MINIMALIST Means at REDCAT

Source: LA’s REDCAT.

The concert MINIMALIST means charts an alternative path through minimalism and its legacy, reaching beyond pulse-based patterns of harmonic accretion in search of the beating heart of “stripped-down,” “essential” music.

This program will include the world premiere of a newly found work by John Cage, entitled all sides of the small stone for erik satie and (secretly given to Jim Tenney as a koan). The composition was recently discovered in James Tenney’s preparatory materials for Harmonium #5, a work written for and dedicated to John Cage in 1978. It was so “secretly given” that Tenney himself had not known that it existed. The Ensemble Conductor Mark Menzies will prepare the work for performance with the assistance of John Cage scholars.

The concert will feature a number of other significant minimalist works, anchored by the ever-rewarding compositions of James Tenney — who stood as one of the most influential figures in the CalArts music community, and also looks overseas to the work of pre-eminent composers Jo Kondo and Stephen Whittington, and close to home, with music made at, or through, CalArts by Harold Budd, Danny Clarke, Michael Jon Fink, Jordan Dykstra and Frederic Rzewski.

Program, in Order:

Michael Jon Fink: As is thought/Aurora (bass clarinet, vibes, harp)
Jo Kondo: Yokohama (bass flute, piano, 2 violins)
Stephen Whittington: Music for Airport Furniture (string quartet)
Jordan Dykstra: Fathom Peaks Unseen (string quartet, bass, crotales)
Frederic Rzewski: Chains (narrator, bass clarinet, trombone, violin, cello)
Danny Clarke: Synapse (piano, string trio, flute, clarinet)
Harold Budd: string quartet

INTERMISSION

interwoven through the following compositions: James Tenney: August Harp, a performance-tribute to Susan Allen
James Tenney: Harmonium 6 (fl, ob, cl, bass cl, trpt, trbn, string quartet)
James Tenney: Spectrum 5 (fl, ob, bass cl, bsn, vibes, harp, piano, viola)
John Cage: all sides of the small stone for erik satie and (secretly given to Jim Tenney as a koan) (1978, World Premiere)
James Tenney: (night) […for Harold Budd] (3 flutes, 4 trumpets, vibraphone, 3 basses)
James Tenney: Form 4 (In Memoriam Morton Feldman) (orchestra)