Philadelphia Music Project

PMP Announces 2008 Grantees
Nineteen local music organizations receive almost $1 million in funding

The Philadelphia Music Project awards $981,064 to 19 local music organizations in support of 141 concerts and residency programs encompassing traditional and contemporary forms of classical, jazz, and world/folk music. This year’s grants will help bring the premieres of 25 new works to Philadelphia audiences, 18 of which will be commissioned with direct support from PMP. Click here to read the full press release, or visit the Grantees section for descriptions of funded projects.

Complete Calendar

Saturday, June 7

An African American Triptych: Egypt's Nights

Opera North

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Click here to view the PMP 2007-08 Funded Events Archive.

Michael Brecker: A Tribute
By Tom Moon

In the middle of “Hijera” on her 1980 live album Shadows And Light, Joni Mitchell asks her audience to listen for “shades of Michael Brecker coming through the snow and the pinewood trees.” On cue, the Philadelphia-born saxophonist saunters in, and in just a few measures, his soprano saxophone steers Mitchell’s restless ode in a new direction. There’s nothing unusual about the break—Brecker, who died in January 2007 after a struggle with a rare blood disorder, routinely laced apt and idiomatically astute magic into the tiniest crevices of pop tunes. What’s unusual is Mitchell’s name-dropping. It’s like she’s lifting the curtain on what she once famously termed the “star-maker machinery behind the popular song” long enough to reveal one of her secret weapons—Brecker’s fiery saxophonistics, which was also an X-factor on records by James Taylor, Paul Simon, Funkadelic, John Lennon and countless others.

Click here to read the full article