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.
We begin this week with the Ensemble Dal Niente performing some of Anthony Braxton’s works inspired by Native American musics. The “Ghost Trance Music” – Composition Nos. 193 + 228.
Here is a 2014 interview that was part of WKCR’s coverage of the 2014 TriCentric Festival, centered around the premiere of Braxton’s opera, Trillium J. Braxton dives deep in describing the work. He also explains some of the background on his development of the Ghost Trance Musics. We also occasionally hear from collaborator and TriCentric Executive Director Kyoko Kitamura.
Anthony Braxton in the recording studio with Brandon Evans recording Evans’s composition “Elliptical Axis 15”, at Wesleyan University in 2000. They both perform on a wide array of wind instruments and I believe the entire recording session was videotaped and can be seen on YouTube.
If you have not already read “Forces in Motion” then perhaps this wonderful article by Hank Shteamer will convince you to do so! Anthony Braxton’s Big Ideas: Why ‘Forces in Motion’ Is an Essential American Music Book .
Join us again next week for another post as AMN Celebrates Braxton 75
Chris De Chiara
Avant Music News 