June 14, 1979 - New Music New York - day 7
Glass & Mumma panel w/Eno ● A. Middleton ● N. Sublette ● D. Behrman & A. Stidfole ● F. Mann ● T. Conrad ● J. Gibson ● A. Lockwood ● C. Palestine ● I. Tcherepnin ● ● B'days - Goldberg, Marta, Mizelle
David Behrman and Arthur Stidfole Touch Tones
Tony Conrad
Annea Lockwood
Charlemagne Palestine Untitled for Solo Voice
Ivan Tcherepnin Fêtes, Valse Eternelle
Various Jam in the Ear
Charlie Morrow Wave Music III: Sixty Clarinets
+ three birthdays: RoseLee Goldberg, Istvan Marta and Dary John Mizelle
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Three New Music America birthdays for this date:
RoseLee Goldberg, chronicler of performance art (and who launched a book during the NMNY festival on that very subject)
She took part in a panel discussion at the original New Music New York 1979 with John Rockwell, Connie Beckley, and Meredith Monk entitled “New Music and the Other Arts”, and would return to the festival in 1987 in Philadelphia to deliver a solo lecture in the context of Marcel Duchamp’s centennary, and I was able to find a review for that one:
RoseLee Goldberg, "New Music and the History of Performance"
Author/critic RoseLee Goldberg in her lecture, "New Music and the History of Performance" Sunday morning at the Philadelphia Mseum of Art, aptly reminded her audience that experimental and performance art- still considered avant-garde by many - is far from new.
Her talk focused on the Italian futurist F. T. Marinetti who, as early as 1912, advocated the commingling of performance and graphic arts, and who invented "music machines" before synthesizers were even imagined.
Performance art is, of course, an integral part of this festival, with compositions for video, dancers, and interactive sound: "The Maritime Rites" by Alvin Curran, for ship's horns on the shores of the Delaware River interacting with musicians on barges in the river; and a performance work by Leif Brush using solar-powered FM transmitters.
- Susan L. Pena, Redding Eagle-Times, “New Music Sounds Off in Old Philadelphia”, October 9, 1987
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roselee_Goldberg
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Istvan Marta from Hungary, whose work Doom. A Sigh was performed by the Kronos Quartet at Montréal Musiques Actuelles 1990 and which appeared on the Kronos album Black Angels
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And born on this day in 1940 in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Dary John Mizelle whose work Polyphonies I for Shakuhachi and Tape was presented at New Music America Chicago 1982.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dary_John_Mizelle
A recent release of his works was put out in 2021 on the Other Minds Label and this is the link to the full recording (and the limited edition vinyl!):
Since last year’s post I was able to find a couple of actual performance recordings from Dary John Mizelle’s participation at the NMA Chicago 1982 festival, via the live radio broadcast recordings preserved and uploaded to archive.org by Other Minds and Charles Amirkhanian who co-hosted the programs with Joan La Barbara.
Mizelle was part of the ensemble (with Marc Grafe, Austin, Phyllis Bruce and David Barron) that performed Larry Austin’s Tableaux Vivants and you can find it at 3:08 of the second part of this evening’s broadcast tapes:
https://archive.org/details/NMA_1982_07_07_1/NMA_1982_07_07_1_A_ed.wav
And a few days later, he performed his own composition, Polyphonies on July 11, which generated a few comments as well. The radio broadcast link for that one is below:
Dary John Mizelle Polyphonies I
for shakuhachi and tape
More actual performance archives from Kyle Gann’s recordings:
Program notes:
This is the first section of an hour-long electronic piece based on the idea of the emergence of multi-voiced musical phenomena out of elemental sound quanta. Subtitled Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Polyphonies I explores the sound world of those materials and the timbral spaces between them.
The shakuhachi, a Japanese vertical flute which is highly identified with nature, is used in this performance version and plays a part which symbolizes the development of music from breath.
When great Nature sighs, we hear winds
Which noiseless in themselves
Awaken voices from other beings,
Blowing on them,
From every opening
Loud voices sound
Have you not heard
This rush of tones?
From the Way of Chuang Tzu
***
Although Navy Pier provided elegant twilight settings for the concert series, its mammoth auditorium limited the effectiveness of many works based upon solo improvisation or a slowly evolving process. Jon Gibson's Extensions for soprano saxophone, Joan La Barbara's Klee Alee for voice and electronic tape and Dary John Mizelle's Polyphonies I for shakuhachi and electronic tape all suffered because the audience was physically distant and removed from the performer's experience. An intimate relationship between audience and performer could not be developed in the huge hall's concert format. Instead, the audience, forced into the role of passive receptor as the performer was creator of action, eventually grew restless and unreceptive.
- Deborah Campana "Two Reports" Perspectives of New Music, Autumn 1981
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Linda Montana explains how she came to evaluating six performances at NMA Chicago 1982.
"By allowing the Festival sounds and events to work on my body/spirit in this way, I was able to determine which pieces produced effective meditation responses. Although there were many memorable moments during the Festival, I can analyze only six pieces that prepared the ground for deep meditation experiences.
Inside/Outside ... These two approaches were 1. Sounds that allowed the listener to go inside and 2. Sounds that allowed the listener to come out."
Focus Inside: Dary John Mizelle Polyphonies 1 - Earth
The only reason I knew I liked Mizelle's piece is because my body liked it.
After many days and nights of sonic experiences it responded by relaxing completely and went into a dream pre-sleep space that I associate with meditation. There were no visuals to distract the event; in fact, the lights seemed to be completely off, except for a soft blue focus on Mizelle and his shakuhachi.
Tape delay allowed Mizelle to accompany himself along with other sounds which evoked natural memory (water & wind). They were attached thoughtfully. It's hard to do but this piece successfully merged the East and West. My body told me so.
- Linda Montano, "Moments of Consciousness", Ear Magazine 1982
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One of the better pieces of the evening was Dary John Mizelle's Polyphonies I for shakuhachi.
The bright lights of the auditorium were replaced by a blue glow as Mizelle created an ethereal atmosphere that blended with the Lake's expansiveness.
The sounds Mizelle produced were time-delayed around the room and slowly added layer upon layer, finally to produce a culminative resonance.
- M. Staff Brandl + Thomas Emil Homerin, "Big Noise from Lake Michigan", Ear Magazine 1982
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If Gena and Winsor understood the built-in limitations of their chosen esthetic and kept their pieces correspondingly short, Dary John Mizelle, in his Polyphonies I followed no such strictures.
A pity, for the world would be twice as effective if cut to half its length.
As the composer-performer wove the breathy, mournful voice of his shakuhachi (Japanese vertical flute) in and out of a gentle descant consisting of electronic cricket-chirps as well as natural sounds, the work took on the haunting quality of primal night-music.
- John Van Rhein, Chicago Tribune 'New Music America Leaves Echoes of Success"
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14 June, 1979 New Music New York - Day 6
Philip Glass and Gordon Mumma
panel: “New Music and Third World Music”
with Tom Johnson, Robert Palmer, Brian Eno and Barbara Benary
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From Beth Anderson’s “Report from the Front” (a 26 page report): she presents Alain Middleton (a composer from France living in NYC)
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Beth Anderson’s “Report from the Front”: presenting Ned Sublette’s “A Note on Two Meetings of the Music Critics’ Association”
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Joe McLellan (of the “Washington Post”)’s reply to Ned Sublette:
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David Behrman with Arthur Stidfole
Touch Tones
Kitchen recording of actual performance:
*
David Behrman made pretty curly sounds that moved lightly up, up and away. Then ‘plop’, ‘plop’, ‘plop’, ‘plop’, plops came down and amplified sandpaper entered when the curly sounds went back up. The sandpaper was live with Arthur Stidfole. Frankie Mann was announced as a performer, but it was tremendously unclear as to what she did, since she was off stage in the dark. The touch-sensitive switches were visible o the hanging image of a hand. A black box opened and was shut. A hairdryer and drill made less effective entrances. It was a lovely work concerned with a counterpoint between acoustic and electronic textures. It really was.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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To this taste, the ‘best’ pieces were by Phill Niblock, Charles Dodge, David Behrman, Rhys Chatham, Frankie Mann and Laurie Anderson. … Mr. Behrman blended humanism and electronics in a specially charming way; Mr. Chatham did a minimal-rock piece that really fused those tendencies superbly, and was evocatively accompanied by some slides by Robert Longo.
