Consorting

Newsletter of the Consortium of Vermont Composers

This edition of Consorting is sponsored by

WGDR-FM 91.1

in Central Vermont

Consorting

July 1995

• Director's Column
• Elo & Nielsen on Composing
• Kalvos & Damian Debut New Music Radio
• Festival 95 Getting Firm
• Latest Info on Nielsen, McCormick, Hecker, etc.
• Opportunities
• News & Notes

by Gilles Yves Bonneau

Work is continuing toward the 1995 Festival. Look for our coordinator Ken Langer’s report on progress so far on page two in Consorting.

On 10 July, a meeting was held at the Vermont Public Radio studio in Colchester, between the new programming director for VPR, Mike Crane, and me. Our goal was to explore avenues of mutual interest and possible interaction for mutual benefit. Several areas of common concern were discussed, to be taken up again after VPR’s new facility is set up and in operation.

Several attempts to arrange meetings with appropriate personnel at the Vermont Community Foundation and WCFR (FM station in Plattsburgh, New York) have been unsuccessful to date. However, never fear! Dennis Bathory-Kitsz and David Gunn are already off the ground with their excellent radio program at Goddard (see page six in Consorting). Thanks and congrats, guys!

Michael Arnowitt has agreed to look at a number of piano scores from our membership, with possibilities for performance during the Festival. Thanks very much, Michael!

A temporary (until November or December) "secretary" (formerly "list-keeper") is still pending, and efforts to stabilize that position continue. We very much need someone for that task.

With everyone’s cooperation and a little work from each member, we will meet the current challenge. We need help with the Festival, with encouraging new membership, with day-to-day tasks, and with our budget. It’s really that simple. Let’s all roll up our sleeves now and bend to the task. Our community’s vitality depends on it!

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Treasury Report

There is no report for this issue. Report for May through August will appear in the next issue.

Listkeeper Note

Editor Request

The next deadline for Consorting is September 5. Please send material to: Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, 176 Cox Brook Road, Northfield, Vermont 05663, call or fax 802-485-3972, voicemail 802-485-1210, or email to

Note from Bea

Live Composing at Festival

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1995 Festival:

The Coordinator Speaks

by Ken Langer

I am writing this note to all of you to let you know about some of our ideas for the upcoming festival, and how you can help and participate. At this point in the process, we are planning on having at least five events and a full meeting of all members within the two days of the festival. It’s November 3 and 4, in case you haven’t put it in your calendar yet. Here is a listing of events and ways to participate.

• Event: One concert will be dedicated to electronic works and works that incorporate electronics such as tape and instruments. [Probably Friday, November 3.]
• Ways to participate:
  • If you have an electronic work (of any style), send me or Bill Harris complete information about yourself and the work. You may send me the tape then, or bring it with you to the concert.
  • Come to the concert and hear a fascinating variety of electronic and combined music.
• Another concert will be dedicated to the art of improvisation. Bill Harris has agreed to direct this event. [Probably Saturday morning, November 4.]
• Ways to participate:
  • Agree to become part of the event by bringing an instrument on which to improvise. Let me know if you want to participate and what instrument you plan to play.
  • Come to the concert and hear compositions being created "on the spot".
• Event: I would like to sponsor a composers’ forum. In this event, composers will bring tapes of recent performances of their works. Other composers and audience members will hear the recording and then ask the composer questions about the music and the process of composition. This will be very informal and will give composers a chance to actually learn from each other. [Probably Saturday afternoon.]
• Ways to participate:
  • Sign up to become a part of the event by telling me about yourself and the piece you would like to provide for discussion.
  • Come and be a part of the discussion.
  • Just come and listen.
• Event: A coffeehouse! Bring your guitar and sing out or use the provided piano. This will probably be in an informal setting with coffee and dessert. [Friday evening.]
• Ways to participate:
  • Sign up to participate. Tell me about yourself and what instruments you will be using. I’ll provide time slots depending on how many people sign up.
  • Come enjoy yourself.
• Event: Final concert. This will be the final program and will feature performances of new works. [Saturday evening.]
• Ways to participate:
  • Sign up. As you already know, we do not have a variety of performers available in the area nor do we have money to pay performers. If you have performers who will perform your piece, then send me all the information.
  • Come to the concert and support those who are having works performed.
• Event: Full members’ meeting. Since we did not have a big turnout at the annual meeting, it was decided to have a meeting during the Festival. There are many important things to discuss and there may be concerns you may have that need to be discussed. This is your chance to participate in the group while we are all together.

These are just some ideas we have so far. If you have some other ideas, I’d like to hear them. You may contact me in any of the following ways. Please leave messages as I am not always around (especially in the summer).

Mail: Ken Langer, P.O. Box 319, Lyndon Center, Vermont 05850.
Home phone: 802-626-3040
Work address: Music Department, Lyndon State College, Lyndonville, Vermont 05851.
Work phone: 802-626-9371, extension 235
Email:

The rest is up to you

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WriteFaxEmail!

On Writing in 1995:

A Forum

by Arpad Elo

In Consorting VI:5, you raised the question, "Why would a composer working in the 20th century adopt the forms and techniques of an earlier century?" For me, the answer is simple and straightforward: music that doesn’t get played is of no use to anyone.

I don’t think I have ever written a piece of music without having a particular group of performers in mind and trying to adapt the music to their abilities and preferences. I don’t consider this artistic prostitution. In most fields of human endeavor, one must work within constraints of some sort. Indeed, I find little art in creation without constraint. It seems to me that the essence of art is to find expression within predetermined bounds. The history of music which lives in the works of earlier composers clearly demonstrates that artistic expression can be realized in a variety of ways, under a variety of constraints.

The constraints may be self-imposed, as with Schoenberg and his disciples, or externally imposed, as with Messaien’s work while in prison. Most of the musicians with whom I have regular social or musical intercourse are amateurs, either chamber music players or members of a community band. Among the chamber music players there are those who play Boismortier and aspire to Mozart, those who play Mozart and aspire to Brahms, and those who play Brahms and aspire to Bartok. The bandsmen feel at home with Sousa, King, and von Suppe. As long as I don’t stray too far from familiar ground, all of them are happy to play my music. I’m happy to oblige. If you can’t convince the players, you’ll never have the opportunity to convince an audience.

Of course, I could find some more erudite arguments. For example:

• I spent too many years working in a noisy factory to regard a wall of static sound or a pseudorandom concatenation of beeps and burps as music. If my vision of art as problem-solving within constraints is valid, good music must have both an intellectual appeal and an emotional one. The time-honored devices of thematic development and recurrence are still good sources of intellectual appeal. Using them need not detract from the emotional appeal.
• The ubiquity of the tonic-dominant relationship and the circle of fifths in traditional western music has a physical basis in the series of harmonics produced by vibrating strings and air columns. I have experimented with constructing a 12-tone row and then deleting two notes, the first selected arbitrarily and the second lying a fifth above the first. When I play the remainder of the row, the omitted notes often become the implied tonic and dominant.
• That the ear can accept tempered tuning suggests to me that there is a limit to the effectiveness of microtonality. There is no reason why the octave must be divided into 12 intervals, but while Easley Blackwood’s experiments with alternative divisions of the octave produced some very listenable results, I’m not at all sure that they contributed anything significant to musical expression. Notwithstanding the availability of electronic instruments with wider capabilities, the 12-fold division of the octave is embedded in the construction of too many musical instruments to be ignored.
• In contrast with the painter or sculptor, the composer shares with the dramatist the need for an intermediary to convey his or her product to the audience. The performance takes place in real time. Although it is possible to replace a human performer with an electronic device, and thus to offer the listener sound patterns of arbitrary complexity, any complexity beyond that which the human brain can analyze in real time will frustrate both the performer and the listener, and by extension, the composer as well.Of course, none of this has bought me worldwide fame, nor do I expect it to do so a century after my death. But the satisfaction in the present of having my music performed and enjoyed by friends and acquaintances has been considerable.

by Erik Nielsen

In response to the question as to how a piece like Jim Grant’s Piano Concerto, with its tonal and Romantic associations, could be written in 1995, my simplest answer is this: one sits down and writes it! A work like Jim’s could not have been written without conviction and belief in the musical structures employed simply because of its size. One can get away with faking in a ten-minute work. It’s much harder in a forty-minute piece, and Jim wasn’t faking.

In one way, of course, that answer simply reinforces the implied deeper question: how can one believe in overtly tonal, Romantic music in 1995? I can only answer that question for myself and say that the more I write, the more inclusive I am trying to be. I have heard, performed, and loved many types of music in my life, and they are all part of my background. Since the music I write, if I am true to myself, reflects my background as well as my moving forward, I am including tonal and non-tonal elements together in my pieces much of the time now. I see and hear no contradiction in this, and in fact, find it quite exciting and liberating.

Unlike years ago when I felt it necessary to exclude a large number of possibilities and limit myself according to what I then perceived as the "correct" path, I now feel free to use a much wider range of tonal options in my work and feel it is much more integrated and organic music, more "me", if you will.

Of course, many other composers are following similar paths these days, and I see it as a healthy phenomenon, as long as one remains true to one’s self in the process. It is quite common to find different musical languages employed by the same composer, sometimes in the same piece. In fact, an irony of this century’s music is that Arnold Schoenberg -- who influenced so many later composers with his exclusionary pronouncements about what was and what was not an acceptable set of musical means -- composed tonal works alongside late dodecaphonic pieces, right up to the end of his life.

The implication of the question seems to be that there is a way of approach to writing music that is anachronistic or no longer valid aesthetically. If a composer is moved to write using a set of parameters and gestures which have meaning for him or her, I think one music try to listen to the piece within its own language and judge it, if one must judge, according to what is fresh and true within those parameters.

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News from Zeke

by Zeke Hecker himself

Two performances of Zeke Hecker’s Three Waltzes for Woodwind Quintet were given on the weekend of May 13-14, one in Dover and the other in Rockingham. The Guilford Quintet (its personnel slightly unpredictable) played them, as they had in the premiere last summer. These are transcriptions of three of the piano waltzes used for the ballet Degas, staged last year in Brattleboro.

My woodwind trio (the one heard at the Composers Festival in Montpelier a couple of years ago) is scheduled for performance next fall in Connecticut, on a program which will also include movements from Gwyneth Walker’s Braintree Quintet.

Some of my songs and piano pieces are slated for a possible August recital in Brattleboro by soprano Kristine Hurst and friends (I’m one of them) of music by English and American composers.

Speaking of Gwyneth, I recently participated in a very successful performance of her orchestral work, The Light of Three Mornings with the Pioneer Valley Symphony under Paul Phillips. The audience of about a thousand schoolchildren from Franklin County (Massachusetts) understood exactly what it was all about, and when the score called for the musicians to slap rhythms on their thighs in one of Gwyneth’s typically playful gestures, the whole house spontaneously (and accurately) joined in.

I’ve been commissioned to write a profile of Bill Mayer (see last issue for word of his latest laurels) for the Newsletter of the Institute for Studies in American Music. The burden will certainly weigh heavily; it means I’ll have to spend a lot of time in his company, enjoy his hospitality, and listen to all the splendid recordings of his music that he's showering on me.

This summer I intend to grind away on the musical comedy the Friends of Music at Guilford expects me to stage in 1997, to lament my 50th birthday.

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Critser List

News of Lisa

Recipient of the 1994 Vermont Council on the Arts Fellowship Award for Music, Lisa is gaining increasing notoriety for her alternative rock/folk songwriting and performance. Characterized by daring and sophisticated lyrics, infectious acoustic guitar rhythms, and a powerful singing voice, Lisa’s material has appeared on National Public Radio’s Car Talk, Vermont Public Radio’s Dick McCormack’s Veranda, CNBC’s America’s Talking TV network, as well as the nationally distributed Fast Folk Musical Magazine.

Boston’s New England Performer magazine describes Lisa as "...an absolute genius. She is funny, sexy, smart, literate, sardonic, witty, and she sings with all the power of a rock diva." In addition to her own performances, McCormick has been invited to open the show for numerous national artists, including The Story, Aimee Mann, Jonathan Edwards, and Ani DiFranco.

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Erik Nielsen

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Kalvos & Damian Debut

by Kalvos or Damian

Yo, it’s true! The first radio show featuring the music of Vermont composers is on the air! With the eminently recallable title of Kalvos & Damian’s New Music Sesquihour, the show spends 90 minutes exploring contemporary music and new ways of listening -- all with Kalvos and Damian’s irreverent banter, and lots of Vermont music.

Guests on the show so far have been David Gunn (‘Kalvos’or ‘Damian’) and Dennis Bathory-Kitsz (‘Damian’ or ‘Kalvos’), Thomas L. Read, Gilles Yves Bonneau, Peggy Madden, Erik Nielsen and Gwyneth Walker. Upcoming through September 9th are Don Stewart, Glenn Sproul, Bea Phillips, Dennis Murphy, Don Jamison, Bill Harris, Batya Weinbaum, and Orra Maussade.

Heard so far on the show have been all or part of David’s Khartoumaraca, Mesopotamian March & Mango, Armies of Mice, In a Gadda da Babylon, Running Lights, Wagadoo, Double Whammy and Czerny’s Etude No. 39 for Upper Elementary Grade Volume One; Dennis’s Specimen, i cried in the sun aïda, Lithuanian Liniment March, The Moon, A Time Machine, Car Horn Symphony No. 2, Fisshey, Teething Rings, Falling Into the Sun Again, and Plasm over ocean; David Moss’s After That Tempest; Larry Read’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, Corrente, Rondo Fantasy, Adventura, and Light After Light; Gilles Yves Bonneau’s Frülingschrei!, Etude Inconclusive, Chanson d’Autômne, Sonata for Bassoon and Piano, and Trio Sonata for Clarinet, Viola and Piano; Peggy Madden’s The Eye of the Storm, The Hook, Metal Wing/Sculptured Dream, and two untitled pieces; Jim Grant’s Deux Gens...? Dijon? and Sonata for Clarinet & Piano; Orra Maussade’s Murkee’s Lament; Robert Starner’s At the Rabbi’s in Palestina; Marylin Seits’s Vibrations; Erik Nielsen’s Ndakina, Dream Bridge, and Quintet for Piano and Strings; Gwyneth Walker’s A Splash of Cold Water, River Song, Braintree Quintet, Raise the Roof, White Horses, Open the Door, and Salem Reel.

Composers have brought consistently insightful and good-humored commentary to the show, and public reception has been enthusiastic -- two callers so far! Seriously, many people have been listening, and the show is a featured calendar event every week in the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus. Together with its weekly quiz, live mixes, and explorations of music in many guises, the show may be invited to continue into the fall season. Show titles so far have been: Not the Opera; Opening of Bass Season; Do It Yourself/Duet Yourself; A Festival of Johns; New Age/New Rage; Wild World Music; Newhine in Old Bottles/Oldwhine in New Bottles; and The Day of Tools. Who knows what’s next?

And, if you’d like to have something heard, there’s still time. Send along your cued tape (cassette or DAT), CD or LP to Kalvos & Damian at 176 Cox Brook Road, Northfield, Vermont 05663. The show is full now -- no room for more guests -- unless it gets extended past September 9th. If you’re interested in something this fall, be in touch. (Tapes of the show are also available.) Call 802-485-3972 for info.

WGDR is heard at 91.1 FM in central Vermont (within about 30 miles of Plainfield) and on some cable systems.

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consort.net

12th Folk Fest

SEAMUS CDs

Consorting

Board: Gilles Yves Bonneau, David Gunn, Bill Harris, Zeke Hecker, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, Maria Lattimore, Ed Lawrence, Erik Nielsen, Thomas L. Read, Gwyneth Walker, Batya Weinbaum.

Annual dues of $15 include a calendar-year subscription to Consorting. Send dues to Gilles Yves Bonneau, 104 South Cove Road, Burlington, Vermont 05401

Dues -- Orders -- Other Stuff

Hey, You Note-Slapping Rhythm Buskers, Listen Up. I have money. So here’s some of it:

Consortium of Vermont Composers Handmade Mug, $15 each.
Membership dues for calendar year 1995, $15.
Contributions above and beyond for the love of composers, your choice.

Please make mugs, dues and contributions checks payable to the Consortium of Vermont Composers.

Mail to: Don Stewart, P.O. Box 65, Tunbridge, Vermont 05077

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And don't miss The Best of the Sesquihour available in Real Audio files.

The Consortium of Vermont Composers can be reached for recordings, Midi and .wav files, CDs, etc.

Find the Consortium or send comments to:

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