On October 7, in the gently rocking confines of BargeMusic (not pictured), I will host Composers on the Edge, a New Yorker Festival event. The concept is to round up some inventive young artists who are airing out the definition of what it means to be a composer in this frazzled day and age. The panel includes Mason Bates, who divides his time between composing and DJing; Corey Dargel, whose work hovers on the border between art song and art rock; Nico Muhly, steeped in Renaissance polyphony, minimalism, and Björk; and Joanna Newsom, a harpist-songwriter who absorbed twentieth-century repertory at Mills College. I fear that Prof. Heebie McJeebie will have a heart attack if he ever hears about the manifest aesthetic impurity of these young people's efforts, but for most others it ought to be a lively evening — more like a concert with intermittent talk than a panel discussion. Tickets go on sale at noon today.
Update: As of 2:30PM, it's sold out.
