June 24 - Birthdays: Harry Partch and Terry Riley and their appearances at New Music America
New: found the live version of Terry Riley's "Cactus Flower" performed by Arraymusic at NMA/MMA 1990
Harry Partch June 24, 1901 Oakland, California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Partch
Two birthdays to celebrate and two giants in what was once called “new music” and though Harry Partch had left us years before, his presence via his instruments was quite appreciated. We got to see them played (and even got a chance to look at them up close afterwards) via the presentation of Revelation at Courthouse Park, presented in tandem with the 1987 NMA in Philadelphia and staged with his original instruments at Lincoln Centre during New Music America 1989.
The Philadelphia appearance has its own substack, as I was able to save a copy of the elaborate program details:
♪ New Music America New York City 1989
NY Newsday report by Amy Mereson:
There was a movie made based on this work (I presume they also used the original instruments…) . You’ll note that there is plenty for further exploration in the links of this y2b that seems to promote research about Harry Partch.
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Terry Riley June 24, 1935 Colfax, California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Riley
Terry Riley’s first New Music America appearance was at the 1981 San Francisco festival, and though he had released Shri Camel beforehand, I’ve yet to confirm what he played at the Japan Center Theatre, as it was only listed as a “vocal performance”.
Program description:
The music of Terry Riley: basically a modal and cyclical music, has as its major feature repeated melodic patterns whose shifting grids allow the listener multiple viewpoints of a tonal melodic and harmonic landscape. It has been described as meditative, universal, nostalgic and illusionistic. Since Riley is an improvisor, very little of this music can be found in a notated form, the notable exception being In C.
He has appeared in numerous solo concerts throughout Europe and the USA. During the past 11 years he has engaged in a study of North Indian raga and vocal music under his Guru, Pandit Pran Nath. Since 1970, Terry Riley has been on the faculty at Mills College in Oakland. His music is available, among other places, on two Columbia Masterworks albums: A Rainbow in Curved Air and the Church of Anthrax (with John Cale) and Persian Surgery Dervishs on Shandar Records, Paris.
In the fluidity of this “early research” of mine, there are many blanks to be filled, including the appearance at NMA Chicago 1982 where I had listed that the Kronos Quartet had played a set of “Riley, Cage, Oliveros and Nancarrow.”
The Krishna Bhatt duet in Hartford was a treat for me to witness, but as I needing to catch a midnight train to Canada, I had to literally walk out of the All-Star rendition of Riley’s celebrated In C.
The last line dropped from this crop adds “Members of Relâche” and Pauline Oliveros. They’re all so very different, and the CBC did air a recorded version, but I’ve long since lost that. Here is a y2b posting of the original:
The next work by Riley performed at NMA was at Miami 1988 when the Kronos Quartet presented “Half Wolf Dances Mad in Moonlight” (on a cruise ship on a Saturday afternoon), a work they had recorded in abbreviated form the previous year, on their album Winter Was Hard.
and in 1989 the Kronos recorded a longer version for a full album tribute to Terry Riley:
At Miami 1988, the Zeitgeist Ensemble from Minnesota were able to return to the festival, when they performed a set which included The Room of Remembrance
and finally at the Montréal Musiques Actuelles festival in 1990, the Kronos Quartet played The Gift from the work Salome Dances for Peace and at the same festival, the Toronto ensemble Arraymusic performed Riley’s Cactus Rosary - A Semi-Circular Song for Bruce Conner, which for some reason the group lists on their 2001 recording as being composed in 1993 (and they only present it in excerpted fashion at this link).
Radio capture of the live version by Arraymusic:
For good measure, my own recording from the floor:
In an interview with a Canadian announcer, Riley explains the connection of this work to Bruce Conner: