Twenty-five years ago this week my first Village Voice column appeared.
Unnoticed Milestone
December 3, 2011 by
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Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Twenty-five years ago this week my first Village Voice column appeared.
an ArtsJournal blog
It was also 25 years ago that we lost your excellent music criticism in the Chicago Reader. I still haven’t let go of that one.
KG replies: Thanks. Though in point of fact, I continued to write a little for the Reader for a couple of years after going to the Voice.
Point taken and I continued to read those columns, just had to whine a little bit. And I have continued to read your work since then as well. I whine because it is very difficult, in my experience, for the general public to obtain reliable information about new and interesting music. Prior to your work I read the likes of John Schaeffer’s book and one by John Rockwell which helped expand my horizons.
I wonder if you might recommend critics and/or books of more recent vintage which can help the interested amateur listener to find new and interesting music.
Thanks.
KG replies: Still waiting for the next Kyle Gann. Haven’t seen him or her yet.
As I suspected. Thanks.
The Village Voice is obviously influential in writing about more leftfield classical music, often when I explore minimalist composers paragraphs from that magazine are quoted.
I must sincerely thank you for your discography of significant minimalist compoers, there are many I had not heard off. One you mentioned, Elodie Lauten, I discovered had a double CD of her piano music re-released so I ordered it – which has now arrived. It is really good to explore this music that I missed first time round.
Not sure if I read the first one – but I enjoyed the hell out your columns through the years. Learned a lot about composers and ways of thinking and writing about music and how, though the word is overused nowadays, a sense of community about music and ideas can occur. Thanks.
those musta been *the* days. would love to have been around as a contemporary to read your stuff, Kyle. though, it is nice to have this blog as one’s fingertips as well!
“KG replies: Still waiting for the next Kyle Gann. Haven’t seen him or her yet.”
Perhaps if you had handed your column off, like Tom Johnson did for Gregory Sandow and Sandow for you, each after a few years, we would have encountered the writings of several successors to Kyle Gann.
KG replies: Well, true, had it been there to hand off. Part of the problem is there’s no established print-space to occupy. There was actually a year-or-two gap between Sandow and me, in which Linda Sanders wrote a few columns. And editor Doug Simmons came looking for me to fill the gap. Now he’s no longer at the Voice either.