- John Rockwell post festival wrap up review, New York Times June 18, 1979
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David Behrman’s electronic piece Touch Tones, might well serve as a model for the proper musical use of the medium.
- Keith Roether, Albuquerque Tribune, “Criticism is Wishful Narcissism”, June 27, 1979
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Tony Conrad
(Excerpts on the Kitchen recording)
https://www.discogs.com/release/550900-Various-From-The-Kitchen-Archives-New-Music-New-York-1979
*
On the other hand, much of the repertoire seemed clearly secular. These pieces are rooted in the here and now, and convey greater respect for human skills than for outside forces. A few examples might be Jon Deak’s one-man-band act, Jill Kroesen’s songs, David van Tieghem’s toy instruments, Larry Austin’s somewhat humorous lecture-as-song, Tony Conrad’s shaggy-dog piano piece which ends with the piano being played by a machine, and Jeffrey Lohn’s neoclassically structured work for a rock ensemble.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice July 2, 1979
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Last evening’s composers were a mixed bag. Tony Conrad began the concert by banging on the piano, attempting without luck to play, to play something tonal in time with a metronome, giving up and playing an ugly improvisation with two metronomes. I suppose he thought it would double the fun. (If you can’t get along with one lover, maybe what you need is two.) He eventually found his way out of the aesthetic delimma (sic) by mechanizing the piano. It was untitled, as it should remain.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Jon Gibson Criss Cross
1986 recording:
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… Still, religious instincts make themselves felt in all human societies, and they have had much to do with the evolution of experimental music. Composers, perhaps more often than their contemporaries in any of the other arts, have been quite aware of spiritual values. Pauline Oliveros is a case in point.
… As the week progressed, I began to hear other works in religious terms. … The random structures in the excerpt from Petr Kotik’s ‘Many Many Women’ and the rational permutations of Jon Gibson’s work also seemed connected with higher forces.
…
Jon Gibson played better than I have ever heard him play before. His circular breathing was fully under control, and his soprano saxophone sound was really sumptuous. His new work, ‘Criss Cross,’ is a rather fast white-note piece that is of some interest in itself, but with unaccompanied pieces of this sort, it is the performing that really counts.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice, July 2, 1979
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The Philip Glass Ensemble’s saxophonist Jon Gibson has a jazzy take on the Glass style in his own music; his solo Criss Cross is excerpted here.
---- Quinn, American Record Guide, April 2005, reviewing the recording
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Jon Gibson played 3 out of 5 sections of a new soprano sax piece. The pitches were pre-determined, but the rhythm and phrasing were dependent on the breath. It was a pentatonic permutation performance involving some degree of improvisation. What struck me during the performance was not judgemental. But, there have been too many solos in this festival. (I know it comes from not having the funding.)
It reminds me of going to state music festivals where all the pianists play solos, then accompany someone’s flute solo, play in a string trio, and then perform a seconcary instrument in a large ensemble such as band or chorus. The same people keep coming up to play each other’s pieces. (It’s like Mills College speakers that bring all the electronic music in the bay area to audiences in performance spaces in surrounding towns.)
A Solo is not necessarily the representative form of the composer and the parade of repeating performers gives an isolated and insular feel to the festival, seen as a whole.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Annea Lockwood
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… Still, religious instincts make themselves felt in all human societies, and they have had much to do with the evolution of experimental music. Composers, perhaps more often than their contemporaries in any of the other arts, have been quite aware of spiritual values. Pauline Oliveros is a case in point.
