Category: Articles

Thaddeus Squire

Where are the venues for new music in Philadelphia? Good question.

To discuss the lack of venues for the contemporary performing arts in Philadelphia at the moment is—literally—a monumental irony. December 15 marks the opening of the Regional Performing Arts Center (a.k.a. RPAC—no relation to NJPAC), Philadelphia’s newest, largest, most anticipated, celebrated, and problematic of public performance venues, or, more precisely, collection of performance venues.

Philadelphia’s continuing effort to maintain its position as one of this country’s premier cultural centers has been hindered perennially by the troubling lack of venues for the contemporary performing arts. Three aspects frame the discussion of the current problem of locale: the kind of venue, (determined by who controls it), its location and outfitting, and the venue’s broader aesthetic identity. The kinds of venue break down roughly into four categories: venues run by RPAC (its new presence places it into its own category), venues run by educational institutions, venues run by presenters, and “alternative” venues. The following is a tour of these venue categories, outlining the problems and potential promise for each and what these mean for new music in Philadelphia.

Following a long history fraught with controversy, politics, and the sensational application of $265 million, RPAC now stands nearly complete on Philadelphia’s Center City landscape. It will certainly bring something substantial and positive to the city’s cultural life, however, most of the local performing arts community is not yet sure exactly what that will be. We all hope that the hype will not prove to be hubris. To understand the current problems and challenges faced by RPAC, and why it may or may not become Philadelphia’s center for the new, a bit of background is needed.

The Philadelphia Orchestra has desired a new concert hall since 1908, owing to the famously poor acoustics of the Academy of Music, which was built in 1857 on an opera house model. While most have agreed through the years that the Fabulous Philadelphians deserve better than the dead and dusty sound of the old Academy, the city has maintained a long love affair with its new-world La Scala. Consequently, the argument of acoustic improvement alone has never inspired the local philanthropic community to back the plans for a new orchestra hall championed in past decades. The penultimate campaign by the Orchestra, which ultimately led to the creation of RPAC, was undertaken during the music directorship of Riccardo Muti (1980-1992). Famed local architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown designed a new hall to be placed just blocks from the Academy on Broad Street. An ambitious capital campaign commenced, but the Orchestra failed to raise sufficient funds, and the project foundered.

This is where the story gets complicated. The Orchestra ceded the campaign for a new concert hall over to City Hall and the charismatic leadership of Mayor Edward G. Rendell, whose administration brought about positive developments in urban renewal, cultural growth, as well as tourism and commerce for Philadelphia. The mayor was able to muster the support of the governor’s office of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with the creation of bold new “branding” corporation, the Avenue of the Arts, Inc., led by his wife the Honorable Marjorie Rendell and charged with the mission to consolidate and revitalize South Broad Street as the de facto arts center for the region. The new performing arts center, along with the historic Academy of Music would be the centerpieces of this project. This new consortium, along with local developer Willard G. Rouse III, took on the project with renewed verve, and the enthusiasm and money began to flow once more. The only catch was that if the city and commonwealth were to make this new venue their project, the facility could no longer belong to the Orchestra alone. What had long lived as a private campaign of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, was now a public works project, which introduced new cultural politics and massive identity challenges.

After the conversion, the project was quickly christened with the public works moniker Regional Performing Arts Center. RPAC, as a private corporation, was responsible for raising the money for the construction of the new performance venue and for the renovation of the old Academy of Music, which RPAC now administers. RPAC’s new facility, named the Kimmel Center for chief patron and clothier Sidney Kimmel, was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and built in three years. RPAC now administers two separate buildings, one old and one new, encompassing four different venues, all with different names. The Kimmel Center includes Verizon Hall (2,543 seats), which is the Philadelphia Orchestra’s “new home,” the Perelman Theater (651 seats) and a black-box theater (née The Innovation Studio). The Academy of Music, located just down the street, contains the fourth venue. Add to this branding and identity nightmare eight official “resident” companies—The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Philly Pops, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Philadanco, American Theater Arts for Youth and the Opera Company of Philadelphia—and you have a complicated logistic, artistic and institutional mess to clarify for a local general public that is historically resistant to change.

The identity problems that have arisen over the two geographically separate houses, their various spaces and the “big-brother” parent organization (RPAC) are enormous. Marketing and PR efforts have failed to clarify much. The public is still not certain of where their favorite companies are going to perform, and, as I have been asked a hundred times, “What is going to happen to the Academy?” At this late date, it is surprising that such questions still exist in the public mind. Even following the project’s final transformation, the Orchestra’s millennial venue quest has deeply colored the mission and identity of RPAC. In a dangerous and perhaps unwitting bow to the Philadelphia Orchestra’s failed quest, The Kimmel Center has been consistently portrayed as principally belonging to the Orchestra, yet it still must share the Center equally with the other resident companies. This marketing move continually threatens to suggest that the other resident companies are somehow second rate and not worthy of quite as much shrift, despite their premier artistic standings. In addition,
RPAC will be running its own programming, which this season features a motley assortment of recycled Carnegie Hall headline acts—all from out-of-town. There is no indication of who exactly has assembled this programming, but if RPAC is to operate also as a presenter and not just an administrative organization, the future will be tough without a respected (or simply identifiable) artistic director at the helm.

So, how does new music fit into this? RPAC has been aggressively marketed and sold under the heady rhetoric of the new as “state of the art,” “modern,” “innovative,” and the apotheosis of all things contemporary and good. Ironically, there is only one contemporary performing group (Philadanco) among its eight residents. The remaining resident groups are almost strictly classical companies, with each giving the customary occasional nod to the contemporary in their programming. To the question, “Where’s the new music?” the answer is, “Not at RPAC.” As custodians of contemporary music tend to be smaller organizations, such as the Relâche Ensemble, Network for New Music, and Orchestra 2001, the rental costs for RPAC leave self-presenting out of the question. Before being subsumed by RPAC, the Academy was already long-renowned as one of the most expensive venues in the country. Our new center has now beaten this record. Rental fees were set prohibitively high even for the Orchestra, owing to tremendous earned revenue needs in creating RPAC’s first general operating budget. To illustrate the magnitude of the issue, emergency aid was recently furnished to the resident companies by The Pew Charitable Trusts, local philanthropist H. F. (Gerry) Lenfest, and the Annenberg Foundation to ensure that the new rental fees would not bankrupt the tenants.

Though RPAC is an impressive-looking edifice containing state-of-the-art acoustic engineering, the venues themselves are still fairly conservative and subdued in appearance, flexibility, and function. Also, the center’s general image has already been colored heavily by its predominantly classical resident companies, making the facility not immediately brand-ready as a contemporary arts location. Most significantly, the average size of a contemporary music audience in Philadelphia is currently roughly 100-200, on a good evening. As much as Relâche and our colleagues are trying to build this audience, the large size of RPAC’s venues makes them at present undesirable as new music spaces. The promise of cross-over audience from the resident companies is also weak as most of the residents are themselves struggling with diminishing, older, and more conservative audiences. It is dubious that RPAC and the Kimmel Center could alone provide an impetus for sustainable contemporary music audience development.

In the end, despite all these issues, the jury is still out. Nobody is quite sure yet whether RPAC is about out-of-town headliner acts, local talent, its resident companies, smaller organizations, larger organizations, high culture, low culture, or what. What is certain is that it is attempting to be too many things in too many places for too many people. We will all have to wait and see first, how RPAC decides to define itself and second, whether new music will be part of that mission and identity.

Our second category of venue, those controlled by educational institutions, command some of the city’s most attractive medium to small size venues, which are appropriate for new music. Among these are the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center, with its Harold Prince Theater, The University of the Arts’ ArtsBank and Drake Theater, Temple University’s Rock Hall, and Drexel University’s Mandel Theater. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Relâche presented and co-presented new music series at Mandel and the Annenberg Center. Today, these venues are under greater institutional control, and very few independent new music organizations present at these venues. Mostly, these spaces are heavily booked or overbooked by their respective institutions for their own use. Nobody can argue with this, as the venues are being put to good use, but it does mean that a large number of prime venues remain off limits to local self-presenting organizations.

Other more peripheral educational venues include the Iron Gate Theater at University of Pennsylvania. It is only available two months out of the year when it is not being used by Penn. Penn’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) contains a new black box space, Tuttleman Auditorium, in which Relâche currently presents its inter-arts series Eye Music. Tuttleman could be a prime venue, but the proximity of a loud machine room makes it a less attractive space for more regular concert programming. Seating is also limited to 100. Presser Hall at Settlement Music School is often the locus of new music concerts, however, the hall is heavily used by the School, making it hard to book for a series. Curtis Hall at the famed Curtis Institute of Music is not available to outside performers, even when it is dark. The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the galleries at Moore College of Art also offer potential spaces. Since all are exhibition spaces, availability, accessibility, and performance adaptability are highly limited.

The third category, venues controlled by presenters, holds great potential to foster new music in Philadelphia, however, the city’s presenting community has not demonstrated in recent years any interest in presenting local talent, particularly when it comes to new music and the contemporary performing arts. Philadelphia suffers from an odd Janus effect. It is very proud of its large arts organizations, such as the Orchestra and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, yet deep down, it is also plagued by the belief that great artists could never call Philadelphia home. This provincial ethos has exerted a subtle yet powerful influence on the presenting community as most presented artists come from outside the city. It is certainly an essential part of the presenter’s mission to bring outside artists into a community, but presenters also have a responsibility to their own local arts community. The message in Philadelphia is that great art only comes from places like New York or Europe. This, of course, is far from true. We hope that Philadelphia’s artistic renaissance in recent years and the eventual sorting out of the Kimmel Center will aid in improving the artistic self-image of the city and its hometown groups.

The entrenchment of presenters’ programming has erected additional barriers to new music. Penn Presents has been largely uninterested in presenting new music, owing to the success of its jazz and contemporary dance series. The Philadelphia Chamb
er Music Society is a world-class presenter, but it is committed to the classical repertoire. The Painted Bride Art Center, supposedly Philadelphia’s premier contemporary arts venue, only presents jazz and world music, completely overlooking a vast and diverse new music repertoire. The Kimmel Center does not include contemporary music in its programming. Other presenters commanding their own venues include the city’s many prominent theaters, such as the Arden, Wilma and Prince Music Theater, whose own programming of course takes precedence over outside rentals, making it difficult to produce longer runs of a single program or a concert series. The only organization that does “present” a contemporary music series is Settlement Music School, whose Sylvia G. Wexler Contemporary Music Series has been a fixture on the Philadelphia scene for some time. Settlement is committed to local new music groups such as Relâche; yet, as Settlement is a school and not a presenter per se, the minimal funding support for the series does not permit artist honoraria and only limited advertisement, making the series a “door” gig for its participants and generally low in attendance. The city’s resistance to presenting local talent has led many contemporary performing arts groups, where possible, to own and run their own venues. This has yet to become an option among Philadelphia’s new music ensembles.

The final category of “alternative” venues includes the many atypical or non-arts venue spaces in the city. Many new music groups use the Philadelphia Ethical Society on Rittenhouse Square as it is inexpensive and centrally located. Ethical is the current home of Relâche’s main concert series Future Sounds. The Philadelphia Art Alliance, Van Pelt Auditorium in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as several of the art galleries in Old City such as Nexus and Highwire, have also served as occasional venues for new music. The Philadelphia Ambient Consortium of Music and Noise, a University of Pennsylvania student organization, runs a low-budget but excellent concert series of ambient music and performance art at the Rotunda, a decommissioned church on Penn’s campus. The Rotunda might have potential as an established new music venue, but its future ownership is uncertain. The new convention center in Center City also has rooms that have been used for chamber music, yet they have not been designed as concert venues and remain ill-equipped and have less desirable acoustics. Philadelphia’s many churches and synagogues serve as locales on occasion. A recently rebuilt church has even renamed itself the Trinity Center for Urban Life and has become a worship-space/venue hybrid, and the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial (formerly a church) has been used for performances by the American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Chapter. The very live acoustic of such spaces makes them unsuited for much new music repertoire.

For many of the above venues, location, proximate public conveniences, and internal outfitting serve as potential barriers to cultivation as workable new music venues. Settlement is in a formerly “bad” part of the city and still bears this stigma. ICA and University of Pennsylvania venues are somewhat tainted by the perceived inaccessibility of West Philadelphia and University City, which also borders some rather notorious urban areas. Among the spaces accessible to smaller groups, many lack a good piano, the prime determinant of a good venue. Some, such as the Ethical Society, even lack air conditioning and proper ventilation for warm weather performances. Ethical does, however, have an excellent concert grand piano, which contributes to its popularity among new music groups. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the more old-world, conservative, and classical public images of many venues such as the Kimmel Center and the Ethical Society create the wrong context for new music. To date, no Philadelphia venues have established a strong enough new music identity to override extant older and dustier images and associations. Finally, there is the issue of the “Avenue of the Arts” project. The Avenue of Arts is the successful product of a powerful consolidating force for the city’s performing arts venues. With the recent addition of the Kimmel Center, nobody is yet sure whether the Avenue will make it more or less challenging for other venues throughout the city to compete for exposure and public accessibility for their programs.

Two of the largest problems faced by all performing arts in the city are parking and transportation. The Philadelphia Parking Authority is legendarily ruthless in its time-restriction enforcement of the limited on-street parking, and lot and garage prices have been increasing steadily. Public transportation is poorly advertised and limited in its reach, fueling the perception that the neighborhoods where many of the smaller venues are located are inaccessible, or, in some cases, actually making them inaccessible.

So, considering all the challenges that new music performance faces in the Philadelphia, is there hope for the future? Most certainly. One hope lies in educating and lobbying local presenters. Over the coming year, we will all be watching RPAC closely to see how it decides to utilize its spaces, and those of us representing the new music community are already pushing for some new music commitment. The Annenberg Center and Penn Presents, as well as the Painted Bride also may offer a renewed interest in a new music series by local and outside groups. Conversations are under way. The identification and development of an extant venue as a new music and contemporary performing arts space for Philadelphia talent would be a possible solution; however, many long for a new, smaller performing arts center dedicated to contemporary work. We will have to wait some time for the fervor of RPAC to pass before such a project can even be considered by the local community.

The most hopeful, realistic, and immediate solutions lie in partnership and collaboration among the smaller local performing arts groups. Collaboration and multilateral agreement would be essential in identifying and establishing an extant venue as the locus for contemporary performing arts. Also, as funding and operational resources become increasingly challenging to secure, programming and production partnerships among mid- to small-size organizations and larger institutions are all the more crucial. The extraordinary time and effort that effective partnerships require from all sides have not deterred local groups from engaging in this process. Relâche has forged strong associations with the Institute of Contemporary Art and The University of the Arts for much of its programming. Network for New Music, Orchestra 2001 and the Settlement Contemporary Players have been able to use productively their ties to the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Swarthmore College the Curtis Institute and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Relâche, in cooperation with the local chapter of the American Composers Forum and its colleagues Network for New Music and Orchestra 2001, is wo
rking earnestly on educational and composer service programs. Whatever the reason—whether it has been the issues raised by RPAC or ever-increasing funding and audience building difficulties—this season has brought a sense of renewed and stronger commitment on behalf of the local new music community to join forces to help increase the visibility of this vital art in Philadelphia. Perhaps one day Philadelphia will be known not only for its older and larger music institutions, but also for its vibrant and diverse collection of contemporary performing arts organizations. There is much tremendous new music happening in Philadelphia. All it needs is a good home.

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Thaddeus Squire is currently Artistic Coordinator & Executive Director for Relâche Ensemble, which is based in Philadelphia. Relâche Ensemble offers a quarter-century of dedication to commissioning and performing the works of living composers, with an emphasis on “downtown” new music. The Ensemble is an 8-member instrumental group and has been administered by the not-for-profit company Relâche, Inc. since 1979. Relâche performs an annual, self-presented Philadelphia season of roughly 25 concerts, featuring 4-5 World Premiere commissions and numerous guest artists. In addition Relâche tours locally, nationally and internationally and engages in educational programs, artistic residencies, mixed media collaborations and recording projects.

Orlando Jacinto Garcia Photo by Rafael Salazar

As we enter the next century the music world can seem a bit confusing. Twenty-five years ago what was considered the Western Art music canon consisted of music from either Antiquity or the Renaissance through the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and into the 20th century. The music called by many in the general public “classical” music was relatively well defined in so far as the composers and their works. Today, this repertoire is not the only music deemed as relevant. Especially in post-modern times where categories are being redefined, it is easy for many to assert that a tango, a rock tune, and a Beethoven symphony are all the same except perhaps for the musical parameters that define the style. This can have its positive as well as negative ramifications. The positive perhaps being that all types of music are understood as having similar importance, the negative that everything is considered in many ways as being the same.

Given the current post-modern climate how does one define and/or understand different forms of musical expression. Are questions of style merely enough to describe different types of music? In my view there are much more than just stylistic parameters to consider when trying to understand music in the beginning of the 21st century. What are these additional concerns? I believe that there are differences in function and in the type of experiences that different types of music generate, that can be generally understood and discussed. Given the limitations of space, the following are general notions not to be considered as all encompassing or complete but instead as some concepts that may help to clarify the situation.

To begin with, popular, ethnic, commercial, etc., music can be generally understood as being functional (i.e., it has relatively obvious and direct social functions) and some of the music from the Western Art music tradition does not (i.e., it exists primarily for its own sake). Historically functional music has generally been created to communicate with a large number of people while non-functional music has been devised to be consumed by a smaller number often somewhat versed in its musical language. Examples of functional music include (1) songs that recount historical, political, and socio/cultural events, (2) music for celebrations and rituals with or without dance and (3) music written with the express purpose of generating large sums of money. The target audience for this music was and still is usually a large group of people. Although important, these are simplistic notions and distinctions, that need to be and will be clarified shortly.

Much non-functional music has origins as functional music. A good example of this is Western sacred music which had the task of inspiring worshipers to come close to their deity. Later the main purpose for many of the composers of this music became pleasing the royalty commissioning it (some of whom were musicians themselves). Its value at times increased, based upon the composer’s ability to create a more abstract and complex experience for the patron and court. In the past, composers of non-functional music often created functional music as well to supplement their earnings. This phenomena is rarely seen in the 20th century. As the system of patronage more or less ended, the more abstract music was left standing as absolute music, generally speaking, with little if any function except to exist for its own sake. Since it was not understood by or written for the masses it was, for the most part, not economically viable. In the 20th century, institutions such as governments and universities became the supporters of this work. This music, heard by smaller numbers, was and is often revered for its potential to elicit powerful reactions in audiences; both for and against it. Similar examples can be found in the other arts.

The simple and limited historical explanations of functional and non-functional music presented above are relatively obvious although often ignored by those discussing music in post-modern times. Although to some extent generalized and simplified, I believe that they raise some important notions that can help understand some of the differences between a tango, a rock tune, and a symphony by Stravinsky. At the same time that they are of importance, these notions are not enough by themselves to help categorize and/or fully understand the music that exists today.

In addition to the differences in the historical functions of music, there is perhaps the more important concept of the experiences that different types of music generate. These differences in the responses they elicit, may best be understood by examining works in the other Arts and the responses which they generate. For example, the experience one has when reading a work by Michael Crichton or Mickey Spillane is not the same as the experience one has when reading James Joyce or Borges. One is not better than the other but their works definitely generate different responses. Novels by the first two writers usually include great story telling and can be quite enjoyable. The books of the latter two are much more abstract and generate a very different intellectual and emotional experience (pleasurable for some and not so for others). Reading books by the latter several times is often necessary to capture all of the details as well as some of the more abstract concepts presented.

A similar analogy can be made when examining visual art. The experience one has while viewing a fairly representational seascape watercolor painting by Carolyn Blish is not the same as the experience one has when viewing Guernica by Picasso. The watercolor may be pleasing to the eye and may even make an excellent addition to ones living space. The Picasso however could be very troubling given the abstract imagery and surrealistic depiction of horrific events. Repeated viewing is often necessary to understand it and including it in ones living space may or may not be of interest. As in the first example, these experiences are not better or worse; just different.

A similar case can be made for music. The experience of hearing the music of Michael Jackson, Julio Iglesias, Madonna, or a tango by Gardel is not the same as the experience of hearing Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Berlioz‘s Symphonie Fantastique, or Ginastera‘s Cantata para America Magica. The first group of works may move one to dance, sing along, or converse with a friend at a bar, while the latter generally does not. With the Stravinsky, Berlioz, and Ginastera works, repeated listening may be required to assimilate an
d react to the music, while this may not be the case with the first examples. Again one group is not better than the other; rather the responses to the works and the experiences one has are very different.

In general, what do these experiences have in common? The latter in each of the examples is probably more abstract than the former (i.e., more removed from concrete experiences of reality and every day life). Does this necessarily make one experience better than the other? Probably not, since although a more abstract experience might seem more substantive to some it can often create much discomfort. A discomforting response could cause the individual to close out the work that is evoking the experience (a common reaction to the unfamiliar). At the same time having the greatest acceptance by mass audiences does not necessarily mean that something is worthwhile. On the contrary, there are many instances where mass acceptance implies that what is being accepted is very banal and of little worth.

What is the implication of this view? First, style is not the determining factor when defining what Art music is or is not. Rather to some extent the functionality of the music and more importantly the experiences generated by it are. Some would ask what about jazz? My response would be who do you mean—the late John Coltrane or any Kenny G? What kind of experience does their music generate for you? The same for some rock and pop musicians—do you mean Michael Jackson or Brian Eno? What about the functional music that Mozart, Haydn, et al wrote? Are things black and white? Of course not, and there are plenty of issues to continue to discuss. Some genres and works will be difficult to explain but that is what makes talking about music so interesting.

Lastly, a brief word about the label Art music. While some of the more sensitive find that it demeans other music by implying that one is high art while the other is not, it should be noted that the label Art music comes from the label Art song applied to some of the songs in the 19th century as a way of differentiating them from other songs of the time. The term was also used as a way of separating these songs from the notion of the “Art of Music.” This does not mean that it is superior to other music, simply that it is coming from the Art song tradition (analogous to the visual art of the time). While I find that the terms serious or classical music are irrelevant when applied to Art music, I do not have a problem with the terminology that grew out of the notion of Art song. This being said, the nature of mass marketing has made the term “classical music” the term of choice for the general public whether they are talking about Bach or Stravinsky.

What I propose in this brief article is not meant as an iron clad test for categorizing music, but rather an attempt to deal with a phenomenon that in my opinion clearly exists. It is also my desire to give musicians some philosophical concepts to consider when discussing different types of music. As young man I had the great fortune to study philosophy. If I learned anything at all while studying this subject it is that while one can never know the truth, one can try and come close to it.

Sarah Rothenberg Photo by Christian Steiner

Over the years I’ve noticed that the space in which one plays new music can have a big effect on how the audience responds. Of course, some of this may be due to the fact that certain spaces attract certain audiences, and if I add that some of my favorite venues have been contemporary art museums it may sound as though I just like to preach to the converted.

But I think most of us involved with contemporary music have noticed that the art world does not always share our musical preferences, so we actually do encounter new audiences this way as well. A space that houses contemporary art immediately introduces the right elements of surprise, difference, even strangeness, that one wants the music listener to be ready for.

As Artistic Director of Da Camera of Houston, I have the opportunity to take this one step farther. We have the privilege of presenting concerts in the world-renowned Menil Collection, housed in a majestically serene building designed by the architect Renzo Piano. From the start, I’ve been interested in using the collection as a context for new music. This has resulted in a number of unusual programs.

To celebrate the opening of a new gallery devoted to the work of American painter Cy Twombly, we picked up on the Greek myths in his abstract paintings and presented a program entitled Ancient Greeks and Modern Americans. As the audience sat in an open gallery space surrounded by Twombly’s work, they heard performances of such works as Elliott Carter‘s Syringa and Milton Babbitt‘s Philomel. Another program, Morton Feldman and the Abstract Expressionists, presented Feldman works with titles referring to De Kooning, Rothko, Guston, and Franz Kline that we performed with paintings by these artists on the walls. The memorable finale on this evening involved the entire audience walking over to the contemplative Rothko Chapel, a block away, for a performance of Feldman’s masterpiece created for that space. The unique marriage of music and place was something the entire audience felt in a visceral way, and will probably never forget.

Coming up this season, we will be presenting the premiere of Jane Ira Bloom‘s new work, “Chasing Paint,” inspired by the work of Jackson Pollock, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in a gallery hung with Pollocks. This is as exciting for Bloom as it is for the rest of us.

These are rather rarified examples, and I don’t think that there needs to be a programmatic connection between the art and the music for the effect to be felt, although this can certainly intensify the result. I have wonderful memories of performing a new work by George Tsontakis with members of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at the DIA Foundation in New York. The space was filled with Richard Serra‘s enormous “Torqued Ellipses,” forcing us musicians into a corner of this rather cavernous space, where we were dwarfed by the towering steel sculptures. As there was only natural light and the concert was at night, a few halogen lamps around us gave off a cave-like glow. The addition of a torrential rainstorm outside created an amazing sense of shelter and community as everyone gathered inside to hear new music. Spaces that allow for that community, diminish separation between artist and audience, generate an energy that encourages openness: these are important characteristics that can make a difference for both performer and listener. Anything that radiates the opposite of “business as usual,” and instead wakes people up.

Amy Denio Photo courtesy Amy Denio

I have been playing and listening to new music around the world for the past 15 years and have come across hundreds of different venues and situations for listening, all of which offer unique advantages and problems for both the player and the listener.

For music involving purely acoustic instruments, I much prefer playing indoors, without amplification, so the instruments can ring truly in a live room. When acoustic instruments are amplified, the sound is always altered, however subtly, and the original beauty can be altered to something more synthetic. I find it ironic that perfectly good acoustic spaces are equipped with amplifying equipment—the aesthetic of making sure music is (more than) loud enough to hear is very frustrating to me.

One dynamic which interests me is that of the typical division of performer and audience. I think of music as a social tool—concerts provide the possibility to forge an instantaneous community. Often at my concerts, people from widely varying backgrounds are in attendance, and together we experience a common beauty (well, what I consider beauty). One of the inherent problems with music in Western culture is that it is often relegated to the realm of specialists—performers and listeners. In this regard, I prefer not to use a stage if there is one, as this is too great a metaphor for the concept of performers as specialists, audience as consumers. I prefer to surround the audience with my music, when possible, and often compose pieces in which the audience is invited to participate.

In my experience, the ideal situation for music is one in which the audience can be totally immersed in the experience of listening, without distraction. My colleague Francisco Lopez produces his acousmatic concerts in darkened rooms, where he is situated in the center, all chairs or cushions are facing outward, towards a ring of speakers which surround the audience. The audience is invited to wear blindfolds, to experience “la belle confusion” of sound immersion. This way, each person has a unique listening experience, while at the same time being part of a larger, anonymous group. In his concerts, usually there are no visual or auditory distractions, and as a result, the experience of hearing his creations is very intense.

I must add, though, that I am a big fan of embracing the chaos of our noisy world and always enjoy non-programmed sounds entering the performance venue. In this regard, music performed in open-air venues can be an invitation to listen to the world.

Shortly after Sun Ra died, my sax quartet was performing at an open-air festival in Ottawa, Canada, and our repertoire included an arrangement of “Mu,” one of his pieces. As soon as Marjorie started her solo, the church across the street began tolling its bells in celebration of a wedding. It was a lovely sonic addition. Several hours later, we performed a different set, but including the same piece. As soon as we started, the bells joined in, but only during “Mu,” and stopped when we did. From then on, whenever we performed “Mu” there was always an extra environmental audio ingredient, no matter where we were. Lovely!

Photo by Marion Ettlinger

I don’t believe that there is just one type of performance space that works best with new music. Just as there are many styles of new music composition, so are there different spaces that work best with them.

For my music, I want a reverberant space, but not too reverberant. I want a space that supports the sound—all of it—high partials as well as the fundamentals. Too much reverberation, though, and the sound becomes one big mush, with dissonances and details being absorbed by the consonances. I’ve had a few pieces performed in spaces like this, usually large, lovely churches, and have wanted to crawl under the pew during the performance, the sound bearing only a faint resemblance to what I wrote.

However, if you write monophonically for male voice (Gregorian chant), or other low-pitched, slow-moving or ambient music, it might be the perfect space. On the other hand, there are spaces that are either intentionally or unintentionally dry, where the result is the “pure” sound that is generated, with most of the upper partials disappearing before they reach your ears, with no “help” from the space (I’m obviously showing my bias here). From my experience, this type of space seems to be favored by composers of electronic music. I’ve had a few performances in spaces like these, too. I’ve always felt that I should be giving a guided tour during the performance similar to that of visiting a ruin. Instead of pointing out where something used to be, I’d be pointing out where something should have been, “this is the place where the combination tones start kicking in,” etc. In short, the ideal performance space is a matter of preference—one composer’s ideal space is (or can be) another’s nightmare.

Erik Schaepers Photo by Edi Portmann

On “Historic Necessity”

“My invention of twelve-tone music will guarantee the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years,” said Arnold Schoenberg after developing his concept of what is now commonly known as atonal music. The claim itself represents an intellectual misconception, which may, for the sake of brevity, be referred to as “The Idea of Historic Necessity.”

Schoenberg was convinced that the age of tonal music was over and that the advent of twelve-tone music was a necessity in music history. In his book The Open Society and its Enemies, Sir Karl Popper explains how the concept of “historic necessity” came into being, and why it is one of the main enemies of an open society. Popper reminds us that it was the 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Hegel, who first claimed that history could be treated like a science. Hegel boasted of having discovered “the iron laws of history” and much to the delight of his employer, the archconservative Prussian king, he declared that everything that happened in history came out of “necessity.” Hegel’s philosophy not only justified the strict censorship and oppressiveness of the Prussian regime, it also helped to pave the way for the “closed” and totalitarian societies in Europe in the 20th century: Marx followed Hegel, predicting the “necessary” downfall of capitalism; Hitler asserted that “historic necessity” would make him overthrow Stalin, also a product of that same necessity; and “historic necessity” justified the building of the Berlin Wall.

In 1989, Erich Honecker celebrated East Germany’s 40th anniversary, declaring that “the antifascist protection wall will be here in a hundred years.” This prophecy, and its utter failure, puts Honecker and all of the aforementioned in the same league as Arnold Schoenberg. This should come as no surprise when we understand that they all share a common Hegelian heritage: the exploitation of “historic necessity.” Sir Karl Popper identifies the basic flaw in Hegel’s system. “History is not a science, and predicting history is logically impossible. It may be, to a certain degree, possible to understand what happened in the past. But things that will be developed and discovered tomorrow can only be known tomorrow. Not today.”

So simple and self-evident, it is almost embarrassing that we needed a major philosopher to formulate it. And if it is true for the history of society, how can it be untrue when applied to music? And yet, many music scholars and composers still endorse a predominantly Hegelian perspective. This perspective hinders the natural development of composition students.

