Event

Thomas Meadowcroft

Composing Under the Sign of Commodity

March 29, 2022 (Tuesday) — 5:15 pm to 7:00 pm

Lerner Center
Penn Music Building
201 S. 34th Street, Room 101

ABSTRACT 

This presentation touches on various cultural anxieties facing avant-garde/contemporary classical/experimental music in the early twenty-first century, as expanded upon by using particular work examples from the composer’s output. These anxieties can stem from the the endless proliferation of digital content via musical pro-sumption, cross-genre cultural exchange, classical music’s position in the larger cultural symbolic order, as well as the trouble music, unlike art, causes commodification.

BIO

Thomas Meadowcroft is an Australian freelance composer who makes orchestral and chamber music for the concert hall, as well as music for theater and radio. His work has been described as “reaching an inexpressible purity” (Le Monde), “dreamy post-rock” (The New York Times), “never-ending, sugar-sweet” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) and “hauntingly beautiful” (The Sydney Morning Herald).  His orchestral music has been performed by, among others, the BBC SO, the SWR SO and the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg. He lives in Berlin.