West Coast Meets Hudson Valley

Mr Gann, I'm curious how you reconcile your insistence that there was a 12-tone orthodoxy in American compositions with Joseph N. Straus's research that serialists did not, in fact, have any position of power and were always outnumbered by conservatives or free atonalists.

KG replies: You've got to read Anthony Tommasini's deft skewering of Straus's thesis in the July 9, 2000, Times:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E0D91039F93AA35754C0A9669C8B63

His basic point is that Straus took 1970 as his self-serving cut-off point, when everyone who complains about this knows full well that the situation worsened *after* that point, not before it. I also published a George Rochberg comment about Straus here:

http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2005/10/from_one_of_the_horses_mouths.html

UPDATE: For a masterly and more detailed takedown of Straus, read this essay by composer John Halle:

http://www.johnhalle.com/musical.writing.general/strauss.pdf

Downtown/ uptown aside, what i found lacking in the article was any substance in terms of who and what is to be played. It was a
"preview" after all.
As for Razumovsky--silly! I shouldn't have responded to that; it trivializes Foster's contributions to my music.

Congrats on the write-up, but is your local beer up to snuff? The Bay Area has some great brewers!

KG replies: The spiegeltent where the festival is sells varieties of Magic Hat, a microbrew from Burlington, Vermont. It's quite good. We do have to keep the well-to-do NYC crowd happy up here.