Relâche Chronicles #11, New Music America's installations at Philadelphia 1987
The 11th of so far 15 podcasts by the special Relâche Chronicles Team, and the third one to deal specifically NMA 1987. This one came out in late November of last year, and the transcription is mine.
This is the third “official” Relâche Chronicles podcast hosted by Joseph Franklin, specifically about the 1987 New Music America festival. It came out in late November of last year and since I was in the midst of profiling daily anniversaries of three different other New Music America festivals, it’s been put aside… until now. So far, there have been 15 podcasts produced by the special Relâche Chronicles team (Franklin with Arthur Stidfole, Arthur Sabatini and Joe Kasinskas and special guests) and the latest which was “dropped” in June features their collaborations with Robert Ashley.
Links to all of them are located at the end of this post if you want to dive in, but this one features the installations and outdoor events presented during NMA 1987. As with before, I’m doing this from home and when in doubt, I’ve indicated “●” with the hopes that I’ll eventually be able to properly identify who said what…
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Relâche Podcast description:
Episode 11 is the third of three episodes of music and commentary from the New Music America Festival 1987 in Philadelphia, produced and presented by the Relache organization. Sound installations and outdoor performances in some unlikely locations have been part of New Music America festivals throughout the eleven-year history of the festivals. For this episode we have selected three outdoor events and one example of computer influenced works by composer-installations artists Alvin Curran, Bob Goldberg, Joel Chadabe and the collaborative team of Christopher Janney and Joan Bingham. From the bowels of Philadelphia’s Broad Street Subway station to the Delaware River waterway, these works celebrate the diversity of musical events that were part of New Music America 1987 – Philadelphia.
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The Relâche Chronicles - No. 11 transcription
0:00 [various excerpts from what will be heard today]
1:04
Joseph Franklin: Welcome to episode 11 of The Relâche Chronicles. This is the third episode featuring performances, commentaries and related events from the 1987 New Music America festival in Philadelphia. It was produced by the Relâche organization. I’m Joseph Franklin and along with long-time friends and collaborators Arthur Stidfole, Arthur Sabatini and Joe Kasinskas, we’ll discuss those whose works were either performed outdoors or were part of sonic installations placed at strategic points throughout Philadelphia.
1:35 Previous episodes, specifically episode 9 and 10 featured works by several ensembles and artists and the live performance of Guy Klucevsek’s Polka From the Fringe. Joe has some thoughts about the breadth of what we’ll feature.
1:51
Joe Kasinskas: There’s some common denominator is that music in the usual sense, it doesn’t take place for the most part in the concert halls, with this particular podcast. It’s, ah, in a subway station, you know, it’s out on the water, in places you wouldn’t think, ah, music would be.
♪ 2:08 [excerpt from Alvin Curran’s Maritime Rites and Music for Subways by Bob Goldberg]
● : The whole thrust of it was that in the choices of pieces, both to be site-specific in Philadelphia and to represent the kind of trends and dynamics of ah, music at the time, it takes on kind of index, a kind of summary of things that were in the air. And we can’t play all of it, partly because some of it was not recordable.
Also, in that respect, to call attention again to the catalogue, which if anyone downloads or looks at it, gives a much more um, visual sense, an environmental sense in what was being accomplished. And I think it’s just remarkable, Joseph, I don’t know, all the choices of picking these pieces, and how elaborate the festival actually was. And how fitted it was into Philly.
3:22 Joseph Franklin: The selection of works was made by panels, all through – were really responsible.
● : When you think of a city, you think of the steaming underbelly of the city. The subway idea, which is also an improvisational idea, leads to this idea that there were these site-specific pieces that we’ll talk about. I think that the Goldberg Music for Subways should start off.
♪ 3:44 excerpt from Bob Goldberg’s Music for Subways
5:01 Joseph Franklin: It really reflected the city. I remembered standing, on I believe 15th and Locust Street station and hearing the way this, the trains moved through the sounds of the brass, which I felt was beautiful.
● : It changed my life forever. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a (chuckles) subway ever since and not thought about that, nor about that ourselves. You know, the players were spaced about twenty feet apart along the platform and they began with lower tones as the trains were approaching and as they got closer and closer, and the sound of the train got louder, they raised their volume and also they started playing more in relation to each other.
There was this sliding pitches that were evened out with the instruments against the rough and clanging and screeching of the train. I do remember people on the platform at first were surprised, because there’s always musicians in the subway, as it were. But then just awed by how it was capturing the whole space.
♪ 6:12 excerpt from Music for Subways
Joseph Franklin: The sound that I remember was this whooshing sound, which of course leads to the breathing of the wind instruments. That’s what caught my attention more than anything. At first, I thought, this is not really going to work very well, but [...] it’s sort of inculcating itself with the people who were observing this, not knowing what was going on. It was terrific.
I loved the idea of trying to capture the sound of the, that compression that you feel in the subway. Because there’s always that strange moment like, “ah, here it comes,” I can – I can feel it. You can’t hear it but I can feel it.
● : One thing we can’t do is reproduce the sonic motion of the piece in the subway station.
