A New Dissonance

New Twitter Feed

Jon Roy — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:24:56 +0000

Keep up with New Dissonance on Twitter: @NewDissonance HERE

Follow Ben Johnston news, performances, clips, etc., as well as other happenings from the New Music world.

Ben Johnston: From Helmholtz to Harry Partch

Jon Roy — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:13:02 +0000

A video I prepared for Ben’s lecture at Eastman last year:

2012 is shaping up to be an exciting year…

Jon Roy — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:09:00 +0000

Lots to look forward to this year: Premieres of Ben Johnston’s music, an exciting (unreleased) schedule at Microfest, new videos and recordings, lots of John Cage centenary celebrations/performances, and the Kepler Quartet rehearsing and recording the last in the cycle of Ben’s string quartets, Nos. 6, 7, 8.

Leigh Cross and his Proportional Pitch Keyboard

Jon Roy — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 01:50:03 +0000

Leigh Cross is a music enthusiast, scholar, and instrument builder whom Ben and I had the pleasure of meeting last year at a colloquium at Wright State. Leigh has designed and built a proportional pitch keyboard based on Ben Johnston’s fifty-three note, expanded just intonation scale as described in Ben’s paper, Scalar Order as a Compositional Resource (which can be found in his book Maximum Clarity). I had the pleasure of meeting up with Leigh again recently in his workshop in Vancouver, where I shot this video of Leigh explaining the keyboard.

Leigh is making this an open source project, as the keyboard needs development with the help of electricians, programmers, etc. If you would like to contact Leigh, please write to info[at] newdissonance.com and all inquiries will be passed along.

Promo video for new Kepler CD

Jon Roy — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:24:28 +0000

NY Times review of String Quartets nos. 1, 5, and 10

Jon Roy — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:15:07 +0000

Here is Steve Smith’s flattering New York Times review of the new recordings by the Kepler Quartet of Ben Johnston’s String Quartets Nos. 1, 5, and 10.

First Reviews are in for Ben Johnston’s String Quartets Nos. 1, 5, and 10

Jon Roy — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:29:10 +0000

And they are quite positive:

Frank Oteri’s piece for New Music Box can be found here.

Another review from the blogosphere is here.

String Quartets 1, 5, and 10 NOW ON CD!

Jon Roy — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:25:39 +0000

The Kepler Quartet’s new album featuring premiere recordings of Ben Johnston’s 1st, 5th, and 10th String Quartets is available now on New World Records.

Thanks to the quartet members: Sharan Leventhal, Eric Segnitz, Brek Renzelman, and Karl Lavine, for all the sacrifice and hard work they put in to make these amazing recordings of this beautiful music. And thanks to Ben, for continuing to inspire us all.

John Cage documentary

Jon Roy — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:09:48 +0000

A classic documentary on American composer John Cage (1912-1992).

“American Masters” John Cage: I Have Nothing to Say and I Am Saying It (1990)

Vivian Perlis (writer)
TV Series: “American Masters” (1983)
Original Air Date: 17 September 1990
Country: UK
55 min

The player will show in this paragraph

Ben on Working with John Cage

Jon Roy — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:46:40 +0000

Ben Johnston on meeting John Cage and their subsequent work together.