It all started this week with Russell sending us the insanity of Spike Jones and his City Slickers playing Holiday for Strings, remarking that “the expression on the gentleman’s face when Spike Jones fires the pistol is much like the look on Victor Borge’s face when we played Chamber Music.” Which took us to Bill… Read more »
We have come to our final history post, celebrating our fifty years in music. We are posting this on May 22, 2022, which is (TA DA!) our 51st birthday!! It has been astonishing for all of us to look back at where we began and where we have been. Needless to say, Covid threw dismay,… Read more »
CBC “IN CONCERT” HALL OF FAME We were honoured to be inducted into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “In Concert” Canadian Musician Hall of Fame – NEXUS being the 13th inductee. It was such a pleasure revisiting our recordings that were featured in the broadcast: Steve Reich’s “Sextet” (written for NEXUS) and his “Music for Mallet… Read more »
LOU’S TUBES AND CULINARY DELIGHTS Our busy April 2018 took us to Kingston NY to help the Ulster Chamber Music Series celebrate their 50th and to Hyde Park NY to the Culinary Institute of America! In Kingston, the hall was set with big suspended tubes at the compass points for the concert opener, “Greeting Prelude”… Read more »
AN UNUSUAL BEGINNING We had an unusual start to 2017. Bill had an unexpected knee injury and had to take time out to heal. We were grateful that Ray Dillard was able to step into the breach for our Texas week in Houston at San Jacinto College with Mike Mizma – interesting clinics and a… Read more »
ROBIN ENGELMAN Six years ago, on February 26th 2016, we received the sad news of the passing of NEXUS founding member Robin Engelman. The tributes poured in – moving, funny, telling – as colleagues, students, friends read the announcement. You can see these amazing comments on the home page of Robin’s website at www.robinengelman.com. Andrew… Read more »
THE NEXUS OFFICE DOG Some of you might remember the NEXUS office dog who made occasional appearances in 2015 through 2017. Usually associated with holidays! He left the office in 2018 to patrol more heavenly halls, but he remains immortalized here and there on the NEXUS pages. A NOBLE CD AND… Read more »
SEPIDEH RAISSADAT and PERSIAN SONGS Our remarkable collaboration with Iranian vocalist Sepideh Raissadat began in 2014. Russell Hartenberger created several new arrangements for NEXUS and voice and entitled the suite “Persian Songs”. It was premiered at the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener Ontario, reprised at a Walter Hall concert in Toronto, and then we… Read more »
VIRGILIANA We kicked off 2013 with two premieres. At the New Music Festival at the University of Toronto we presented the newly-commissioned work “Virgiliana” by Canadian composer Norbert Palej. It was his strong response to “Naples’ sun-bathed heat” and the “cool damp gloom and millennia-old mysteries” of the caves and grottos associated with Virgil and… Read more »
FEELING THE PULSE Spring touring took us to California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, the Episcopal Collegiate School in Little Rock AR, La Grange College GA and Wittenberg University OH. We opened each with Music For Pieces Of Wood, and we had guests provide “the pulse”: Dave Johnson, Eric Saoud, Ken Passmore and Marc Smarelli… Read more »
AN ALL-TIMPANI PROGRAM In early March 2011, we participated in two exciting programs. David Kent (timpanist with the Toronto Symphony) joined us a guest artist in an unusual program of timpani works. Together, we premiered Bill Cahn’s new piece “Night Ride” and played his Raga No. 1. Along with the Philidor “Marche de timbales”, Elliott… Read more »
LUMINOUS ACOUSTICS In July 2010 we returned to Garry Kvistad’s “Woodstock Beat” event at Maverick Hall just outside Woodstock NY. We were joined by Sō Percussion and Steve Reich as we had been in 2008 at the Ojai Festival in California. The occasion was the 40th anniversary of the writing of Reich’s “Drumming”. We too… Read more »
MORE ABOUT TALKING DRUMS First a quick flashback to 2008 – some more details about Russell Hartenbergers’s Talking Drum Symposim. He says, “I organized a “Talking Drum Symposium” which was sponsored by the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto. The featured guests were John Miller Chernoff, author of “African Rhythm and African Sensibility,”… Read more »
DANCE MUSIC FOR ELFRID IDE HERE is a radio show aired of Garry and Russell in conversation with Laura Kuhn, Exec.Dir. of the John Cage Trust at Bard College. They had fun talking about Cage and sundry related topics. You will also hear 2 movements of our recording of Cage’s Dance Music for Elfrid Ide,… Read more »
