In the modernist centennial year 2013 — a century after the premiere of The Rite of Spring, the Schoenberg “scandal concert,” the birth of Britten, and the birth of Lutosławski, among other events — the Southbank Centre, in London, will stage a festival inspired by my book The Rest Is Noise. Some details of The Rest Is Noise Festival are being announced today, with more news to follow in the fall. I was not involved either in the programming of concerts or in the booking of artists, but I'll travel to London several times in 2013 to deliver lectures. Because of the association, from now on I will refrain from covering both Southbank and the London Philharmonic, which is at the heart of the series. Briefly, though, I'd like to thank the Londoners for taking inspiration from my work, and, more important, for lavishing attention on a gloriously chaotic century of music. When I began writing The Rest Is Noise, more than a decade ago, I could not have imagined any of this.