Composers who announce to their audiences before a concert that “…we are not pursuing the writing of themes any more,” because “…we are now at a point in history where the finding of pitch has become irrelevant” reflect Hegel at his purest. One can only hope that Sir Karl Popper’s book will become mandatory reading one day.

Maybe we should readdress ourselves to the actual meaning of “music history.” Music history, without the capital H, is simply a result of selections that audiences have made after listening to works of music. Those works which have survived because of their inner beauty and originality were created by individuals, who composed music on their own terms, independent of historic prophecies and unencumbered by “historic necessity.”

In The Open Society and its Enemies, Sir Karl Popper writes “…we have to be able to live with the uncertainty of not exactly knowing where we are in history and where exactly we are going…since it is the only attitude that will keep us from following false prophets into large-scale experiments, most of which end up in disaster.”

We have seen a century of disasters in Europe, nearly all of which were intellectually encouraged by Hegelian concepts. In the field of music, harmless though it may seem by comparison, Schoenberg’s experiment has turned into a disaster of its own kind. The composer as a respected and relevant artist is no longer existent in central Europe, and German music has almost completely disappeared from the international scene.

I was born and raised in Europe, and I have decided to leave the Hegelians to their own matters and make a fresh start in New York. As far as I can see, America was built on the idea that its citizens shape their own, and hence their nation’s, destiny. There has never been room for mysterious historic forces that make decisions of their own, ultimately reducing citizens to subjects. I believe that we, as composers, are the ones who are responsible for what becomes of music in the future. No one else!

Donald Erb Photo by Janet Century, courtesy the Theodore Presser Company

No one could have had a more complete exposure to serialism than I did as a student of Marcel Dick. Marcel was a student of Schoenberg who played viola in the Kolisch Quartet, and often performed the music of Schoenberg and Webern as part of the musical scene in Vienna. Marcel was an amazing source of musical knowledge, but I balked at the dictatorial quality of serialism.

For me, a statement I made back in 1969 still holds:

“…composing is basically an intuitive process. A composer should be able to use what he knows about music in an instinctive manner rather than relying on systems.”

Although serial music was thought of by Marcel and other Central European composers as the logical music to follow the Romantics, as the music became more and more cerebral it resulted in a disconnectedness from the audience and the performers. Other, more accessible styles of writing made advances with the public. Serialism will always be of historical interest and there will always be performances of Pierrot Lunaire, but the movement as a whole has long been dead.

Dan Welcher Photo courtesy the Theodore Presser Company

Like most US-trained composers my age, I was “forced” to learn serialism in graduate school. And, like most of my colleagues, I was also told that this was the only way to be taken seriously as a composer (this was in the early seventies). But unlike many of my friends, I didn’t totally abandon the technique when I finally found the nerve to reclaim tonality, some time during the early 1980s. In fact, I merely allowed my compositional technique to admit tonality as another tool, one that could be used both alongside or in place of serialism.

For me, serialism is a very useful tool; it’s just not the only tool. I use the technique to organize materials when it suits the work being composed, but not usually for the entire piece. Just yesterday, I was present at a recording session of my new work for wind ensemble, Songs Without Words, by the excellent North Texas Wind Symphony. When the first movement, “Manic,” was in the can, I asked the dozen-or-so young band conductors in the control room if any of them had realized that this entire movement was a strict twelve-tone piece, following all the rules. Not one of them had, despite the rather obvious (to me) statement, re-statement, and block triadic statement of the row in its original form throughout this very brief movement. “It can’t be serial,” one of them had the nerve to say, “it has such normal phrasing!”

No one ever said that serial, or twelve-tone music, had to be devoid of all the elements we come to prize in music: implied harmonic underpinnings are not foreign to the technique at all, and bass lines can define a sort of tonality that flies in the face of the “every note for himself” school of composition. Dallapiccola showed me how this can actually create a harmonic language that heightened expressivity, by releasing new and unexpected chords into the air, or by helping to “spin” the inner mechanical underpinnings of a theme. Stravinsky found ways of serializing his already very sparse note-choosing to make it even more compact, and I absorbed this, too. And Britten, dismissed in the seventies as hopelessly reactionary, proved in his Turn of the Screw that twelve-tone organizational principals could even apply to the key relationships of various scenes (there are twelve) in a two-hour-long opera.

Far from being a hindrance, or an outmoded strait jacket, serialism is a very useful and still valid tool for composers. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if hip-hop discovered it soon!