June 17, 1979: NMNY conferences + 1981 SF: some installations / NMA birthdays - Ellen Fullman and Alan Rich
Jacqueline Hubert & David Rosenboom ● Karlton Hester ● Michael Nyman ● John Rockwell ● Paul & Limpe Fuchs ● Bob Bates ● Doug Hollis ● Susan Rawcliffe ● Yoshi Wada
Ellen Fullman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Fullman
Again, another creator who has been producing over the last three decades since I last witnessed her, long after I left the world of new music. Luckily, her website excels in producing wonder after wonder, so this is where you start your own journey of discovering her works, and how I can catch up, just a little:
Where I discovered one that I missed (now since added to the June 10, 1980 page): in Minnesota in 1980, she presented a “Streetwalk” as part of a work called Film in the Cities wearing “metal skirt sound sculpture” described on her website. (There is a video but sometimes they don’t reach beyond the US to Canada in my case - gd)
Screenshot of part of that web page describing the work in Minnesota:
Her description of the Minnesota performance:
In my last semester of art school I built and performed in my Metal Skirt Sound Sculpture, a landmark piece in my career because it worked on many levels. It was funny and provocative, and produced simultaneous rising and falling glissandos simply through the mechanics of walking. Four guitar strings were attached to the edges of the skirt that extended down to the toes and heels of my shoes. As each leg stepped forward, the back string stretched out while the front slackened. A contact microphone on the skirt amplified the sound of these strings through a small battery-powered amplifier that I wore strapped over my shoulder as a handbag. The restriction of the metal construction mechanized and exaggerated the sway of my hip motion. I looked like a cartoon cutout wearing armor. I walked on the street where the prostitutes worked and called my performance, literally, Streetwalker.
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At my own first New Music America festival in Hartford, I encountered Ellen Fullman’s performance on the Long Stringed Instrument and I realized two things immediately: that a performer could dance (actually it reminded me of tai chi) through a work of sound while creating it and that the sounds of synthesizers were sometimes imitating creations that existed in the natural world.
There she also performed a duet with David Weinstein at the Travelers Tower, and I’ll have to check in with him to see if any audio of that survived… a photo did, however, as noted on her own website:
https://www.ellenfullman.com/performances-archive-19802007/2019/7/15/new-music-america-hartford
Comments from Hartford by the witnesses:
Ellen Fullman’s Longitudinal Vibration is played by rosining both the strings and her hands and running one along the other. The extreme 50 foot length of the strings and the unusual way they are played create a sound world one suspects was quite unknown to that other monochord builder, the ancient computer-musician, Pythagoras.
- Ron Kuivila program description
The Travelers Building housed Ellen Fullman's fifty-foot-long sound installation, which she demonstrated by rubbing her rosin-coated fingers over the tightly strung horizontal wires, producing a screechy, high-pitched vibrato sound.
- Brooke Wentz report for High Fidelity 1984 november
On an intricate 50-foot construction of strings, pegs, and a soundbox, Ellen Fullman (with help from David Weinstein) played something called
- Geoffrey Stokes, Village Voice July 24 - "New Music Back to Normal"
New York Times photo:
Artist description from program
Arthur Plant walked into the lobby of the Travelers Insurance building to look over Ellen Fullman's work, The lobby, with about a hundred spectators, was noisy when Miss Fullman began to play, running her fingers across the wires as she walked up and down the 50-foot length. But it quieted to a hush for the duration of her half-hour performance - no coughing or sneezing, no rustling of papers. There was no melody, just a sustained line of mellow tones that built and built in tension - not unlike the beauty of deep notes from a cello. When Miss Fullman finished, there were a couple of seconds of absolute quiet. Then someone shouted, "Wow!" And everyone burst into applause. "I'm filled with the emotion of it," Mr. Plant said. "What vision, to brush up against a string and have this result. It's the difference between artists and us ordinary people."
- Jeffrey Schmalz, NY Times July 6
♪
The Long Stringed Instrument made it to a recording, but this video allows you to see the actual process and performance:
The Long-Stringed Instrument would also make an appearance at the 1986 Houston festival.
Sight and Sound at Diverse Works - Discussion/symposium with Ellen Fullman, Ken Gray, Doug Hollis and Vito Acconci
Ellen Fullman with Beverly Bajema, Grace Pilafian and Laurie Freelove: Woven Processional, Water Drip Drum and Strings, Immigration
Where you can get your own copy - her bandcamp page:
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NMA Birthday - Alan Rich
Alan Rich, long time music critic and music director at KPFA, one-time Glenn Gould documentary participant (“Alan Pavl”), and moderator of a panel at New Music America 1988. That panel, titled “Responsibilities, Present and Future: Critics, Composers and the Public” was with the participation of Charles Wuorinen, Joe McLellan, Andrew Porter, Alvin Lucier and Janet Chusmir.
I was there, and so was my recorder. There are still plans for me to transcribe it, though despite the winds and the occasional
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Rich
The Guardian (and many other newspapers) printed Alan Rich’s obituary and noted that
Invited by Nicolas Slonimsky to write his own entry in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Alan described himself as "having an uncommonly bellicose disposition tempered by prejudice towards favorites".
(uncredited photo in The Guardian)
Full obituary:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/jun/06/alan-rich-obituary
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New Music America San Francisco 1981
leftover event
Karlton Hester Ensemble and Dancers at the Old First Church for the Arts
UC Santa Cruz profile from 2022 of Karlton Hester, who teaches there:
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June 17, 1979
New Music New York (leftover critics conference panels)
Michael Nyman “British and American New Music” at the Kitchen
John Rockwell with “a panel of institute fellows” “New York and the rest of us in Experimental Music” at the Kitchen
The final panel brought together the MCA fellows and Rockwell to discuss the relationship between New York and “the rest of the country” in experimental music. Rockwell showed all the markings of a good moderator by suggesting arguments on both sides of a given question and by playing occasional devil’s advocate (a role he much enjoys) with both audience and participants.
- Keith Roether, Albuquerque Tribune, “Criticism is Wishful Narcissism” June 27, 1979
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June, 1981 - New Music America San Francisco installations
The 1981 San Francisco New Music America festival had many installations, most of which had a stay that stretched beyond the performance dates. At this point in writing, many of the locations were not identified in the main source for my research of that year’s events - the official program, available as a download at Michael Galbreth’s New Music America tribute website:
https://www.michaelgalbreth.com/_files/ugd/b4072f_efcb98c9bb70451e8ef98fbc89cf2f41.pdf
There were also some events that were listed prior to the launching date of June 7:
Brian Eno - Music for Museums exhibit at the Berkeley University Art Museum (May 29 - August 2)
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Jacqueline Humbert and David Rosenboom
J. Jasmine Review - song stories at Macy’s (May 30)
From her Wikipedia entry:
Jacqueline Humbert is an American recording, performance and visual artist, as well as a designer for film, television and live performing arts. Under the name J. Jasmine, she recorded a song cycle, J Jasmine: My New Music (with collaborators David Rosenboom and George Manupelli) which dealt progressively with topics such as androgyny and female sexual agency. The cycle was presented at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1978. Her artistic persona on this release has been described as "a Linda Ronstadt for the avant garde". She would collaborate again with Rosenboom (and percussionist William Winant) in 1979–80 on the song cycle Daytime Viewing (released 1983), which uses the framework of soap operas to deal with themes of commercialism, family, fashion, and abuse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Humbert
Available on Bandcamp with sample tracks:
An actual full description of the history of the work is here:
https://unseenworlds.com/blogs/linernotes/a-history-of-j-jasmine-my-new-music-by-ted-gordon
post of the album by y2b user “Music Library777”
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Ben Azarm and MEAL - performance at the Embarcadero Center (June 4)
The Scientists - performance at the Embarcadero Center (June 4)
Pacific Film Archive: New Scores by Contemporary Composers
June 4 - Graphic Sound Films
June 5 - The Moderns and the Electronicists
June 6 - New Voices and Minimalist Directions
June 6 - Stanford Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics performers - new music with real time and tape performances
June 6 - Paul and Limpe Fuchs (Germany)
That last duo have several archival tracks on a soundcloud here:
https://soundcloud.com/anima-soundofficial
Anima-Sound (their production name) posted this work from 1977:
Installations (dates unknown)
Bob Bates
A photo (and not much else) of “Fuser” a work he created for MoMA in 1978:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/4121/installation_images/42156
Jim Hobart Buick, Doorchimes
Doug Hollis
Current profile of Doug Hollis at the Exploratorium website
https://www.exploratorium.edu/arts/artists/douglas_hollis
His own webpage with many of his works + audio
Susan Rawcliffe
Susan Rawcliffe’s current website: https://www.susanrawcliffe.art/about
Her collection of pre-Hispanic flutes at her y2b page:
Yoshi Wada
The Gathering of the Hypno-Hyppopotamus and the Alligator in Double E
No hyppopotamus or alligators in this bandcamp “unearthed” recording released in 2022 but recorded in 1981 in Buffalo, NY. There are crocodiles, though. Oh, and that bagpipe modified by vacuum cleaner…
y2b upload by the dubious accountholder named “Louis Cyphre”
and also: