In Friday’s (9/28) Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), Elizabeth Kramer reports, “The documentary ‘Music Makes a City’ about the Louisville Orchestra’s world-famous project that commissioned contemporary composers in the 1950s has won Gramophone magazine’s award for best classical music film of the year. The film, released in May 2010, was directed by Owsley Brown III and Jerome Hiler, produced by Brown and Robin Burke, and narrated by Will Oldham. It tells how Louisville Mayor Charles Farnsley and conductor Robert Whitney launched and guided the project. The project led to the orchestra recording nearly 400 new works on its in-house label called First Edition. The Gramophone Classical Music Awards are selected annually by Gramophone magazine critics and classical music industry representatives. Via the commissioning project, the orchestra worked with and recorded composers who worked in a wide range of styles including Virgil Thomson, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, William Schuman, Joan Tower, Chou Wen Chung and Norman Dello Joio.”
Posted October 1, 2012