Duckworth's use of mobile phones touted

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation runs an article about how composer William Duckworth is inviting mobile phone users to participate in the iOrpheus performance in Brisbane on August 31. Nice quote from Duckworth: "Everybody's a musician, it's just kind of been trained out of us. We're just trying to get it all back to where people aren't afraid to participate."

Cleveland Piano Competition

The Cleveland International Piano Competition starts this week, Donald Rosenberg reports in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The entire competition, lasting more than a week, will be covered live by WCLV, which streams its broadcasts on the Internet. My schedule won't allow me to attend much of it, but I'm going to try to record some of it from the radio. One welcome bit of news from Rosenberg's report: "For the first time this year, contestants must play a 20th- or 21st-century work during rounds one or two. Only semifinalists were required to explore this repertoire in previous years." More information from official site.

Vintage Cleveland jazz photographs online

WCPN's "Jazz from the North Coast" program hosted by Dan Polletta ran a nice Joe Mosbrook feature on Monday night on Frank Kuchirchuk, a veteran photographer I "discovered" at the Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky. A photo gallery of 10 of Frank's pictures of classic jazz artists in Cleveland is available at WCPN's web site.

Duckworth songs to be performed in Oregon

The annual Yachats Music Festival will be held July 13-15 in Yachats, Oregon, featuring music from everyone from Mozart to Chick Corea to Henry Cowell. The program will include a performance of some of William Duckworth's songs by baritone Thomas Buckner.