“When he died in 2011 at 94, [Milton] Babbitt was still better known for the divisive essay ‘Who Cares if You Listen?’ than for his groundbreaking compositions,” writes William Robin in Wednesday’s (1/13) New York Times. “Fortunately, the Juilliard School—where Babbitt taught for 37 years—will help rectify the imbalance with this year’s Focus! festival, ‘Milton Babbitt’s World,’ a celebration that begins on Friday, Jan. 22. Organized by the Juilliard conductor and professor Joel Sachs, the festival’s six concerts will feature rarely heard works by Babbitt; the premieres of pieces by his colleagues and students; and performances of music by composers he loved, from Johannes Brahms to Irving Berlin. ‘He was such an incredible spirit in the new-music world,’ Mr. Sachs said recently. ‘He really helped reinforced the infrastructure for composers in this country.’ … [Babbitt’s] compositions are full of knotty rhythms and disjunct melodies, sounding at times entirely alien. But they maintain a consistently cool veneer.… Babbitt was a fairly broad-minded pedagogue during his lengthy teaching career. His students includes such disparate musical personalities as the film composer Laura Karpman, the Modernist Donald Martino, the neo-Romantic Tobias Picker and the jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan.”
Posted January 15, 2016
