Friday, December 17, 2004

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL

James Levine may be making waves over at Symphony Hall by
siccing the BSO on the modern-classical repertoire, but as Devil
Music's Jonah Rapino points out, much of that material is getting
a bit long in the tooth. "Contemporary classical music is almost
never heard outside of the conservatory," he notes, "except for
[when it's done by] us wee art-rockers." Most often seen around
town as an indie-punk trio, Rapino's Devil Music have performed
original scores for silent films, as a country band, and as part of
a klezmer circus. But for the third year running, they're expanding
to a 40-piece orchestra to perform large-group works, including pieces by Rapino and his band mates, and
small-group works by UMass-Boston prof David Patterson and others. Like the New Yorker's Alex Ross,
Rapino presents the crisis facing classical music in terms any punk would recognize. "All over the country,
orchestras are dying, no one is subscribing anymore, symphonies are paying less, the halls are filled with
almost only old people," he writes in an e-mail. "So we endeavor to bring classical music to the new generation
of music appreciators. It's exciting." Devil Music perform at 8 p.m. at Massachusetts College of Art's new Posen
Center, 621 Huntington Avenue in Boston; call (617) 879-7000 or visit www.devilmusic.org.