Hello subscribers,

I've been busy with getting started phase 2 (to run concurrently with phase 1) of marketing the album Concerto of Deliverance -- phase 2 to reach circles outside the objectivists. I've contacted and posted to several radio shows and music websites, with interesting responses from a discussion forum for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (government funded) national radio show devoted to playing "new concert music". I'm forwarding here some posts for anyone curious about views on Music Appreciation (at least from the perspective of some Canadian musicians in response to my posts).


Monart
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Subject:	[2NH] Concerto of Deliverance by John Mills-Cockell
Date:	Wed, 23 Feb 2005 20:15:16 -0700
From:	Monart Pon <monart@...>
To:	twonewhours@...

I wonder if anyone has listened to or heard of the new CD: Concerto of Deliverance by John Mills-Cockell.

John Mills-Cockell, a respected Canadian veteran composer, has created an electro-acoustic work called Concerto of Deliverance, in seven movements for instruments and voices. The performers include the composer himself, violinist Sharon Stanis of the Lafayette Quartet, clarinetist and U of Victoria professor Patricia Kostek, mezzo soprano Leora Cashe, and the Island Academy Singers directed by Thea Stavroff.

Reviewers' comments include:

"I love the richness and variety of the composition...references many different musical traditions...a lovely, layered work...playful...deeply moving, uplifting...richly evocative and flowing outward."

"Charming and innovative...an integrated work...inspiring melodies...extremely linear...the rhythm and key changes constantly...chords are arpeggiated throughout...I'm pleasantly surprised by this piece's ability to seduce me...it speaks to the universality of the music that Mills-Cockell is able to capture the attention of someone so happily entrenched in the early music tradition..."

"Every line and timbre breathes with organic character and individuality...His sense of tasteful rhythm is unerring...He often sinks quiet melodies deeply into a multi-layered background texture, giving the music a richness and depth that reward repeated listening...a fun, multi-hued treat to hear a master in his chosen medium -- and John Mills-Cockell is certainly such a master."

The music is inspired by the following quotation:

"It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance." (Ayn Rand, 1957)

This 79-minute album has a website, with samples, reviews, and album info, at:

http://www.starshipaurora.com/concertoofdeliverance.html



Best regards,

Monart Pon

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-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Re: [2NH] John Mills-Cockell
Date:	Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:08:33 -0500
From:	jgray <john@...>
To:	Discussion list focusing on new concert music. <twonewhours@...>

The time for crossover, a melding of traditional genres, was the 1970's, not
now. We live in a time of absolutism, purism.

Remember the surprise elicited when Carlick opened for the FLOATING WORLD
show at the Music Gallery? The 2NH list faithful had virtually forgotten the
rock tradition of the "opening act".

In our approved academic system, you study your butt off, get a series of
degrees, take master classes, then suddenly burst out onto the stage as a
full-fledged artist of 25. There's no room for this other tradition of the
opening act. We dismiss it as something that rhythm&blues acts go through.

Likewise, Mills-Cockell has followed his own developmental path for decades,
and paid the price of increasing obscurity. I remember the premiere of his
NEON ACCELERANDO (the original quintet incarnation) back in 1976, at the
Rebecca Cohn. I think that there were perhaps as many as 90 people in the
audience. The army of technical people seemed to outnumber the listeners on
that occasion. 

I figure that JMC was just a wee bit late. Had he pulled off a big gig on
that scale in 1973, he might have filled the arenas. I am surprised at this
new resurgence on his part. The CD-buying audience is just not there any
more.

heck, I might enjoy it, but I'll be just...

A voice in the wilderness

(breathing smog in Scarborough)

JG

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-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Re: [2NH] Concerto of Deliverance by John Mills-Cockell
Date:	Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:31:02 -0700
From:	Monart Pon <monart@...>
To:	Discussion list focusing on new concert music. <twonewhours@...>

Hi Chris,

>thank you for this informative and insightful e-mail.

You're welcome. I'm letting more people know about this new work of
JMC's, people beyond the initial group to whom the title and theme would
have the most meaning (the Rand readers).

>i was wondering if you have been listening to the
>recent broadcasts from the winnipeg new music festival
>on two new hours, and if you could comment on how the
>works presented there compare to mr. mills-cockell's
>concerto of deliverance.

No, I haven't heard those shows, but I'd expect it played some
interesting and pleasing new music. I could compare JMC's music to that
of the master melodists, such as Dvorak, Debussy, Bach, Bizet,
Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Gershwin. JMC's melodic world is like the
world that musicologist Michael Hoffman wrote of Dvorak's: "In Dvorak
there exists this 'ray of sunshine', for his entire vision of the world,
and all his music, are based on his belief in the beauty of life, and on
his acceptance of the universe in thankfulness and joy."

