Adam Sliwinski

Adam Sliwinski: Writings

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  • Hello world!

    This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it. Happy blogging!

  • The Habits That Create Knowledge Part 2: The Prepared Digital Piano

    The Prepared Digital Piano For the last 8 months, I haven’t written anything new in this space because I’ve been working on a wonderful project: a new volume in the Cambridge University “Companion” series about percussion. Russell Hartenberger is the editor, and I was honored to contribute the chapter about percussion chamber music. It is…

  • A Week with the LA Phil

    This past week was a kind of waking dream for the four of us in So Percussion.  We were invited by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to open their 14/15 subscription season at Disney Concert Hall by snapping twigs… The Phil co-commissioned David Lang to write a new concerto for percussion quartet and orchestra.  Titled “man…

  • Liner Notes for Bobby Previte's "Terminals"

    In the fall, So Percussion will be releasing Bobby Previte’s Terminals, a sprawling series of concerti for percussion quartet plus improvising soloists.  I wrote this short essay for the LP liner notes.  Terminals Liner Notes for LP Bobby Previte’s Terminals proposes a simple idea: that the percussion ensemble is actually an ideal vehicle for the…

  • Cenk Ergun's "Proximity"

    In May, So Percussion is featured on Cenk Ergun’s latest release Nana performing Proximity, a ravishingly beautiful piece made of metal sounds that he wrote for us in 2009.   We’ve known Cenk for years – he and Jason attended Eastman together – and this project gestated very slowly.  It represents a unique vision that…

  • The Habits that Create Knowledge

    “An intellectual or bodily habit is therefore a structured discipline that generates knowledge. It is a discipline that requires a special kind of training, specific to each organum, and habitually idiosyncratic to an instrument.” – J.F. Gauvin (333) These words zoomed out at me as I was reading a paper my wife prepared for her…

  • SoSI Alumni – New Projects

    About a week ago, I got the idea to check in with some of the students who have attended the So Percussion Summer Institute, which is about to enter its sixth year. I have been receiving updates from alumni about fresh new ideas they’ve had since attending our festival.  Many have started their own groups,…

  • Classical Music is UNDEAD

    It was with dismay and sadness this week that I learned in Slate of the demise of classical music.  A genre I’ve loved for years, which was so loosely branded as to encompass one thousand years of history across dozens of countries and cultures, is gone.  In my grief, I groped for an explanation.  How…

  • Unpacking David Lang's "the so-called laws of nature"

    TLP #6.371-6.372  The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages. And in fact both were right…

  • Thoughts from Very Good Musicians – Russell Hartenberger

    I thought it would be fun to ask some musicians whom I admire to write about some aspect of their work. My first email was to Russell Hartenberger.   Russell is one of the prominent figures in percussion history.  He is a founding member of the percussion group NEXUS, one of the most important influences…

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