Academy d'Underrated: Robert Ashley

February is the shortest month, mercifully, and I'm going to leave all of John Luther Adams' music up on Postclassic Radio for a few more days at least as compensation. But I hereby proclaim Robert Ashley Composer-of-the-Months for not only March but April as well - on account of, I'm sick and tired of having classical musicians and even composers respond, "Who's Robert Ashley?" "I've never heard his music, what's it like?" And so if you've never heard his music you're going to hear it this month, and if you have, you may revel in it to your heart's content. I'm starting with his operas Perfect Lives and Improvement: Don Leaves Linda in their entireties, the longest complete works I've posted to the station. I'll add other pieces as the months proceed. Ashley is the greatest and most innovative opera composer of the late 20th century, yet his work is so unconventional in genre and medium that the classical establishment has hardly bothered to become aware of it. In fact, for me there are four composers whose innovations could provide enough of a working foundation for a new musical language to supply my generation and another one or two afterward: Conlon Nancarrow for rhythm; La Monte Young (or alternatively, Ben Johnston) for pitch; Morton Feldman for texture and continuity; and Ashley for the relation of text to structure and music. In the work of those composers we have a new American musical revolution, for those who want to take advantage of it. It's no exaggeration to say that my creative life has been a halting attempt to integrate what I inherited from the four of them.

Sorry, however, that I've been blogging about so little else besides the radio station. Paradoxically, I have too much time. Having stepped down as department chair, I now have time to pursue other projects, and so I've been composing, as well as writing loads of articles for print media, which leaves me little left to say. Blogging is a great spare-moment activity, and now I suddenly have too many spare hours to cut them up piecemeal.

February 28, 2005 11:02 PM |

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Sites To See

Postclassic Radio! - Kyle Gann's internet radio station that accompanies the blog; see the playlist at kylegann.com

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page - great Downtown composer

Just Intonation Network - a meeting place for people interested in alternative tunings

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by PostClassic published on February 28, 2005 11:02 PM.

Just Posted was the previous entry in this blog.

Kittens on the Basketball Court is the next entry in this blog.

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