Category: Articles

Greg Sandow

Well, of course they do play it—and in fact, from what I’ve picked up in the orchestra world, they play more of it than some of their marketing directors might like. Some orchestras even play a lot of it…well, a fair amount anyway, especially if you count as “new music” anything written since 1945 (a long time ago, I know, but still just yesterday in the classical music world). And they play even more if you include some difficult—for the audience, that is—20th-century classics. Next season, for instance, when the Philadelphia Orchestra stresses Messiaen at four concerts, that’ll count as new music, at least to the Philadelphia audience.

But many people, notably including some very vocal music critics, think orchestras should play new music more. They think orchestras should pick music directors who emphasize new works; sometimes they say there’s a new, young audience out there, ready to hear new music, even if the regular audience isn’t.

But in the orchestra world, talk like that doesn’t wash at all and here’s why, though maybe I should note that some of what I’m going to say might strike my new music friends as heresy. Am I siding with conservative orchestras, embracing their reluctance? That’s a pointless question. What we’ve got to do is learn how people who run orchestras think, so we’ll understand why they do what they do. If we can’t manage that, we won’t be able to criticize them in any useful way. Worse, much of what we say will strike them as total, pointless nonsense. And, sad to say, they have some good reasons for new music caution, starting with this one: Their audience might not accept any heavy new music emphasis.

So now some of my friends will surely ask: How can you say that? Haven’t new works been cheered on mainstream orchestral programs? Wasn’t Tan Dun‘s The Map (to give just one recent instance) a huge hit, when the Boston Symphony premiered it not long ago? Didn’t Meredith Monk‘s first orchestra piece, Possible Sky, get a huge ovation at the New World Symphony last month? Didn’t I myself see Henri Dutilleux brought back for several bows after the Boston Symphony played one of his pieces several years ago? (And that was at a Friday afternoon concert in Boston, Friday afternoons being notorious for their conservative subscription audience.)

Sure. All that is true, and all of us could cite many more examples. But while some new works are happily received—and, even more important, the orchestral audience is more at ease with new music than it used to be—a good chunk of that audience still prefers to hear the standard repertoire.

How big is that chunk? Well, in one recent study, 10% of people who go to orchestral concerts say that too much new music might stop them from buying tickets. Now, that might sound like a small number, especially when you add another result of the study, a finding that 6% of the audience would stay away if an orchestra programs too many “overplayed” pieces. That looks pretty good: Add up the people turned away by new music and the people turned away by too much Tchaikovsky, and you’ve got a wash, with a small advantage actually on the new music side.

But that’s misleading. Forget the 6% who don’t want to hear many overplayed masterworks. Any orchestra can easily accommodate them, by playing Beethoven‘s Fourth Symphony instead of his Fifth. Focus instead on the 10% who say new music would keep them away. Imagine a headline: “Orchestra Stresses New Music. 10% Drop In Ticket Sales.” For any orchestra—especially now, with everybody hurting from the bad economy—that would be disastrous.

And in fact things are worse than that. Studies also show that among orchestra subscribers—the people who go to concerts most often, and whom orchestras most depend on to buy tickets—fully 36% would rather hear familiar works than anything new. That’s not as strong as saying that they’d stay away, but it’s still pretty strong. It implies, certainly, that even if they didn’t absolutely refuse to go, they’d still be less likely to buy many tickets. So maybe now the headline has to read, “Orchestra Stresses New Music: 36% Sales Drop.” Or, if you think that’s exaggerated, just 30%, or 20%, or even 15%—which still would be ghastly news.

And when you go beyond subscribers, the numbers get even worse. 45% of single-ticket buyers say they’d rather hear familiar pieces. Move further outward, into the universe of people who don’t currently go to hear orchestras, but say they might like to, and 54% prefer music they already know. Unfortunately for the new music cause, orchestras need these people. Over the past generation, fewer and fewer people have chosen to subscribe. Orchestras work harder to sell the same number of seats, and have to reach out to new listeners—who, if these studies can be trusted, want comfortable music even more than subscribers do.

Nor is any of this theoretical. A few years ago, when I was writing an article about how new music is marketed, I spoke to the executive directors of three orchestras that played a lot of new music, the Baltimore Symphony (this was when David Zinman still was music director), the San Francisco Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. All three of these people said that they’d run into concrete opposition from part of their audience—so large a part, in fact, that two of them thought they’d have to arrange special subscription series with no new music at all.

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But what about the new audience, that hot young crowd that new music supposedly might attract?

Well, first of all, how large is it? Some New York music critics get excited by the audience at Columbia University‘s Miller Theatre in New York, where George Steel produces terrific new music events. It’s young and eager (though I’m not sure it’s rock-oriented, as one critic supposes; it looks like a standard new music crowd to me). In the ‘70s, for that matter, I saw crowds jam the smaller spaces in BAM to hear Steve Reich, and back in the ‘60s the rug concerts Boulez did with the Philharmonic brought out a young audience.

But how large is this audience? Miller isn’t, to put it mildly, as big as Avery Fisher Hall, where the New York Philharmonic holds court. Nor was the Lepercq Space at BAM (now the Rose Café). And the rug concerts unfurled themselves just a few times each year. Would any of these events draw—even cumulatively, over an entire season—enough people to make up the difference, if the New York Philharmonic replaced any large part of its current programming with new music, and lost subscribers? I doubt it—and even if I might possibly be wrong, could the Philharmonic afford to take that chance?

Plus there’s another question. Suppose, against all apparent odds, that a young, new music audience took the place of current subscribers. Would they donate as much money as the current subscribers do? That’s a crucial part of this problem, even if it lies beneath the surface, below the radar of many people who write about music. Orchestras can’t survive on ticket sales alone. They need people to give them money. Picture, for a moment, the current Philharmonic audience (or, for even greater effect, the orchestral audience in a city smaller than New York). Now picture the new music audience. Weight in your mind the two types of people—their ages, occupations, social position. Who’s likely to give more money? The answer should be obvious.

So if orchestras played a lot more new music, how would they pay for it? Years ago, I made radical suggestions at a conference sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts. Someone from the Buffalo Philharmonic answered me. Sure, she said, maybe there really was a new audience out there for the kinds of things I was advocating—and while they looked for it, they’d lose some large part of the audience they already have, and with it much of their funding. True or false? And if you think it’s false, can you offer enough concrete evidence for orchestras to bet their survival on what you think?

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But still there’s hope. This year, the Indianapolis Symphony embarked on a real adventure. On nearly every one of the 20 concerts on their main classical series, they’ve done (or will be doing) an American work. And while they’ve programmed a very few harmless confections, like the Victor Herbert Cello Concerto, or well-loved chestnuts, like the Adagio for Strings or the Fanfare for the Common Man, mostly they’ve chosen recent pieces by living or recently living composers—Michael Daugherty, Michael Torke, Lou Harrison, Ellen Zwilich, David Diamond, William Bolcom, Stephen Hartke, Philip Glass, John Adams (his Violin Concerto, not an easy piece), Christopher Rouse, Roberto Sierra, Aaron Kernis, John Corigliano, Theodore Shapiro.

How’d they do it? They took their audience seriously—an important point, I think, because studies have shown that people who go to orchestra concerts (including even constant subscribers) don’t think that orchestras care much about them. Indianapolis actually spoke to its audience—they held focus groups, I’m told, and asked people what they’d think if a lot of new music got programmed. We wouldn’t object, the focus groups answered, if you also play the music we all want to hear. So Indianapolis matched Stephen Hartke with Dvorak, Aaron Kernis with the Prokofiev “Classical” Symphony, Michael Torke with the Tchaikovsky Fifth, and so on down the line, though to their credit they didn’t always choose the most obvious warhorses.

And they also did the Philip Glass Fifth Symphony, a very long work, alone on a program by itself, with wonderful success—they played the program twice, on two successive nights, and sold more tickets to the second concert than the first, because word spread in the city that the piece was worth going to hear. When they did Michael Torke’s percussion concerto, Rapture, they brought Michael and the percussion soloist, Colin Currie, into the lobby at intermission to sign CDs. That got the audience excited; they’d heard Michael speak before the concert, liked him, liked his music, and liked the soloist. Both Michael and the symphony’s publicist told me that people didn’t want to go back in the hall to hear Tchaikovsky.

So here’s what I think is one way to sell new music—make it a genuine event. Indianapolis sold this season as “A Celebration of America,” invited many of the composers to attend, created special attractions, like the CD signing, and (which couldn’t have hurt) also had a new music director, Mario Venzago, to create some extra excitement.

Next year, alas, the Indianapolis Symphony isn’t doing nearly as much, so maybe the plan works only for a single season. But at least it shows that new music conceivably can work. And it gives us an example to learn from and to present to others, so when we urge more new music, we can speak the same language orchestras speak, and show them we know what we’re talking about.

Easley Blackwood

For me, the greatest stimulation regarding a new work is the assurance of a competent performance. An old friend who is a genuine music lover has recently asked me to compose a setting of the Magnificat for four-part unaccompanied chorus. There are many settings of the Magnificat, going back to the 15th century, and I have found one as recent as 1989. Although 20th century composers have made a number of settings, the Magnificat seems to have had little interest for composers of the Romantic period. I am presently thinking of a style that might resemble Franck, Sibelius, or Rachmaninoff, although more study will be needed before coming to a final decision. In any event, I am looking forward to the project with great interest.

Dean Suzuki Photo by Ryan Suzuki

The Other Minds Festival in San Francisco offers a healthy and provocative departure from the conventional new music series or festival. Whereas most new music organizations focus on their own favorite style or flavor—it makes sense; you present what you like and know—it takes a bold, daring organization with a visionary at the helm to mix things up, present quality music, and still draw an audience. Other Minds, with Charles Amirkhanian (composer, sound poet, radio and record producer, impresario, and new music champion) as Executive and Artistic Director, is such an organization. While there can be no doubt that Other Minds has a “downtown” bias, their festivals take a more broad and catholic approach, and juxtapose a remarkably wide range of styles and genres. What other series would include not only Robert Ashley, Lou Harrison, Laurie Anderson, Conlon Nancarrow, David Lang, and Gavin Bryars, but also such disparate composers, artists and performers as Ned Rorem, Scanner, Olly Wilson, DJ Spooky, Luc Ferrari, Glen Velez, Henry Brant, Stephan Micus, Trimpin, Tania León, Henry Kaiser, and Hamza El Din?

As an example of their eclectic approach, Other Minds mounted its first film festival last fall, dubbed “Eyes & Ears,” focusing on three musicians: DJ Spooky, Frank Zappa, and Percy Grainger. While all are nonconformists in one way or another, it is not a trio that would immediately leap to mind when putting together such a festival. Other composers and musicians represented in the film series included Terry Riley, Björk, Stockhausen, Leon Theremin, Pandit Pran Nath, George Antheil, John Cage, Henry Cowell, and Robert Erickson, among others. About the only common factors that one could site for such a collection of artists is that all are unconventional, all seek to push the boundaries of their art and all are mavericks of one stripe or another.

Victoria Hansen rehearsing the American premiere of Stephen Scott’s Paisajes Audibles at Other Minds 9. Photo © 2003 Charles Amirkhanian.

This past March, over the course of four evenings, one heard, for example, in a single evening, Daniel Lentz’s post-minimalist theatrical secular cantata, Café Desire, free jazz bassist William Parker‘s mixed ensemble piece Spirit Catcher, and New Zealand composer Jack Body‘s Three Sentimental Songs based on such familiar ditties as “Little Brown Jug” and “All Through the Night” (the latter including audience participation singing), transformed in the most curious, yet satisfying way, on the one hand, and the much gnarlier Sarajevo on the other. Another night featured the “taut, expressionist” music of Ge Gan-ru, Amy X Neuberg‘s experimental avant-pop songs in her solo performance including gorgeous classically trained cum rock singing, live electronics, and percussion, and a dazzling solo recital by the Scottish percussion phenom Evelyn Glennie performing on snare drum and five-octave marimba. Other composers participating in this year’s festival included Stephen Scott, Rorem and Micus.

Other Minds, however, is more than merely eclectic. It not only offers composers, musicians, and audiences an opportunity to encounter music that they might not otherwise choose to hear, so diverse are each concert’s programs, but there is a chance for real interaction. Prior to the three or four nights of concerts, the composers gather at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program near Woodside, just outside of Palo Alto and the Stanford University campus where Carl Djerassi, the chemist who created the birth control pill, and also an acclaimed author and playwright once taught. Often such festivals finds the participants preoccupied with getting their music together at the expense of interaction with others, whether other composers, performers, or audience members. The composers and some of the performers assemble at Djerrasi with the express purpose of engaging in a dialogue with one another. Each of the featured artists makes a presentation about their own work and there are opportunities to discuss music, the arts, and whatever else they fancy. How many f
estivals are designed with the composers’ growth and development in mind, rather than a fixation solely on the concerts? Once the concerts begin, each evening’s music is preceded by a panel with the composers and Amirkhanian before an audience. Amirkhanian, ever the informed, probing, and intelligent interviewer, is the perfect conduit between composer and audience member. Even the intermission offers opportunities, as the composers mingle with attendees rather than hiding out backstage.

Evelyn Glennie in residence at the Djerassi Program. Photo © 2003 Charles Amirkhanian.

The genius behind such a festival is the cross-fertilization and dialogue that can and does take place. Within the brief span of a week or so, composers, musicians, and music lovers can hear and learn about the creative process, improvisation, music technology from high tech to low tech, personal aesthetics, and more.

Amirkhanian notes that the Other Minds Festivals have been modeled after the ground breaking and most memorable New Music America Festivals of the late 1970s (originally New Music New York in 1979) and 1980s that similarly offered a variety of styles and genres. One might find not only experimental music, but free jazz and edgy rock artists such as The Residents and Brian Eno, even Jack Bruce (singing, playing bass and snare drum in a Carla Bley mini-opera). The range of music, which was quite remarkable, from the sublime to the shocking, can be observed in the great success of the festivals as well as John Cage’s infamous judgment and condemnation of Glenn Branca‘s concert as a performance of “fascist” music.

In its own way, a more analogous kind of forerunner to Other Minds can be found in Bill Graham‘s Fillmore Auditorium (later Fillmore West). In the wake of The Beatles‘ experiments and extensions of rock, the burgeoning San Francisco music scene of the mid to late sixties was already quite eclectic, belying the journalistic moniker of the “San Francisco Sound.” There was not a monolithic psychedelic style, rather the San Francisco scene was characterized by musical diversity, though mostly in the guise of rock music. One could encounter elements and hybrids of old timey music, jug band music, western swing, salsa, country, funk, folk, what was then called “raga rock” (almost anything smacking of Indian ragas), blues shouting, jazz, roots rock, bluegrass, cajun, and more in the likes of such disparate groups as the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Country Joe & the Fish, Tower of Power, Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Santana, Moby Grape, Blue Cheer, and the Flaming Groovies. However, all of these groups were, at their core, rock bands.

Graham helped break down musical barriers by regularly programming remarkably diversified bills that seemed at once be pushing the envelope, and, on the other hand, in touch with the eclecticism that was manifesting itself in contemporary Western culture. Just as young people were investigating non-Western religions and practices, including various forms of Buddhism, Hare Krishna, yoga, and the like; or co-ops and natural, macrobiotic diets, and other then unconventional lifestyles, so were they investigating new styles of music, albeit mostly of the vernacular or popular types.

A perusal of concerts at the Fillmore yield the following bills: the Denny Zeitlin Trio, the Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society, and Wildflower; Bola Sete, Country Joe & the Fish, and the Buffalo Springfield; the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Mount Rushmore; Chuck Berry, the Charles Lloyd Quartet, and the Steve Miller Blues Band; the Young Rascals, Charles Lloyd Quartet, and Hair; Love, the Staple Singers, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk; the Yardbirds, It’s a Beautiful Day, and Cecil Taylor; the Grateful Dead, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and the Sons of Champlin; the Jefferson Airplane, Ballet Afro-Haiti, and A. B. Skhy; Santana, the Impressions, and Blues Image; and The Who, Woody Herman & His Orchestra, and A. B. Skhy. Amid the broad spectrum of rock styles are examples of jazz of many types including swing, New Orleans, free improvisation, and hard bop, along with bossa nova, gospel, soul, and even a concert rendering of a Broadway musical and world dance. It is difficult to imagine Cecil Taylor and It’s a Beautiful Day or Woody Herman and The Who appearing on the same bill today. And this was decades before Lollapalooza. There can be no doubt but that the rock groups absorbed and learned from the non-rock artists on the bill and that the dialogue was likely a two-way street.

In this day of laser-beam focused music programming on commercial radio, from hip-hop radio to classical stations that play classical and romantic repertoire almost exclusively, to the lamentable situation on public radio with new music being one of many losers, to the metamorphosis of PBS into VH1, an organization such as Other Minds offers a more than welcome alternative to new music programming. Indeed, it is increasingly apparent that it represents a model that can help revitalize and energize the new music community. To further the cause and dissemination of new music, Other Minds not only mounts festivals, it has branched out into CD production (including releases by Nancarrow, Antheil, pianola performances of music by Stravinsky, Lutoslawski and others, and most recently, Ezra Pound), web-radio broadcasts, audio and video archives, the offering of autograph scores for auction as important historical, artistic, and collectible documents, and a newsletter, all reminiscent of Henry Cowell’s championing work through his New Music Quarterly endeavors which included the journal, concerts, music publication, recordings, and more.

While this year’s Other Minds Festival was another artistic success, there was at least one area of concern. I noticed that the audience was not as diverse as I had expected or hoped. Especially lamentable was the relative absence of younger listeners, in spite of the presence of Evelyn Glennie and Amy X Neuberg who might especially appeal to a younger audience. There were plenty of baby boomers and those older; there was rather more grey hair than I expected and fewer fresh faces than I had hoped. That being said, it must be noted that Other Minds 6 concerts featuring Scanner and DJ Spooky were attended by a more youthful audience, though they did not cross over to the more conventionally classical concerts. Likewise, “Eyes & Ears” also attracted a younger audience suggesting that, at the very least, new music on film might appeal to a more youthful demographic, but pulling in a similar audience to a concert situation might require more innovative programming, some re-tooling, woodshedding, and the engaging of twenty-something composers into the festival.

Tina Davidson

It’s not always been this way, but lately, and with each new choral piece I write, I sink more and more into a sensuous world of sound bordered by language. It’s a love affair that started about 6 years ago when I was commissioned to write a work using ancient mystical texts. I soon found that composing for chorus is like trying to sail across the ocean with only the stars as guides. Without much internal bearings, the voice needs navigation points to move quietly in reference to others. The delight is to find a way to bring the chorus suddenly to a place where they find their bearings in a sea of resonant, glowing harmonies. Setting text is also an intimate, tender affair; I must live between verbal meaning and sound, between the head and the heart, and intertwine them together. It is no wonder, when I am called out of my studio, I am many times stuporous and only half-awake.

Tina Davidson is currently writing a large work for chorus based on the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, commissioned by Phillip Brunelle’s VocalEssence

Jon Jang Photo by Francisco Garcia

During the past 15 years, my instrumental works, as well as my vocal ones, have been inspired by the feeling of sorrow songs particularly from the Chinese and African American traditions. I am also drawn to the feeling of words in poetry that paint provocative images. During this time of crisis and sorrow around the world, I try to listen to the wisdom of Ezekiel (“Can these dry bones live?”) and let my faith be my guide.

To be inspired to write more choral works is not the question for me. It is more about being given the opportunity to write more choral works.

Composers Jon Jang and James Newton performed their work, “When Sorrow Turns to Joy – A Musical Tribute to Paul Robeson” at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and the Flynn Center for Performing Arts in Vermont last January. The work featured a collection of songs sung by bass-baritone singer Cedric Berry and Chinese Opera singer Shuang Hou. Paul Robeson Jr. gave us his blessing at the Dartmouth College concert.

Carl Stone Photo by David Agasi

I love choral music, ever since the age of two. The first present I remember ever receiving, and one of my best loved, was a recorded collection—of 45 rpm discs no less—of Japanese children’s songs, sung by a chorus of elementary school students. Although now much too timeworn to be playable, I still cherish the disc itself fondly and remember the songs.

I love choral music. If I were stranded in the South Pacific, my list of Desert Island discs—well, these days it might be a Desert Island iPod list—would include Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir, and Ligeti‘s Lux Aeterna right at the top. There is nothing more expressive than the human voice, and if one voice is beautiful, is not a group of them even more so?

I love choral music but have written none. Why is that? I would welcome the opportunity. Although recent commissions for string quartet, solo piano, and even baroque ensemble belie the fact, as a composer whose output is at least 90% of the time music which I perform myself using computer-based electronics, perhaps I have been type-cast a bit. I would be thrilled if some forward-looking choral director were to ask me for a piece.

