Welcome to AMN Celebrates Braxton 75, a multipart series focused on the work of American composer and multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton. Braxton, who in 2020 will be celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday, is one of the most important and influential creative minds of the past fifty years. Each week this series will feature three to four links of live performances, interviews and articles found on the web that should be of interest to both the curious and the longtime explorers of Braxton’s music.
In 1988, when Anthony Braxton was teaching at Mills College, he wrote his “Introduction to Catalog of Works “ so that musicians and musicologists could better understand how to approach the study and performance of his music. This is well worth the read because it explains what Braxton considers fundamentally important to his music and to his creative esthetic.
A wonderful excerpt of the Anthony Braxton Falling River Quartet Live at Marta in 2010. This quartet is one of many different ensemble formations that Braxton has assembled to perform the largely abstract and mostly graphic scores of the Falling River series.
Here is a photo of a score from the Falling River series
Anthony Braxton interviewed by his old friend and bandmate Gerry Hemingway in 2013. The interview runs about an hour and was filmed just prior to their trio performance at the 2013 Willisau Festival with Taylor Ho Bynum. Braxton reflects on topics ranging from Cecil Taylor to education to opera to women in music and so much more.
An excerpt from the Wet Ink Ensemble Portrait Concert of Anthony Braxton in 2016.
Join us again next week for another post as AMN Celebrates Braxton 75
Chris De Chiara
Avant Music News 