No One Alive Today Will Hear it End

A 1,000 minute arrangement of The Longplayer, a 1,000-year-long piece of music by Jem Finer, is being performed live at The Roundhouse in London. Until now, the piece had only been generated and performed by computers at The Lighthouse in Trinity Buoy Wharf in London. The piece began December 31st 1999 and will be completed at the end of the year 2999.

This performance takes place in a 20 meter circle where musicians play 1,000 year old Tibetan Singing Bowls arranged in six concentric rings. In 2002, Finer created an arrangement of the piece—he wrote a score for the musicians and dictated the proper arrangement of the instruments. And in case you were wondering, 1,000 minutes is 16.667 hours. That is 1.90132588 x 10^-6 the length of the complete work.

See the BBC article (and video) here.

Researchers theorize that Mozart may have died as a result of kidney damage caused by strep throat. After analyzing data from the death registry in Vienna, scientists have postulated that “edema,” the listed cause of Mozart’s death, may have come as a result of untreated strep throat. Edema is the wasting away that could have also been associated with diabetes or cancer, however the spike in edema related deaths during the year Mozart died leads researchers to believe there was an epidemic of strep throat during the cold season. Check the full article for more info.
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The Philadelphia Orchestra will begin its summer residence at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, NY on August 5th at 8:00pm with a performance of Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” narrated by Alec Baldwin. As if an appearance by a Baldwin wasn’t enough, check the link to see what else is on the program.
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