June 9, 1979 - New Music New York - Day 2 + NMA Birthday - Charles Wuorinen
Tom Johnson & Michael Nyman (talk) ● A. Spencer Barefield ● Karl Berger ● Marc Grafe ● Garrett List with Lancaster, Sherman & Yancey ● Wadada Leo Smith ● Peter Zummo & Stephanie Woodard
Tom Johnson and Michael Nyman panel
The History and Aesthetics of Experimental Music
Tom Johnson - New Performing Techniques workshop
A. Spencer Barefield - Monsoonyr Pienot Noear
Karl Berger - Who Knows (Spirals 1-4)
Marc Grafe - Art, Artistry and Artness
Garrett List with the A1 Art Band - Where We Are
Leo Smith - Aura
Peter Zummo and Stephanie Woodard - dance and music
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NMA Birthday: Charles Wuorinen was born on this day in 1938
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wuorinen
and we got to have his presence at the festival on three occasions:
♪ 1984 NMA Hartford
Ursula Oppens performed his Blue Bamboula as part of a full recital during the Hartford festival - a work she had recorded in 1980.
♪ 1988 NMA Miami
In addition to participating in a panel discussion entitled "Responsibilities, Past, Present and Future: Critics, Composers and the Public”, Charles Wuorinen got the choice opening gala night to present his work Bamboula beach - the Miami Bamboula via Michael Tilson-Thomas and the New World Symphony.
The panel discussion was led by Alan Rich and shared with Joe Mclellan, Andrew Porter, Alvin Lucier and Janet Chusmir on the subject of “Responsibilities, Past, Present and Future: Critics, Composers and the Public”. Before doing this cleanup/update in 2024, I note that I had promised I would do a transcription for the two hours of the event. Surely, I’ll get around to it this year, but in the meantime this was on a sunny December 9 in Miami:
part 1
part 2
part 3
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June 9, 1979 New Music New York day 2
Tom Johnson and Michael Nyman
Lecture “The History and Esthetics of Experimental Music”
Michael Nyman’s 1975 book “Experimental Music” in its second edition incarnation as a very lengthy google books preview. Many people described in this book will appear in the New Music America festivals, continuing what they’ve always been doing, or celebrated as a pioneer (or usually both).
https://books.google.ca/books?id=QEBzEhzAkYwC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
*
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”, Guerrilla criticism of ‘New Music New York’ (26 pages), June 1979
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Afternoon: Tom Johnson workshop [new performing techniques]
Experimental Intermedia
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A. Spencer Barefield “Monsoonyur Pienot Noear”
*
By eight o’clock the people were gathering to find out what is happening first hand, from the composers. Spencer Barefield performed an extended jazz solo on guitar, without a band. It reminded me of all Liszt’s grace notes strung together – without the tune etc. The changes in timbre suggested various string instruments from all around the world, but at the end of his alotted time, he made a graceful little cadence and stopped.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Karl Berger Who Knows (Spirals 1-4)
Karl Berger brought all his students down from upstate and did a big ensemble piece. The flutes, violins, cello, reeds, even double reeds!, bass, and tuned and untuned percussion created a nice, comfofable meadow of sound with rolling hills and water slides. You know Karl isn’t taking you anywhere, so you might as well enjoy the scenery. All the music this evening was tied to jazz in some way – except Grafe. Since many composers work between new music and jazz, one wonders how curatorial decisions were made.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
♪
Marc Grafe Art, Artistry and Artness
*
Marc Grafe performed an old piece of his, “Art, Artistry, and Artness” – reading into a handful of mikes creating loops of sound out of loops of thought concerning the “thingly character” of art. This piece extends Terry Riley’s live-performance techniques into the area of text-sound. It is a lullaby for the children of the age of communication overload.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Garrett List
with Byard Lancaster, Eugenia Sherman and Yuseff Yancey:
Where We Are
*
Garrett List’s A-1 Band did short versions of a variety of pieces and combined jazz, text-sound, and electronics in an entertaining and human sort of way. Everyone in the group did interesting things and managed to be sexy while singing about getting a local loan of up to $2,500. They needed to have their drummer, but life is full of problems.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”:
* *
Wadada Leo Smith Aura
Leo Smith played horn in his piece – something which closely resembled Mr. Zummo’s work, minus the dancer. He seemed to run out of things to do and detriorated into dwaddle at the end.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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Peter Zummo and Stephanie Woodard
[Co-performers, untitled dance and music]
*
Peter Zummo, a very talented trombone player, played long tones and what sounded like multiphonics while Stephanie Woodard did a kind of weighted swim-walk dance.
- Beth Anderson “Report from the Front”
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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 program here: