The evangelist
Ken Ueno’s one of my favorite composers and a good friend. Here are a couple quotes from an interview he gave recently:
“There isn’t as much potential for financial rewards [in classical music] as in pop music. But, there is the potential satisfaction that one had lived an uncompromising life of art in having created the music that one wanted to make unencumbered artistically by the demands of consumerist tastes.”
“I think the two most important developments [in the field of composing] will be: 1) the further integration of live, real-time computer processing into compositional performance practice; and 2) the proliferation of non-traditional instrumental groups, including an increased participation of the composer as performer. I would like to see my main instrument, the electric guitar, come into its own as a concert instrument with new pieces that incorporate it in both chamber music and orchestral contexts. Additionally, I hope that in the future New Music will come out of the shadows of being a sub-category of Classical music and become an independent movement.”
Read the entire interview here. And don’t miss the world premiere of his new concerto for biwa, shakuhachi, and orchestra at tomorrow night’s BMOP concert.
Update: Read Ken’s program notes and BMOP interview about Kaze-no-Oka (’Hill of the Winds’).