● : The wind rushing through, ahead of the train how – how that compression is happening. You know, it’s a physical thing and then I don’t think you hear much of that on the tape.
● : How many musicians were there?
Joseph Franklin: I think there was like six, but…
● : And what instruments were they playing?
Joseph Franklin: They were a combination of reed and brass.
● : Music for Subways has been done in other cities, too, right?
● : It was. He [Bob Goldberg] says, “an environmental piece which makes use of the natural resonance of train stations and other public places, first composed in 1985 and performed by the Ban Noise group in New York as well.”
8:04 Excerpt from Music for Subways
GD note: Bob Goldberg has over the last year released on bandcamp the 1999 version of the work (his “recorded version”) made in Brooklyn - and he notes that there are versions of the 1985 original on cassette if you’re good at searching those out!
Alvin Curran’s Maritime Rites
● : This was in the subway, another stunning piece took place on the Delaware River.
9:00 Excerpt from Alvin Curran’s Maritime Rites
Joseph Franklin: We’re going to talk a little about Alvin Curran’s Maritime Rites. I first got wind of Alvin’s Maritime Rites through an article I believe I read in the Village Voice. He had been commissioned to create a piece for multiple numbers of ship’s horns, and that led to a plan to place a Maritime Rite in various waterways in ah, Western Europe.
About a year later, I learned that Alvin was planning to do the Maritime Rites along the Chesapeake Bay. I went and NPR did a piece and I felt, well, that would really cool to do it along the Delaware River. A couple of months later, Alvin called me and said, “hey, New Music America, huh? I’ve got an idea.” And he proposed Maritime Rites along the Delaware River.
9:56 When Alvin proposed it, I thought, “yeah, let’s do it, this is going to be terrific.” We began the planning. There was a series of meetings. We met with the Maritime Commission. We learned that there was a facility that stored old ship’s horns. We put our tag on those and we wound up with eight of them.
And then, um, Alvin said, what about other ships that are going to be in port? That led us to a meeting with a representative of the captains of the ships that were going to be in port that weekend. Meeting with those guys was a joy because they got a kick out of it, they thought this was the coolest thing. We’re going to be part of something. So they all bought in.
There were about a dozen ships. It all came together beautifully. Sunday morning was one of those gorgeous Philadelphia fall days, you know, blue skies, cool weather, no wind, it was perfect. And we deployed all along the – the edge of the water at Penn’s Landing. And it went flawlessly.
10:52 ● : I’d like to know a little more about what the piece actually is, musically.
Joseph Franklin: The piece is an integration of all of these disparate maritime sounds from the ship’s horns that were deployed for about a mile along each side of the river and the sounds of the ship’s horns in port, all interacting, according to that score that Alvin created. And in the middle of that, there were three barges of musicians, all of whom were reading from various fragments of music that Alvin selected. So, you essentially had this cacophony of sound that had a maritime theme to it.
● : The horns are pitched in a special system that’s activated either by the individual musicians or reading from a score, or by a computer program that’s activated by the composer. And the tones generated by these horns are sustained for relatively long durations, so the piece itself lasted maybe thirty minutes at the most, because one had to watch the barge and the tugs go out into the river and gradually its sounds accumulated and you began to hear the live musicians and amplified sound and the actual horns themselves. It created just a richness over that morning air. It was incredible.
12:15 Joseph Franklin: Yeah, sound travels over water differently than it does on land. That was the special part of it. Orally, it was like a spectacular event, music on the water.
● : Great point. But the other point is that the pieces of the foghorns were varied and Alvin did not have any set piece, in other words, there was no A-flat to D, there was nothing like that. The sounds were too unfocused, and they should have been – they’re ship’s horns, right? And once you deploy a ship’s horn, you know, let’s say sitting next to a large wharf, it’s going to sound a lot different than sitting in the open space, which all of these were sitting in an open space. And they had this huge resonance.
♪ 12:57 Excerpt from Alvin Curran’s Maritime Rites
● : The audience was partly all the New Music America people who had been aware of it and the ordinary citizens of Philly just hanging out or walking on the area outside of Penn’s Landing that day. And so there was this element of a very elegant and curious surprise, witnessed by all.
♪ 14:05 Excerpt from Alvin Curran’s Maritime Rites (concluding with a quote from My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean)
16:02 Joseph Franklin: No, my Bonnie did not lie over the ocean, but over the waters of the Delaware River in Philadelphia as part of Alvin Curran’s Maritime Rites at New Music America 1987. What a great way to begin the festival.
The Philadelphia anniversary post for this date also included a long excerpt from Joseph Franklin’s memoir Settling Scores:
When it was Alvin Curran’s birthday in December, I included both the Maritime Rites versions that were not only at Philadelphia in 1987 but in Chicago in 1982; this includes a link to his own site where he has now detailed all of the performances of the work over the years, around the world. This one also includes Alvin Curran’s own description of the work in 1982 in Ear magazine.
● : Steam Shuffle by Joan Brigham and Christopher Janney, where was it and what was it?
