Before I fall into my routine of rants, let's take a moment to note some of the real good news out there, in Newmusicland, and beyond:
The most important festival for new music is now the Ostrava Days in the Czech Republic; it has talent and attitude.
Wordless Music, in NYC, seems to be doing very good things, too.
There are many musicians specializing in new music that ought to be mentioned, but none is more important than the Belgian pianist Daan Vandewalle. Another pianist to pay attention to is Satoko Inoue.
Following in the tall shadows of Kronos and Arditti is not easy, but there are a number of younger quartets who play new music as it should be played. I think that the Quatour Bozzini deserves special attention.
The musical blogoplan is full of daily surprises. Among my composing colleagues, I always learn something new from the blogs of Charles Shere and Nico Muhly, with perspectives different from mine (note to Magister Muhly: your blog always makes my Opera browser crash!). Loose Poodle is an indispensable guide to film music, a world at a cheerful tangent to my own.
Outside of musical blogs, I give thanks for Blogging Heads, for a dose of smarts and civility in US public political discourse (I recommend the conversations between Joshua Cohen and Glenn Loury in particular, and one can easily avoid anything with Mickey Kaus or those folks with National Review credentials), and at random: Crooked Timber, Strange Maps, Cosmic Variance, Language Log, Savage Minds, and Silliman's Blog. I'm still looking for good blogs about dance and classics and I wish there was more at Errol Morris's blog Zoom,
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