Matthew Cmiel

Last week’s Other Minds Festival showcased world musicians doing wild and crazy, and often enjoyable and inventive, things.

The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players ensemble continues to evolve and explore new music, as evidenced by its Monday concert that displayed rich variety.

SFCV asked composer Matthew Cmiel, who came of age in the “aughts,” to write about what the musical revolution caused by music sharing and “handheld computer devices” means to him. Here is his response, along with an annotated playlist.

The San Francisco Symphony last week tried to attract a younger audience, with a populist bent. While I applaud the idea, the success lay in increased ticket sales, not in delivery of a pleasing aesthetic experience.

Besides impeccable musicianship, Kronos offers up socially aware compositions.

A sample of genre-bending, new-music concerts that will expand your horizons — innovative works at the S.F. Electronic Music Festival, a hot new commission at the Berkeley Symphony, and John Adams double-your-pleasure at the S.F. Symphony.

A Crimson Grail was premiered at the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur, after a commission by the city of Paris. Rhys Chatham’s piece consciously makes use of the architecture’s 15-second reverberation time. The musicians surround the audience, creating a live, surround-sound experience. The Paris-based Chatham wrote the piece for a variable number of electric guitarists and bassists (astonishingly, up to 400), plus a single percussionist. The Nonesuch recording captures the work’s Lincoln Center performance.

I became a fan of Peppino D’Agostino, who will be performing July 11 at the Mendocino Music Festival, through the world of classical music. In 1998, D’Agostino met David Tanenbaum at the Schorndorf Gitarren festival in Germany and received such positive feedback from the encounter that they decided to work together.