Joseph Franklin: The location was the Municipal Services building, which houses the Philadelphia government bureaucracies, just across from City Hall. There’s a certain poetic touch to that. You cleanse all of that bureaucracy with these gorgeous sounds, but Joe has a great take on this.
Joe Kazinskas: The essential thing is, with this is, ah, the idea that a passerby triggers a steam jet or triggers a sound…
16:48 Excerpt from Steam Shuffle
Joseph Franklin: One abiding image of that is watching the kids running along the panels. And, and activating the sounds, and they were having a ball.
● : Chris Janney has had a long career, creating these outdoor public art kinds of work, interactive musical steps, um, in reflective environments or a cell, very attractive pieces that have become more and more sophisticated over the years.
● : And in those environments, people would tend to, ah, play with it. I mean, it’s kids would know what to do and it’s that play element that is real essential to the work. And I think that’s Chris Janney’s wheelhouse, too. That’s what he’s striving for, is that kind of relationship. Someone said, “a sculptural approach to a staircase.” (Chuckles)
● : Well, there’s triggers underneath the panels and spaces, and as you walk through, first as a kind of sound that is generated and then the steam spurts out sort of behind and in front of people so it doesn’t hit them directly and it becomes a kind of surprise and then also a game and also an awareness of this is going on. And it’s colorful too – I recall that there different – not images but colors – backlit.
● : Yeah, and there was big acrylic sheets that stood with – they were etched with words that you could see when the steam condensed on the acrylic, which is another component.
● : When the steam came up, and the air condensed, there was – poems were written on the panels that could be read. So there was an additional element of this text sort of speaking to you as you walked by. There was also strobe lights that freeze the theme poetry against the sky.
● : And maybe, you know, there were some people that passed by that paid no attention to any of that. I mean, it’s just like walked through it, but they set it off too!
♪ 19:00 Excerpt from Steam Shuffle
Joseph Franklin: That was an excerpt of Steam Shuffle by Christopher Janney and Joan Bingham at the center of downtown Philly, across the street from the iconic statue of William Penn, standing atop City Hall. One can only wonder what Billy thought of that!
20:07 Let’s head back to the Port of History Museum Theatre, the main venue for festival concerts. We’ll hear a work by Joel Chadabe, for a performer and interactive computer systems, one of many musical works on the festival that utilized many new computer technologies used to alter and enhance the sound of musical instruments.
The work we’ll feature is titled After Some Songs and was created for the mallet specialist Jan Williams who on this track played vibraphone.
● : In Joel Chadabe’s book called Electronic Sound, he wrote the following about what he was doing, working with a computer program he called “M” that he developed a collection of algorithms portrayed graphically on a computer screen and manipulated with particular graphic controls.
Joel says, “I used M to composer After Some Songs, a group of short improvisational pieces based on jazz classics. I thought of the group as a solo concert percussionist Jan Williams in which the playing would be enlarged and extended by electronic sounds which so closely resemble the acoustic percussion sounds that it would seem as though he was playing a larger than life instrument.”
21:19 Joseph Franklin: The work is comprised of four songs, two of which are standards in the jazz canon. We’ll hear the classic Stella by Starlight. As a former mallet player, I love the way Jan shapes each of the tones, and it’s not an easy thing to do on the vibraphone, but he really achieves it, similar to the way the great Gary Burton and Bobby Hutcherson make their instruments sound. It’s really beautiful the way that sound is created, and the computer technologies that Joel uses are shaping it. Let’s listen.
♪ 21:54 Excerpt from Joel Chadabe and Jan Williams After Some Songs
The Canadian public radio network had broadcast this performance and I was able to get a radio capture that year, which you will find here, with other events on the day (both the Goldberg and Chadabe works were on the same day).
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26:58 Joseph Franklin: With that, we conclude episode 11 of the Relâche Chronicles with our three part review of performances, events and commentary about New Music America 1987 in Philadelphia.
Among those we would like to thank is Georges Dupuis, whose extensive archive of all 11 of the New Music America festivals is available at his website, georgesdupuis.substack.com. Georges has done a remarkable job of documenting these festivals. And of course, we thank Arthur Stidfole, Arthur Sabatini, Joe Kasinskas, Guy Klucevsek and David Michael Canning for their commentary and memories of New Music America 1987.
The Relâche Chronicles is produced and directed by Arthur Stidfole with help from Arthur Sabatini, Joe Kasinskas and me, Joseph Franklin. The Relâche Chronicles are available everywhere you get your podcasts on my website, josephfranklin.org and on the Relâche Ensemble’s website, relache.org.
Earlier in the podcast, we mentioned the New Music America 1987 festival catalogue, that was organized and edited by Arthur Sabatini. The catalogue in its entirety is available for download on my website, josephfranklin.org/newmusicamerica1987 catalogue. We’re beginning work on episode 12, so see you then!
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more:
My own post about the installations from Philadelphia 1987, which includes more details about Steam Shuffle and Music for Subways
Previous Relâche Chronicles links and transcriptions, paywalls removed:
