In March, Alex Ross gave a lecture at the Royal Philharmonic Society in London about the seemingly age-old tradition of not applauding during classical music (as a tradition, it actually dates back less than 100 years, and was controversial even when it first started appearing with some regularity).  London’s Guardian excerpted his talk (which can also be found in its lengthier version here).

What do you think of the practice?  Or of Ross’s other observations about what he refers to as “the other tics of concert life”?

Let the debate begin!

Later this month pianist Ethan Iverson joins author Alex Ross for The Rest is Noise in Performance — a live performance based on Ross’s award-winning book about music in the 20th century.  Iverson is better known as the pianist of the jazz trio The Bad Plus.  When the trio appeared at UMS in February, we had a chance to talk to Iverson and ask him how the project with Alex Ross came to be (you can catch all this in the video above).

Ethan is also blogging about the tour (including details on the repertoire) which visits San Francisco, Ann Arbor, and Kalamazoo.

If you’re really looking forward to this event, you should make sure to check out Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise blog — it’s an amazing treasure chest of musical clips, videos, and short articles related to the book.