“Symphony” (Used 4 times)

Jason Weinberger takes a progressive multimedia approach to his role as Director of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra, and these Creative Commons-licensed performances of Mozart, Debussy, Chabrier and Mahler are just part of his efforts to encourage audience engagement.

For example, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier writes of a 2009 performance at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center:

Jason Weinberger, WCFSO music director, designed a remarkably unique format in which to present Mahler’s Fifth. It was the only work of the evening, and the first half was given over to an illustrative analysis of Mahler and his symphony. The maestro himself lectured, the orchestra played excerpts of key passages, section leaders commented and the audience participated. All of this created a greater understanding and appreciation of Mahler’s work. (read more)

The In Concert With The WCFSO collection on Vimeo is another fantastic example of Weinberger's efforts to bring these works to life through performance.

We hear that the WCFSO is planning some interesting media usage/mashup projects next symphony season. I hope you'll join us in looking forward to what's next!

RE: Song played Oct. 21st 2010 from about 10am-10:45am -one long epic song

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 4:09 PM, Rick from PA wrote

Hello Jason,

I was driving into Jersey this morning. At 10:20am, I turned on your show. This piece I listened to had lots of strings, cellos and stringed basses in it. It was epic. It was quite long. Yes, [the] piece was probably performed on a very expensive keyboard but it sounded like the Boston Symphony was behind it: I had visions of WWII in my head. Who is the composer and where would I find this most excellent piece of music that I've ever heard. It was something I've never heard before.

Listener Rick was pretty psyched when I passed along this link to Thrones' epic live performance on Talk's Cheap yesterday. And his description is particularly awesome because there was no Boston Symphony orchestra involved -- all sound in this recording was made my one super human: Joe Preston. You might recognize Joe Preston's name from Earth, Sunn O))), Melvins, High On Fire, Men's Recovery Project, Harvey Milk, Thor, Snakepit, and many other great bands. But if you're not already familiar with his one-man experimental sludge/doom project Thrones, then it is time to join the cult!

After this mindblowing live session (which harkens back to the Thrones set at No Fun Fest 2009), Joe talked a bit about how he founded Thrones in 1994, at the encouragement of fellow bassist Vern Rumsey (of Unwound). Joe had put aside his own bass after parting ways with the Melvins; in fact, he "didn't touch an instrument for about a year" until he set about recording the solo tape. That became the first Thrones release, on Vern Rumsey's label Punk in my Vitamins. Since then, Thrones has gone on to release a steady stream of recordings on labels like Kill Rock Stars, Vermiform, 5rc and Southern Lord. Most recently, Thrones released a DVD & LP collaboration with Daniel Menche titled Cerberic Doxology, which featured Joe Preston's vocals sans-vocoder and is inspired by nature including the recreated Stonehenge (Joe talks about this during the interview). Conspiracy Records has also released a new Thrones 7'' titled Late For Dinner with the jams "Wage War"  b/w "Trmph Lfe".

Thrones is currently on tour with Christian Mistress, a killer metal band on the 20 Buck Spin label. They're in Texas tonight making their way up the West Coast back to native Pacific NW USA. More info & tourdates. More from Rick from Pa after the jump: