Charles Ives | MEMETERIA by Thomas May

January 29, 2026 • 11:07 am 0

Tracing the Wheel of Time, Thomas Adès Leads the NY Philharmonic

*Thomas Adès conducting the New York Philharmonic, with soprano Anna Dennis; photo credit: Chris Lee*

Last week’s New York Philharmonic program under Thomas Adès, anchored in the newly expanded version of his America: A Prophecy, was one of the most thought-provoking, unusual, and compelling programs I’ve encountered in ages. My review for Musical America (sorry for the paywall):

NEW YORK—Thomas Adès was 28 when the New York Philharmonic first programmed his music on a major subscription concert. America: A Prophecy was commissioned as part of a series marking the threshold of a new millennium and received its premiere in November 1999 under Kurt Masur. At last week’s concerts, a new, expanded version of America anchored the program, this time with Adès himself on the podium. …

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Filed under: Charles Ives, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Musical America, New York Philharmonic, review, Saariaho, Thomas Adès

February 19, 2025 • 5:56 pm Comments Off on Adès Conducts Adès

Adès Conducts Adès

Here’s the essay I wrote for the Cleveland Orchestra’s program this week featuring guest conductor and composer Thomas Adès:

Among the preeminent composers of our era, Thomas Adès has likened the practice of creating art — whether music, literature, or painting — to fashioning “a simulacrum of the real world, a reflection”…

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Filed under: Charles Ives, conductors, program notes, Saariaho, Sibelius, Thomas Adès

November 24, 2016 • 12:19 am Comments Off on Charles Ives: Thanksgiving and Forefathers’ Day

Charles Ives: Thanksgiving and Forefathers’ Day

Filed under: American music, Charles Ives, San Francisco Symphony

July 4, 2015 • 11:30 am Comments Off on A Fourth with Ives

A Fourth with Ives

Celebrate American music! And you can’t do much better than Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony for this rep.

As Charles Ives impishly recalled about this third movement from his Holidays Symphony :

I did what I wanted to, quite sure that the thing would never be played, although the uneven measures that look so complicated in the score are mostly caused by missing a beat, which was often done in parades. In the parts taking off explosions, I worked out combinations of tones and rhythms very carefully by kind of prescriptions, in the way a chemical compound which makes explosions would be made.

And for good measure: