It was just announced that the opening concert of next season for the League of Composers will feature Ben Johnston’s String Quartet No. 4:

On Sunday, February 28, 2010 (3 PM), the Chamber Players of the League perform at New York’s intimate Tenri Cultural Institute. The inimitable ensemble of New York freelancers present a program featuring Mark Berger’s 2009 League of Composers/ISCM prize-winning string trio alongside Samuel Barber’s Sonata for Cello & Piano (premiered by the League in 1933), Ben Johnston’s Amazing Grace, and Eric Moe’s Strange Exclaiming Music.

A video of the Nov. 3rd performance of Ben Johnston’s String Quartet No. 9 by the American Modern Ensemble in Brooklyn. Enjoy!

 

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Also check out the positive review of the performance from the New York Times here.

The American Modern Ensemble is performing Ben Johnston’s String Quartet No. 9 next Tuesday November 3, 2009, at the Galapagos Art Space at 16 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY. The piece is part of a program called m&ms (microtones & minimalism) which also features works by fellow composers Philip Glass, Ingram Marshall, Steve Reich and Spencer Topel.

Ben will be participating in an on-stage discussion with the composers following the performance. I will be there to help out and collect some documentation of the event–so look forward to some photos and videos next week. Or better yet, if you live in the New York area, come out and support new music!

American Modern Ensemble

Galapagos Art Space

This is an interview I conducted with Ben last year, in which he describes the background for “The Tavern.”

 

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The following is a recording of the world premiere of Ben Johnston’s The Tavern, for just-tuned guitar and voice [text by Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks] (1998-2008) (25:16) Performed by John Schneider (just-tuned guitar) and Paul Berkolds (baritone). This was recorded March 5, 2009 at the 14th Other Minds festival in San Francisco. Thanks to all involved for making this premiere a great success!

 

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Read and hear more from this year’s Other Minds festival

Check out the Other Minds website

Read more about John Schneider

The world’s coming a part at the seems

to me it’s in the DarkteenAging process pool.

HELP

But how—-now? Sinkholes, swimmingpools

orbitsofboth?       (take as needed)

The world’s becoming crowds and dropouts and needs

(rise to them?)

Help?

The more difficult the obstacle, and the more interior its hold , the greater the value of struggling out of its dominance.  This is a principle I try to live by, and it is a powerfully humble basis for creating art  Any insincerity is painfully evident as is excess of pride in “who I am” and “what I can do”:  ego-driven pride about one’s work or oneself has a false effect. But there is a pride in overcoming obstacles which is innocent of this lie.

In every-day living I am trying to be genuinely useful  both in my personal relations and in any work I do. And I find that the same kind of sincerity is needed to discover the genuine depth-meaning of any musical interpretation, whether of my own composing or that of other  composers.

The single thing I value most in my life is a kind of serving. I pray I never lose this.

How is it that this orchestra piece, Quintet for Groups, composed in the 1960’s, should in 2008 seem relevant to the world as we experience it now? While in Germany for its rediscovery by the festival orchestra in Donaueshingen I talked to a number of people about this. My purpose in raising this issue now is not to seize the lead in this discussion. It is to ask, on a deep and personal level why this relevance should happen at this time.

There is, first of all, a parallel between the present conflict in the Near East and the phase the war in Vietnam had reached by the mid-’60’s. Both represent a push toward integration of very unlike cultures widely perceived as aggression and colonialism. I believe that both interpretations have had then and now a degree of accuracy, which accounts for the extreme degree of upset in world relations. Many people whose views are poles apart are having to face a depth of hostility so conflicting that it threatens chaos.  There is no escaping the complex interconnectedness even between sworn enemies.

To counter this downward spiral new conceptions of order and clarity of  relationships are of prime importance. This was the way I saw the world in the mid-’60’s and again, more than ever now. Order concepts of exactly this kind are what the microtonal just tuning of Quintet for Groups symbolizes. It is the way in which I have endeavored to clarify my own life and it is the fundamental concept in my way of organizing sounds in a piece of music.

Here it is, Ben Johnston’s Quintet for Groups, as it was played live at the 2008 Donaueschingen Festival.
Enjoy!

 

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I remember thinking, as I watched the rehearsing orchestra players and conductor react to the music and to each other, that a very positive atmosphere was growing among all the participants; and this clearly spread to the concert hall staff, as they assisted in helping us composers know how we should proceed when receiving the audience’s applause. We responded and tried to help each other as well . I thought this was the most favorable indicator of all. When performers (let alone participating composers!) really enjoy getting a concert ready to present, that in itself is a very great satisfaction, whatever the audience reaction may be. I made an interior decision to make the whole experience as positive for all the participants as I was able to help it to be. This had been my aim all along, but as it seemed more and more possible to achieve, I began to feel the excitement of the possibilities.

Very few times I needed to urge the conductor to make changes of interpretation. I felt it was important to make sure that aggressive gestures not be allowed to evoke images of pride or of dominance. I wanted the percussion group’s active role at the beginning to be more like weather than like a human group’s self assertion. These changes became basic themes in the performance.

After the performance of Quintet for Groups, momentarily stopping the audience’s enthusiastic applause a representative of the orchestra announced that my piece had been chosen as the best orchestra piece of the festival by the orchestra players themselves. The Orchestra Award involves taking the piece into the orchestra’s repertory, playing it in many concert venues and, finally, recording it. Even more rousing applause resumed as the audience reacted to this news.  I made an effort to include the other composers in the recognition to the extent possible and was gratified at the effectiveness of this in making of us a group of friends, not a group of rivals. Subsequent reactions in Berlin as well were most favorable and full of new possibilities about which more will follow in due time.

End of report.