… As the week progressed, I began to hear other works in religious terms. Annea Lockwood’s prerecorded mixture of natural sounds seemed like a clear cut example.
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice July 2, 1979
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Annea Lockwood did a trial run of an untitled new work including birds from the rainforest, rumbling, a wolf-howling sound, water, a horn-sound that moved around the speakers, and live breathing by Ruth Anderson. Aside from the simple reality of the series of sounds, the only message I derived was that if you do your ‘pranayama’ you will hear many sounds in your meditation. That may, on the other hand, have nothing to do with Annea’s intentions, but that’s what I got.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front” ===================================================
Charlemagne Palestine
Kitchen recording from their archival recording
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Finally, several pieces pointed up the fact that community of like-minded, tolerant musicians can sometimes allow the sloppiest of ideas to pass for art. … Charlemagne Palestine’s Untitled for Solo Voice (1979) was an artistic indulgence: He didn’t feel like doing what he had set out to do, so he didn’t and told us so.
- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle July 24, 1979
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Next we heard Mr.-Piss-On-The-Audience himself – Charlemagne Palestine (a tremendously talented creature who is currently suffering from a ‘Rite-of-Spring’-complex) – but if he ever gets an orchestra to play his symphony-in-progress, we’ll have something gorgeous. He did a solo in the dark which consisted of singing a grisly modal chant (at which everyone laughed), laughter at the audience, and short lecture. He brought up the significant question, “I only come here to be on stage. Why do you?” He yelled “Fuck you” at the audience and they yelled it back at him. This pleased him and he hollered, “We agree.” He definitely had something to say and said it.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
Also from the same report, a review (and drawing too) by Merle “Tin Ear” Steir:
Charlemagne Palestine rubbed his light stick in the darkness and it was one of the brighter moments.
As the nights go on, it all begins to blend together. Even the trucks on Broome Street come to have an identifiable style and fit into the schemes of sound.
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Ivan Tcherepnin Fêtes and Valse Eternelle
Alexandre Francois – Elaine Chow version 2007
Stephen Gosling live 2004
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Finally, several pieces pointed up the fact that community of like-minded, tolerant musicians can sometimes allow the sloppiest of ideas to pass for art. … Ivan Tcherepnin’s Two Pieces for Piano included Fêtes, a triple fugue for piano based on the tune of Happy Birthday: it was the kind of piece written for advanced counterpoint classes in college and then immediately thrown away as academic tripe.
- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle July 24, 1979
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Ivan Tcherepnin played the piano – two pieces in C-major and an uninvited encore in C#. Fêtes was a choral and triple fugue based on Happy Birthday, using retrograde, inversion, and various other ‘perverted forms’, as he says. (The most interesting thing about this piece was the unstated fact that 2 sisters wrote Happy Birthday and one is alive and living in Florida and sues people who use her tune – so this composition is illegal.) He also played a jazzy waltz, but had some performance difficulty. The good part about it was that it added some variety to the program.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
Same report, near the end Ivan Tcherepnin replied to Beth Anderson about her noting the copyright status of Happy Birthday.
*
…At the same time, they are becoming significant targets for all kinds of criticism, and must now be ready for the blows that will inevitably come from left-out composers, irate consumers, and competing artistic categories. They, like the composers they present, can no longer hide along the fringes of American culture.
This situation raises a number of questions, several of which were expressed emphatically by composer Ivan Tcherepnin: ‘Is not the stand being taken, viz. to ‘establish’ the Experimental music scene and provide an endowment for its sustenance also tying the participants into the system, which will eventually incorporate it? Isn’t there an implicit complicity with Big Business and Government involved here?’
- Tom Johnson, Village Voice July 2, 1979
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Screen shots of the original New Music New York 1979 program were from a downloadable photocopied pdf available from the site of the late Michael Galbreth. Direct link to the downloadable program here:
https://www.michaelgalbreth.com/_files/ugd/b4072f_e5d11c9f076542479f8a38108565980a.pdf