Phill Niblock

“Four Arthurs” superimposed with “Two Octaves and a Fifth” (1979)

Performed as part of “New Music, New York”

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New Music, New York

A Festival of Composers and their Music

June 8-16 1979

The Kitchen Center

484 Broome Street

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NEW MUSIC, NEW YORK, A Festival of Composers and their Music, will take place June 8–16. In nine concerts presented at The Kitchen Center, works by 54 composers will be performed by the composers and assisting artists. The festival focuses on new music by American composers, with participants coming from the East Coast, the West Coast, and the South as well as from New York; several composers from England will present work as well.

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The opening night of New Music, New York, Friday June 8th, will feature performances by Robert Ashley, Robert Fripp, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros and the Steve Reich Ensemble. Two concerts will be presented, at 6:00 and 9:30pm, with the proceeds benefiting The Kitchen Center’s Contemporary Music Series.

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The festival continues with concerts on each of the next eight nights, June 9th-16th. Each evening’s program will present works by six composers grouped for their shared musical concerns. One night will feature electro-acoustic music, another will present composers emerging from modern jazz traditions, and so forth. Works and live performances by the following composers will be included: [redacted: see full press release for details]

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The festival grew from The Kitchen Center’s Contemporary Music Series, which each season presents experimental and vanguard work and which has helped draw an increasingly large number of listeners to this grass roots movement. In addition to producing concerts utilizing more traditional means such as chamber ensembles and synthesizers, the program features composers who push the definitions of their chosen fields to the limits: music using microprocessing and video equipment as musical media, music tailored to specific architectural spaces, music crossing over from jazz, new wave rock or psycho-acoustic research. The composers presented in the Festival are representative of those composers who are constantly challenging the definitions and assumptions of the contemporary music establishment.

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NEW MUSIC, NEW YORK will provide a comprehensive review of current developments in new music. Two other events with substantial impact on the new music movement will coincide with the Festival: an Institute of the Music Critics Association at which critics from all over the country will study and discuss substantive issues of post=Cageian music, and a national conference of the Directors of New Music Centers, who will meet to improve their communications and to discuss future plans relative to the contemporary composer and the organizations which provide a support structure. NEW MUSIC, NEW YORK is important not only as a celebration of these 54 composers and their compositions but also as the focal point of the effort to organize a better support system for composers and a distribution system to make this work better known.