he showcased as a guest conductor for symphonies in many areas of the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, and parts of Asia and Oceania.

            Brown has conducted and performed a range of music during his career, including works created by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin, and many others.  In 2007, he was nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Recording for Peter Lieberson’s The Six Realms and has also received the award of Editor’s Choice from Gramophone Magazine for Gershwin’s complete music for Piano and Orchestra along with Anne-Marie McDermott and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.  During his six seasons with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, he and the orchestra received first-place American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers awards in 2010 and 2012, and, in 2011, the John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music.

            In the foreseeable future Brown is scheduled to perform, for the second complete time, Ring Cycle at Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, and later conduct contemporary works by Thomas Adès, Jonny Greenwood, and Alfred Schnittke.

Johnny Cash: An American Icon

            It has been almost 10 years since Johnny Cash died; yet his presence is still alive and strong in the music we hear today from country to rock. Inducted into the Country, Gospel and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Johnny Cash epitomizes the musical culture and diversity of America. Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others contributed to the birth of Rock n’ Roll in the early 50’s. Still though, Cash remained unique. His deep bass-baritone voice contained elements of blues and country, mixed with a sorrow that can only be expressed by a man who has suffered in life. While Rock n’ Roll grew flashier over the years from Elvis’s sequined jumpsuits to Mick Jagger’s hair, Johnny Cash remained a constancy. Dressed in a black suit with a black shirt and black shoes, Johnny Cash would start every concert with the simple line “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”

Johnny Cash’s widespread appeal can be largely associated with the topics of his songs and the style he delivers them. Cash’s music has an aura of intimacy. Each song is directed to the listener in a way that seems almost like a conversation. Cash’s music is relatable; you hear the pain in his voice, creating a unique and shared experience. For Cash, music is something personal. He never pretended to be the famous rock star that one idolized from a distance. Rather he sang as a brother, a neighbor, and a friend sharing life stories. It is fitting that Johnny Cash distinguished himself for his special connection with prison inmates. In fact, Cash was famous for his live recording from prison. This is perhaps the genius of Johnny Cash. He is vocally imperfect. His songs have a rough sound to it. He talks about his alcoholism and his drug addiction. Because of all of this, Johnny Cash not only spoke to us, he related to us. And for that, “The Man in Black” holds a special place in American musical culture.

J.R. Cash grew up in Kingsland, Arkansas as the fourth of seven children during the middle of the Great Depression. He would later take on the stage name Johnny Cash when he signed up with Sun Records in 1955.  At the beginning, Cash tried to break into the music industry as a gospel musician. When that did not pan out, Cash found the power of his troubled voice with his first recordings of “Hey Porter” and “Cry! Cry! Cry!” Cash would continue on with hit singles that have resounded across the years such as “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Jackson,” “I Walk the Line,” and “Ring of Fire.”