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In this special OM 15 Preview issue:
1. Meeting of the (other) minds
2. OM 15 Artist Preview: Kidd Jordan
3. OM 15 Artist Preview: Jürg Frey
4. Tom Johnson on radiOM.org
5. US Premiere of Edgard Varèse: The One All Alone, April 19
1. Meeting of the (other) minds
For the past four days, the OM 15 composers have shared their musical methods, means, and minds, at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, California.
This year we've enjoyed numerous live performances, including Gyan Riley performing his own works for solo guitar, and improvisations by Kidd Jordan on tenor saxophone. Violinist-vocalist Carla Kihlstedt performed part of Lisa Bielawa's Kafka Songs, and Lisa joined Carla for a work by the latter. Jürg Frey treated the OM 15 composers to Tom Johnson's Tilework for clarinet, and also performed his own works, one for piano, and another involving harmonica and a collection of dry leaves.
Along with all of these performances, the composers have shared their musical thoughts, which spring from an enormous range of sources, many outside of music. Johnson explained some of the mathematical theories that have provided core ideas in his works; Frey identified Fluxus publications as an important early influence, and Polish composer Pawel Mykietyn discussed his recent large-scale interpretation of the St. Mark Passion, which is presented in "reverse" order. Meanwhile, Natasha Barrett explained that in her acousmatic works, she employs field recordings not only for their sound qualities, but also to evoke all of the meaningful associations of knowing that the "chug-chug-chug" being heard is in fact a train.
While the meetings at Djerassi are private, audiences are encouraged to attend panel discussions preceding each concert, Thursday-Friday-Saturday, March 4-5-6, at 7pm.
>>Purchase tickets for OM 15
2. OM 15 Artist Preview: Kidd Jordan
Known worldwide as the birthplace of jazz, New Orleans has developed a thriving musical tradition based on a style of music established in the 1920s, and revived in mid-century by Dixieland combos and concerts at Preservation Hall in the French Quarter. So how has an avant-garde saxophonist like Edward "Kidd" Jordan survived in the Big Easy for 50 years?
Born in Crowley, Louisiana in 1935, Jordan has built his career through persistence and versatility. His classical training gave him the skills for performances with the New Orleans Philharmonic; his reliability and expressivity made him a top choice for touring musicians like Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, and Aretha Franklin; and his adventurous soloing brought him into bands with Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Sun Ra. In the interstices of these gigs he founded the Improvisational Arts Ensemble, organized the first World Saxophone Quartet, and taught at Southern University for 36 years.
Jordan will bring his wide-ranging musical past to the stage this Friday, March 5 at OM 15, with bassist William Parker (OM 9) and drummer Warren Smith (percussionist).
>>Read more about Kidd and listen to his music
>>Purchase tickets for OM 15
3. OM 15 Artist Preview: Jürg Frey
"When I was working on the Streichquartett (1988), I encountered the painting of Agnes Martin. I saw clear-cut forms, not overgrown with rhetoric and figuration. Instead, sensuality, radiance and intensity gripped the entire space."
Swiss composer Jürg Frey writes in the liner notes to the recording of his string quartets about his search for "anonymous material," which is plain, simple, and organized without the preoccupations of art or decoration.
As a result, works like his Streichquartett II (1998-2000), which will open Other Minds 15 on Thursday, March 4, might be experienced in a similar way to Martin's paintings. The Canadian-American painter is often thought of as a minimalist, but considered herself to be an abstract expressionist: "The work awes, not just with its delicacy, but with its vigor, and this power and visual interest is something that has to be experienced." (from American Masterpieces by Wendy Beckett)
The Quatuor Bozzini of Montréal will perform Streichquartett II on opening night of OM 15, Thursday, March 4.
