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Kyle Gann on music after the fact

Partch as Transcendentalist

September 17, 2012 by Kyle Gann

Wednesday morning at 9:15, Sept. 19, in Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, I’m giving the keynote address for a Harry Partch conference hosted by NEC and Northeastern University where my incredibly brilliant former student Anthony DeRitis runs the music department. It’s scheduled (my keynote, that is) to run until 10:30, and I’m making it as long as possible to leave no room for questions, and then I’m DONE. All I have to do for the next three days is listen to microtonal performances and papers on aspects of Partch. My piece The Unnameable is scheduled to be performed Wednesday night, by someone besides me, thank God. I don’t even have to teach the rest of the week. Boy, my life can be a frickin’ bowl of cherries sometimes.

I do wonder what brand of cigar Harry’s smoking there. I’m halfway through a smooth Romeo y Julieta Lonsdale at the moment.

 

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Comments

  1. Henry Lowengard says

    September 20, 2012 at 10:13 am

    The cover of Enclosure #3 seems to indicate Partch was partial to White Owl, Havana Sweets, Robt. Burns, Middies, King Edwards, Certified Rempo, El Roi-Tan, and Gonzalez Sanchez.

  2. Bob Gilmore says

    September 21, 2012 at 2:14 pm

    Post your keynote, dammit! I wanna read it, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

    KG replies: I will, thanks, but I want to tweak and expand it a little first.

  3. mclaren says

    September 29, 2012 at 7:28 pm

    Gann can’t just post that keynote on the internet. The whole essence of the thing is doing it live, in the flesh. Corporeality!

    KG replies: Touché!

Kyle Gann

Just as Harry Partch called himself a "philosophic music man seduced into carpentry," I'm a composer seduced into musicology... Read More…

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