Periodically, our 2nd Person forum is initiated by a guest. This month, we are honored to have the perspective of Randall Davidson, who is leaving the AMC Board of Directors in July after 16 years of dedicated service. Randall was President of the AMC during a very challenging period, and was instrumental in the resurrection of the AMC as a strong, proactive, leadership organization. His vision of broadening the new music community continues to be far-reaching and his voice continues to be compelling and wise. Randall, all of us in the AMC family say thank you for your wonderful leadership in helping make the AMC what it is today.

– John Kennedy

I remember sitting around my grandparents’ dinner table in the parsonage next to University Park United Methodist Church with all of the extended family holding hands and with heads bowed. I can’t recall if we were there because of a funeral, a wedding, a baptism, or just because we all happened to be in Lincoln, Nebraska on the same Sunday afternoon.

Someone gave the pitch and we began to sing the Doxology. I loved singing the Doxology with my extended family because there were enough of us (sometimes more than a dozen) to cover all the essential parts so that some of the others of us could improvise “interesting” embellishments on the harmonies. This is how I came to love the sound of choral singing. It was a family of colorful, warm, embracing harmonies, and soaring, sustaining melodies that informed my composing works for chorus.

It is only years later that I have become aware of the importance of this early experience. Choral singing is not the same as singing alone, either with instruments or keyboard, because there is a communal expression that is at the root of all of the best choral music. And it is a result the communal nature of choral music that it remains a bastion of amateur music-making.

Randall Davidson

In terms of concert music, choral and “educational” music represent the lion’s share of most titles that are commercially published each year. There is a significant and constant demand for new works for chorus that significantly surpasses demand for new string quartets or symphonies or operas. Choral unions, community choruses, professional choruses, and choirs in faith communities regularly commission new works—oftentimes, there are numerous commissions each year. The premiere of a new work is a matter of course for hundreds of thousands of American choir members every year.

Composers of every aesthetic stripe must have dozens of works in their catalogue for chorus. Conservatories and universities must be offering dozens of upper level courses on composing for chorus and instruments, text-setting, and extended choral techniques. Certainly, record companies and radio broadcasters give preferential treatment to choral music in their catalogues and on their broadcast schedules.

But there is something peculiar happening here. Choral music has almost the same difficulty getting broadcast as new music. You can find recordings of choral music but you’ll be looking for niche labels and probably online. Although nearly every college and university has a chorus, it is rare that you will find a composition course that teaches how to write for chorus and instruments.

The world would seem to be a hostile place for the communal art of choral singing.

But again, wait. Something peculiar really is happening here. For one week this past August, I was very lucky to be able to witness the monsoon of music called the Sixth World Choral Symposium which took place in Minneapolis. It was chaired by conductor Philip Brunelle and hosted by the Minnesota chapter of the American Choral Directors’ Association and the International Federation of Choral Music. I was one of the 120,000 people who attended concerts, workshops, and seminars on choral music. I worked very hard to hear about half of the 35 choruses that came to perform on the festival.

Choral music may be a niche, but it is an exciting niche with hundreds of thousands of rabid fans who buy recordings and attend festivals and commission new works and perform, perform, perform.

What do you think we in the new music community might learn from this rather extraordinary community of music? Is the lesson learned that we need a national or international festival of new music? Is the lesson that we need to become supporters of each other’s work?

What do you think we might do to emulate the world of choral music? Perhaps we should start by holding hands and begin singing together.

Nobody becomes a composer out of a need to express himself or out of a wish to affect the course of music history. We all begin by falling in love with a piece and wanting to make something just like it. With the passage of years, the urge to imitate disappears, but most of us continue to be nourished by the study of music.

The importance of theory is obvious. You cannot really understand Bach unless you have internalized the syntax of functional harmony along with the principles of long-range voice-leading. And the various techniques of extended tonality, free atonality, or serial construction are equally important for music of the 20th century. But no way of thinking about pitch or rhythm provides an automatic advantage; theoretical constructs are only useful as a source of opportunities. What interests us in a piece we care about is the particular occasion, how technical procedures are placed in the service of a musical narrative that is uniquely compelling.

[Ed. Note: Flume, a new CD featuring four of Boykan’s chamber music compositions was recently issued on CRI.]