Back to Modernism. Back to Futurism. Back to New York (1948–1975)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Schiff
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Close Association ◽  
New Music ◽  
Charles Ives ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
Music Scene ◽  
Spatial Composition ◽  
Three Phases ◽  
Cello Sonata

Carter’s mid-life oeuvre much of it composed in Europe, can be divided into three phases. From the Cello Sonata to the Variations for Orchestra he achieved a synthesis of European modernism, especially as found in the music of Schoenberg, Berg and Bartók, and American ultra-modernism; in all of these works Carter either quoted or alluded to compositions by Charles Ives. The works from the Second Quartet to the Concerto for Orchestra reflect his ambivalent connection with the European avant-garde. While he was particularly impressed with the spatial composition and expansion of percussion found in works of Boulez and Stockhausen, he rejected the algorithmic and aleatoric aspects of their music. After 1968 Carter returned to New York and became a central figure in the “uptown” new music scene. He formed a particularly close association with the new music group, Speculum Musicae.

Zorn, John (1953--)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Garlitz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
East Asian ◽  
New Music ◽  
Alto Saxophone ◽  
Independent Films ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Music Scene ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Artistic Career

John Zorn is an American avant-garde saxophonist and composer. Zorn performs on alto saxophone and is one of the leading figures in New York City’s "Downtown music" scene. Zorn has recorded on major record labels and releases music on his own independent experimental record label, Tzadik. His piano-less jazz quartet Masada, using instrumentation first made popular in 1959 by avant-garde jazz alto saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman, was considered one of the leading small bands in jazz in the 1990s and 2000s and has recorded dozens of his compositions on many volumes of album releases. Zorn has focused on East Asian influences in new music, especially traditional Japanese influences. These influences were evident in his work as early as the early 1980s. He has also spent time producing albums by contemporary Japanese noise or sound artists and has performed and recorded with them on those musical releases as well. He has devoted time in his artistic career to composing music for independent films and, more notably, has released many volumes of film-inspired musical works, mostly on his own record label.

Industry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Robin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
New Music ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Steve Reich ◽  
New Public ◽  
Bang On A Can ◽  
Lincoln Center

Amidst the heated fray of the Culture Wars emerged a scrappy festival in downtown New York City called Bang on a Can. Presenting eclectic, irreverent marathons of experimental music in crumbling venues on the Lower East Side, Bang on a Can sold out concerts for a genre that had been long considered box office poison. Through the 1980s and 1990s, three young, visionary composers—David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe—nurtured Bang on a Can into a multifaceted organization with a major record deal, a virtuoso in-house ensemble, and a seat at the table at Lincoln Center, and in the process changed the landscape of avant-garde music in the United States. Bang on a Can captured a new public for new music. But they did not do so alone. As the twentieth century came to a close, the world of American composition pivoted away from the insular academy and toward the broader marketplace. In the wake of the unexpected popularity of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, classical presenters looked to contemporary music for relevance and record labels scrambled to reap its potential profits, all while government funding was imperilled by the evangelical right. Other institutions faltered amidst the vagaries of late capitalism, but the renegade Bang on a Can survived—and thrived—in a tumultuous and idealistic moment that made new music what it is today.

An Interrogation of Language: “Radical Jewish Culture” on New York City's Downtown Music Scene

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
TAMAR BARZEL
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Wave Band ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Free Improvisation ◽  
Jewish Music ◽  
Music Scene ◽  
Lower Manhattan ◽  
Main Protagonist

AbstractIn April 1993 the Knitting Factory, a small nightclub in Lower Manhattan, hosted a five-day music festival titled “Radical New Jewish Culture.” This event was part of a multifaceted creative endeavor undertaken during the 1990s by composer/improvisers on New York City's downtown music scene and dubbed “Radical Jewish Culture” by its main protagonist, saxophonist John Zorn. RJC brought Jewish music and heritage into the purview of a polycultural experimentalist scene shaped by jazz, rock, free improvisation, and avant-garde concert music. Artists downtown also engaged in an animated “conversational community” that spilled over into interviews, program notes, liner notes, and essays. RJC was especially productive as a conceptual framework from which to interrogate the relationship between musical language and the semiotics of sound. Two pieces serve here as case studies: “¡Bnai!” an Israeli “pioneer song” as interpreted by the No Wave band G-d Is My Co-Pilot, and “The Mooche,” a Duke Ellington/Bubber Miley composition as interpreted by pianist Anthony Coleman's Selfhaters Orchestra.

Charles Olson and American Modernism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Byers
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Self ◽  
Instrumental Reason ◽  
Charles Olson ◽  
American Modernism ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
American Poet ◽  
Mark Rothko

The Practice of the Self situates the work of American poet Charles Olson (1910–70) at the centre of the early postwar American avant-garde. It shows Olson to have been one of the major advocates and theorists of American modernism in the late 1940s and early 1950s; a poet who responded fully and variously to the political, ethical, and aesthetic urgencies driving innovation across contemporary American art. Reading Olson’s work alongside that of contemporaries associated with the New York Schools of painting and music (as well as the exiled Frankfurt School), the book draws on Olson’s published and unpublished writings to establish an original account of early postwar American modernism. The development of Olson’s work is seen to illustrate two primary drivers of formal innovation in the period: the evolution of a new model of political action pivoting around the radical individual and, relatedly, a powerful new critique of instrumental reason and the Enlightenment tradition. Drawing on extensive archival research and featuring readings of a wide range of artists—including, prominently, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Wolfgang Paalen, and John Cage—The Practice of the Self offers a new reading of a major American poet and an original account of the emergence of postwar American modernism.

The Transformation of the Avant-Garde: The New York Art World, 1940-1985

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 221
Author(s):  
Rosanne Martorella ◽  
Diana Crane
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Art World ◽  
Avant Garde
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