Maybe you missed this when we posted it the first time around -- back in, um, June 2007, when the Police played the American Airlines Center. So, from March '79, here's the band performing (kind of) "The Yellow Rose of Texas" at the original Palladium. (Can't believe that link's still working, to be honest.) Anyway. The reason I mention it is because till this week I had no idea Police drummer Stewart Copeland had a book on shelves about his tenure in that on-and-off band that was, once upon a very long time ago, my favorite in the whole wide world -- well, it was either the Police or Talking Heads. (Or XTC. Or the Clash. Or the Jam. Adam and the Ants, maybe.) Anyway. I also had no idea, even though it says so right there on his Web site, that Copeland was hard at work on a concerto for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
This is what he told The Wall Street Journal a few days ago:
What's up next for you?The piece is set to premiere next year. At which point Sting and Stewart may or may not be speaking again.
Right now, I'm writing a concerto for gamelan for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. It's the magic music of Bali. The whole island is about art and the music really stands out. The gamelan is a row of bells that are pitched. They create beautiful music, but many of the notes don't exist on western keyboards. The Dallas Symphony has a bunch of Bali heads; D'Drum, they call themselves. I have to figure out something for the orchestra to do.
