NEXUS is performing in Wittenberg University’s Weaver Chapel in Springfield Ohio in a few weeks. The school motto, “Having light, we pass it on to others” can be seen in their cutting-edge music department. More than 70% of Wittenberg’s students enroll in music lessons, ensembles, or classes during their time on campus, and by doing… Read more »
That’s the motto of LaGrange College in west-central Georgia, and NEXUS will be doing just that in a few weeks when they perform there, in the Callaway Concert Series.
NEXUS will be in residence at the Episcopal Collegiate School in Little Rock Arkansas, March 13 and 14. Our host, percussionist Erick Saoud, has NEXUS happily filling every moment with student interactions.
In three weeks, NEXUS is heading to L. A., and the “logistics” emails are flying: instruments, flights, program notes, and a zillion other things are being put into place. The group is performing on March 2nd at California Lutheran University in the city of Thousand Oaks (just northwest of Los Angeles),
Rituals is a four-movement concerto for percussion and orchestra composed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. The piece was co-commissioned in 2003 by NEXUS, the IRIS Orchestra, the Pearl Corporation, Kathleen Holt and Stephen Lurie, and Adams Musical Instruments. The recording is available from NAXOS. Rituals has received high praise. New Music Box calls it “one of… Read more »
“Paul Horn + NEXUS” is an album that has been long out of print. It was originally released in 1975 (one of NEXUS’ earliest recordings) on Epic (KE33561). Through inspired improvisations, NEXUS with Paul Horn on flutes and alto sax created an emotionally potent and stylistically diverse album merging rhythms and cultural influences from South… Read more »
How is your New Year? Everyone at NEXUS is busy. Ray has been lining up the many logistics for a very busy Spring that will take NEXUS from California to Arkansas, then Georgia, Ohio and Rochester NY.
My eleventh residency at the Showa Music Academy in Kawasaki since 1998 included: * performance on a gala percussion concert in the academy’s opera house (Teatro Giglio) * 44 private lessons * 11 small ensemble coaching sessions * 1 Creative Music Making (freeform improvisation) workshop * 1 videotaped interview for students in the English language… Read more »
On Sat. Dec. 11 at the end of the first week of my residency at Showa, I woke up and 7 AM and worked on my computer for several hours. It was a free day with no lessons and only rehearsals scheduled for the afternoon. From noon until 5 PM I was involved in a… Read more »
At Holiday time I usually write about the great Family and Pops concerts that NEXUS has available, or I remind you of their choral repertoire. (If you are not familiar, click here and here!) But Garry Kvistad just sent me an article from the American Bell Association that has me thinking about the many winter… Read more »
I have been visiting the Showa Academy of Music in Japan almost every year since 1998. When NEXUS toured to Okinawa in 1997, I was introduced to Kazunori Meguro by Yoji Sadanari, who had studied at the University of Toronto in the 1970s, and who knew all of us in NEXUS. When Kazunori (‘Kaz’)… Read more »
Last night, I had a wonderful meal at a great little Toronto restaurant called Southern Accent. A couple of friends remember performing Zydeco at that restaurant, some years back. It reminded me that I had some notes put away for a blog post! Zydeco is a form of American roots music that evolved from the… Read more »
Further to Bob Becker’s blog posting of Dec. 8, 2011 I also received a request from Yale graduate student Victor Caccese to addess a few questions about the beginning of NEXUS. Mr. Cahn, I mainly want to ask you about the start of Nexus with your first performances in 1971. Even though all… Read more »
In December, 2011 I received a request from Yale graduate student Victor Caccese to answer a few questions about how NEXUS began and developed. VC: Mr. Becker, I mainly wanted to ask you about the start of NEXUS with your first performances in 1971. Even though all of its members have accomplished a great deal… Read more »
The musical Chess recently completed its run here in Toronto, and I just finished reading The Eight by Katherine Neville. The latter is a fascinating romp of a novel featuring a mystical chess set and a tapestry of historical characters scouring the world for it. Not least among them is the opera composer Francois-Andre Danican… Read more »
