Event Information

Classical Music Today, A Presentation in Two Movements | Hugh Levick


Hugh LevickSunday 8 pm and Tuesday 5 pm

First Movement

We will start with the following experiment: Close your eyes and listen to any sound you hear—a scraping chair, a cough, fabrics rubbing together, the wind outside, etc.-- as music.

To continue we will talk about what music is.

We will see how a person’s answer to that question will probably determine how he or she experiences the classical music being written today.

Several questions will be asked and discussed:

What happened to classical music? Why did it change? Why can’t a composer today write music the way it was written by Beethoven, Mahler or Debussy?

The first night’s discussion will cover aspects of the social/historical context at the beginning of the 20th century and why this was such an important factor in transformations that took place in all the arts.

Samples of the music of Schoenberg, Stravinsky and others will be played and discussed.

Second Movement

Examples of the music of individual composers from the 20th and 21st century will be played.

Questions will be asked:

What does this make you feel?

How is it different from the previous selection?

Why do you like or not like it?

How would you describe in words what you just heard?

At the end of the presentation a list of composers and compositions will be passed out for those interested in doing some more listening.

Hugh Levick is a composer who lives between Los Angeles and Paris. He worked as a jazz saxophonist, created incidental music for 15 theatre productions in both France and the US, and did performance art before finding his voice as a composer of contemporary classical music. He has written two operas as well as numerous pieces for chamber ensembles. His CD of three string quartets, The Unimagined: Preparations For The Unknown, recorded by the Diotima Quartet and produced by the National Radio of France on the Signature label, will be released in the US in January 2014. In 2011 Levick created and is the Artistic Director of Hear Now…A Festival of New Music by Contemporary Los Angeles Composers, which in May, 2014 will present its 4th annual festival in Venice Beach, CA.



Start Date: January 18, 2014
End Date: January 24, 2014


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