The aim of Concentration Camp is to be a site where people who are interested in 20th and 21st century “classical” music can read, hear and share things that might be interesting and perhaps even moving to them… Along with the Mixcloud site of the same name, the hope is to expose as many people as possible to music they might not otherwise get to hear, since most “classical” radio stations rarely play anything beyond a very finite set of modern pieces – “Appalachian Spring,” for example, or Gorecki’s third symphony, much like “classic rock” stations do.
This site is an outgrowth of a radio show I started doing five years ago in my town of Asheville, NC. I was offered a two-hour slot and I picked classical as a challenge to myself, since I knew very little about it. I’ve learned a lot in five years, thanks to a lot of reading and listening, but I will remain a novice until the end, I’m afraid. But I have come to love composers like Shostakovich, Schnittke, Saariaho, Ligeti, Ustvolskaya and Ives and believe they should be heard, so I’m going to play them…
For the record, the name “Concentration Camp” is more double entendre than pun. While the historical term lines up neatly with time frame of music that’ll be presented and discussed – the British coined the term in 1901 to describe a tactic employed in the Boer War, where they rounded up and held the families of tenacious insurgents – and while the music I’ll play largely reflects the fact that the 20th C. was a nightmare, the show is as much about listening closely to – concentrating on – music that pays infinite dividends to close listeners. I used to be able to concentrate, but now I have to go to camp to work on it…
If you want to write for the blog – record and performance reviews would be great! – or to leave comments or offer requests/suggestions, feel free to contact me at deafmix3@hotmail. Yeah, I’m old.
Concentration Camp 