>>Read more about Jürg and listen to his music
>>Purchase tickets for OM 15
4. Tom Johnson on radiOM.org
Each OM 15 concert will be preceded by a panel discussion with the evening's composers, moderated by Charles Amirkhanian. The talks, as well as the concert performances, will be made available on radiOM.org ... in the meantime, listen to these historical interviews with OM 15 Composer Tom Johnson on radiOM.org:
Ode To Gravity: Interviews with Hans Heinsheimer & Tom Johnson (1975)
From a program first broadcast on December 31, 1975, Charles Amirkhanian interviews two figures who were prominent in promoting contemporary classical and new music during the 20th century. The program begins with a half hour interview, recorded in October 1975, with Hans Heinsheimer, author of Best Regards to Aida, and one of 20th century music's most important music publishing figures. Heinsheimer's career spanned fifty years beginning with Universal Edition in 1923 and continuing through 1979 with Boosey & Hawkes and Schirmers. At the age of 75, Hans offers his reminiscences about publishing some of the most important modern operas and musical compositions, as well as his personal friendship with such luminaries as Béla Bartók, Ernst Krenek, Kurt Weill, and George Antheil. The program then continues with an interview, also recorded in New York City in October of 1975, with avant-garde composer and former music critic Tom Johnson. Amirkhanian quizzes Johnson, who has written for the Village Voice and Musical America, about his role as one of the country's only critics who writes exclusively about new music. Johnson remarks how avant-garde music, which was once primarily viewed as a radical challenge to tradition and audience expectations, has, as it becomes more accepted and commercially viable, begun to reexamine and even incorporate elements from the past. Correspondingly Johnson's own music reviews have evolved from a basic promotion of the new, to now examine what is good about what is new. An example of this renewed focus on older musical forms, albeit in a still distinctly modern style, is Johnson's own opera A Masque of Clouds, which premiered at the Kitchen in New York City in October 1975, a lengthy excerpt of which is included at the very end of this interesting and informative program.
Ode To Gravity: An Interview with Tom Johnson (1987)
Composer Tom Johnson no longer lives in New York, no longer writes provocative criticism for the Village Voice, and has found a new and receptive home for his work and ideas as a composer in Paris. In this informal discussion, recorded at the composer's home on June 12, 1987, Tom talks with Charles Amirkhanian about his new life, plays an excerpt from a new work for piano, and discusses his retreat from the New York music scene. Johnson comments on how recent interest in a more popular aesthetic during the 1980s has eroded support for small, less theatrically ambitious new music composers in the United States. The situation, according to Johnson, is quite different in Europe, where his minimalist inspired compositions remain highly regarded, and his operas are regularly performed. This program concludes with Johnson providing an example of one of his piano pieces in which all possible combinations of notes within a certain range are systematically examined.
5. US Premiere of Edgard Varèse: The One All Alone, April 19
Edgard Varèse: The One All Alone
Directed by Frank Scheffer
A Benefit for Other Minds
Monday, April 19
7:30pm Screening
Q & A with director to follow
Sundance Kabuki Cinemas
1881 Post Street, San Francisco
Tickets $20
The One All Alone by Frank Scheffer is an expedition into the life and work of the French-American composer Edgard Varèse (1883-1965). The full-length documentary includes rare footage of Varse, and interviews with Pierre Boulez and Elliott Carter. Chou Wen-chung is interviewed in Varèse's New York City home, and discusses the influence of his former teacher on site in Shanghai and Santa Fe. Musical performances feature Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly, who offers an inimitably informed impression of the composer's adventurous sense of musical expression.
After serving in the French army during the first world war, Varèse moved to America in 1915 and became a paragon of the musical explorer, eager to shed the influences of the "old world," in search of new sounds. He built his career in New York, founding the New Symphony Orchestra in 1915, and later the International Composers Guild, which introduced Americans to the music of Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartók and Schoenberg. His own works would prove deeply influential to generations of composers. His exploration of new sounds, especially strange percussion instruments like sirens and the lion's roar, in Hyperprism (1922-23) and Ionisation (1929-31), established an ethic of rebellion that influenced everyone from Frank Zappa to John Cage. His works Déserts (1950-54) and Poème électronique (1957-58) are among the first important works to use tape recordings, and have helped earn him the moniker "Father of Electronic Music."
The Dutch director and producer Scheffer (b. 1956) has become the foremost documentarian of contemporary musical lives, with past projects including: Conducting Mahler (1996) about the 1995 Mahler Festival in Amsterdam with Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti and Sir Simon Rattle; Frank Zappa: The Present Day Composer Refuses to Die (2000); A Labyrinth of Time (2004) on Elliott Carter; The Sprawling in the Ocean (2001) on present day New York composers; Sonic Acts (1998) on the history of electronic music; and The Road (1997) on Louis Andriessen.
Scheffer will attend the American Premiere of The One All Alone and discuss his work with Other Minds Executive & Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian following the screening.
>>Purchase tickets for The One All Alone
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Photos by Richard Friedman