As the video above demonstrates, Steven Schick, who will conduct ICE in a three-concert presentation of James Dillon's Nine Rivers at Miller Theatre this week, knows how to talk about "difficult" music without sanctimony or apology. He says in an interview with Steve Smith: “I wonder if people realize in the typical symphony orchestra paradigm how anesthetizing it is to an audience to be given the explicit or inferred message that ‘you’re probably not up to this.’ ” .... Get your Ernst Krenek remixes.... Reinbert de Leeuw performing 4'33" on a Dutch talk show.... The San Francisco Symphony is celebrating its centennial with some of the liveliest programming of Michael Tilson Thomas's tenure. Josh Kosman writes about Larry Rothe's history of the orchestra, which, not surprisingly, is populated by delightful eccentrics.... Other notable events this week in New York: the opening of the new Roulette, with everyone from Kaija Saariaho to Lou Reed participating in the inaugural festival; Timothy Andres reprising his wild version of the "Coronation" Concerto with Metropolis; the opening of the Arvo Pärt installation To a Great City; and, of course, the hotly anticipated return of the Arts Florissants Atys to BAM.... Humdinger: David Robertson opens the St. Louis Symphony season with Petrushka, Les Noces, and The Rite of Spring — all in one concert. There's a live broadcast on Saturday at 8PM.... Robert Christgau remembers the visionary musicologist Christopher Small, who died in Spain last week.
