American composer John Cage’s iconic 4′33” is climbing up the charts in Britain. Fairly surprising for a piece that actually contains no music, only silence! The ironic artistic statement from the 50’s has become a rallying cry for Brits who object to the manipulation of the national music charts by the likes of Simon Cowell. The story is right here.
John Cage
Simon Cowell
This year our entire holiday decorating effort has been to hang a wreath on the front door. 
We’re off to snowy Colorado for Christmas so I thought we’d let the decorations rest this year. Others around our neighborhood have splashed lights around their houses with varying degrees of success and flair. There’s one “wonderland” type house a few blocks away. The owners add a little more to their one of a kind brick mansion every year. If you are looking for those “over the top” Christmas light shows check out the 12th annual Lights of the Valley website features about 350 homes across 93 cities / 22 counties of Northern California who have the best Christmas displays and decoration. The site features the best & brightest Christmas light displays from the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, San Joaquin and Sacramento Valley areas – from Eureka and Redding down to Fresno. Here is the link.
Oh, and the cost of firing up those lights? One house in Delaware features 1-million twinkling lights…yes MILLION. The Faucher family has been adding a little more luminance to their brand of Christmas joy over the last 25 years. All that light sets them back a whopping $686 per hour. They’re on 4 hours/night for about a month. The energy bill? $82,320! If they switched exclusively to LED lights they could save $71,640 per month.
hs
The effort to make classical music more accessible continues with a provocative suggestion from a sports lover. Why not keep a running “score” of a piece while its being played? Click here to see the original blog entry.
What's the score?
For lovers of art, birds, and publishing history, this is one for the ages. A well-preserved edition of James Audubon’s 19th-century masterpiece Birds of America fetched $10 million dollars at auction today. Each page contains a hand-painted, life-size painting. Check out the stunning images below.
Birds of America
She’s a former heroin addict who lives in a crime riddled city along the southern U.S. border.
Alma Rosa Gonzalez is helping poor children learn classical music and give them an outlet that might stop them falling prey to the gangsters who are terrorizing Ciudad Juarez on the Texas border. Inspired by Venezuela’s famous network of orchestras known as El Sistema (The System), which aims to rescue poor young people through music, the program has helped more than 400 children in Ciudad Juarez. The success has come despite threats, robberies and students dropping out when parents have been kidnapped. Most of the kids won’t become professional musicians, but music broadens horizons, teaches discipline and helps promote peace, Gonzalez said. This is one very inspiring story. Read all about it here.
hs
A new book by Thomas Larson explores the legacy of Samuel Barber’s most famous piece during this, his centennial year. In The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Larson writes “The Adagio’s sonorous intensity also speaks of the turbulent inner life of its composer.” The author is in town for book signings this week. December 7 at San Francisco’s Books, Inc. and December 8 at Book Passage in Corte Madera. Here’s a link to the author’s website.
Composer Samuel Barber
A crowd of KDFC listeners joined us at Yoshi’s in SF for the First Annual KDFC Holiday Concert Live on Tuesday November 30. The wonderfully talented, funny and overall entertaining Canadian Brass set a high standard for future musical groups in seasons to come. Here are some more photos from a very enjoyable evening.
hs