JMC is distinguished from the past masters in that he lives now, in our
modern times of complexity, variety, and velocity. His music is created
out of this, our world of boundless potential and magnificent
achievements, and thus is closer to our modern sounds and styles.

Have you heard JMC's music before, Chris, or have a comment about it?
I'm curious to know.


Regards,

Monart

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-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Re: [2NH] John Mills-Cockell
Date:	Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:47:21 -0700
From:	Monart Pon <monart@...>
Reply-To:	Discussion list focusing on new concert music. <twonewhours@...>
To:	Discussion list focusing on new concert music. <twonewhours@...>

jgray wrote:

>The time for crossover, a melding of traditional genres, was the 1970's, not
>now. We live in a time of absolutism, purism.

But this "absolutism, purism" is only for those who believe in it,
sometimes as a substitute for elitism and provincialism. Music is far
more *musical* than any particular ideologies that try to segregate the
universality of music into stifling genres.

>Remember the surprise elicited when Carlick opened for the FLOATING WORLD
>show at the Music Gallery? The 2NH list faithful had virtually forgotten the
>rock tradition of the "opening act".
>
>[...]
>
>Likewise, Mills-Cockell has followed his own developmental path for decades,
>and paid the price of increasing obscurity. I remember the premiere of his
>NEON ACCELERANDO (the original quintet incarnation) back in 1976, at the
>Rebecca Cohn. I think that there were perhaps as many as 90 people in the
>audience. The army of technical people seemed to outnumber the listeners on
>that occasion.

JMC's "obscurity" is true only for those who haven't heard his music. He
is well known to numerous others who have appreciated his prodigious,
steady output over the past 4 decades. His vast list of works done for
film, radio, TV, theatre, dance, galleries, as well all as his albums,
are definitely not signs of obscurity. In any case, the quantity of
listeners is less important than the quality of the listeners. (BTW.
NEON ACCELERANDO was also released in Canada as GATEWAY.)

>I figure that JMC was just a wee bit late. Had he pulled off a big gig on
>that scale in 1973, he might have filled the arenas. I am surprised at this
>new resurgence on his part. The CD-buying audience is just not there any
>more.

JMC's new CONCERTO OF DELIVERANCE is less a "resurgence", and much more
a magnum opus, having engaged him for nearly two full years, and is a
product of a lifetime of rich experiences. The album will find -- is
already finding -- its intended audience.

>heck, I might enjoy it, but I'll be just...
>
>A voice in the wilderness

What could there be standing in the way of enjoying it? There need not
be. Someone, "a voice in the wilderness", someone who can face the
music, with no crutches and filters, will likely find a way to enjoyment.


Monart

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-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Re: [2NH] Concerto of Deliverance by John Mills-Cockell
Date:	Sun, 27 Feb 2005 09:58:08 -0700
From:	Monart Pon <monart@...>
Reply-To:	Discussion list focusing on new concert music. <twonewhours@...>
To:	Discussion list focusing on new concert music. <twonewhours@...>

Hi Chris,

You wrote:

>i listened to most of the samples of the "concerto of
>deliverance" on the starship aurora website.  this
>music is rather different from what we customarily
>listen to and discuss here.  i think i detected
>elements of what we call "new age" music.
  
It's unclear what people mean when they say a piece of music is "New 
Age". Sometimes, the label seems to be used as a dismissive device. In 
my research over the years, I've found no clear definition of "New Age" 
music, but the examples given do not include music written before the 
20th C. The examples usually have lush instrumentation (sometimes with 
synthesizers and other electro-acoustic instruments) with melodies 
expressing a modern romantic lyricism. (Some have associated New Age 
with such musicians as Yanni, David Arkenstone, Loreena McKennit, and 
Mike Oldfied.) If there's no clearer definition of "New Age Music" than 
its literal meaning, i.e., music of the new age, then, for short, is it 
just new music (but distinguished from new variations or renditions of 
old music)?

Is New Age music, then, music that expresses ideas of the new age, 
(whatever that may be) and/or expresses age-old ideas in a new-age way? 
If so, then maybe JMC's music, particularly his CONCERTO OF DELIVERANCE, 
could be of the New Age: the new age of a truer understanding of 
reality, a more objective grasp of existence -- a greater benevolence 
and goodwill towards life and humanity.

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