{"id":989,"date":"2005-01-30T12:04:51","date_gmt":"2005-01-30T20:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2005\/01\/downtown_transcendentalism\/"},"modified":"2005-01-30T12:04:51","modified_gmt":"2005-01-30T20:04:51","slug":"downtown_transcendentalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2005\/01\/downtown_transcendentalism.html","title":{"rendered":"DOWNTOWN TRANSCENDENTALISM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan — A few days ago Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> pointed
\nout that women seemed to represent about 50 percent of the downtown electronic music
\ncomposers. I wondered why there seem to be more women in that scene (if there are). I
\nspeculated that it might be because the downtowners have possibly rejected the concept of the artist-prophet<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> — a sort of patriarchal,
\ntranscendentally inspired artist who is either seen as a voice of the people, or a voice beyond the
\npeople.
\n

<\/P>
\n

Last night I went to a concert of John Zorn’s music<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> at
\nthe Miller Theater at Columbia University. It is a fairly large hall and it was full. I would guess
\nthat 500 people or so were in attendance, and most seemed to be fans. Before the concert there
\nwas an hour-long interview with the composer conducted by George
\nSteel<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>.<\/P>
\n

Zorn (left) repeatedly stressed that his music comes from some sort of higher power.
\nHe said that it would not have been possible for him to complete over 300 of his Masadic
\nmelodies during a very short time period without some sort of supernatural help. In the program,
\nhe writes that composition is at its best “when the piece is seemingly writing itself and the
\ncomposer is merely an observer. He says that some of his works, “transcend my expectations and
\nmy abilities. I cannot explain them. They are part of the Mystery.”<\/P>
\n

Well, so much for my speculation about downtowners not seeing themselves as
\nartist-prophets. And I might add that the NYC public seems to view Zorn as a sort of voice of the
\npeople — jazz, rock, pop, cartoons and all. John Cage was an artist-prophet who declared an end
\nto artist-prophets, but it seems that at least some downtowners, like Zorn, weren’t listening that
\nclosely.<\/P>
\n

The music at the concert was not very affecting for me (Bill Oborne,
\nright), but it was technically brilliant and stunningly performed by a group of about 20 well-known
\nperformers with whom Zorn has long worked. I had not heard his music before and was very
\nsurprised. I have lived abroad for 25 years and could only read about his music in journals or on
\nthe Web. I was expecting a sort of scontchy downtown free improv, but the works presented
\nwere extended, highly chromatic, rhythmically complex, precisely notated and formally structured
\nworks that sounded almost completely uptown — except that it was much better uptown music
\nthan what I heard when I lived in NYC in the late ’70s.<\/P>
\n

It is interesting that a “downtown” composer like Zorn, who never completed college, has
\nended up writing very virtuosic, complex and widely recognized uptown-sounding music, while so
\nmany hundreds of talented and extremely ambitious composers who went through advanced
\ndegrees at Columbia, Princeton, Juilliard, etc. have all vanished into relative oblivion.<\/P>
\n

Well-informed critics like Kyle Gann<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> still speak of a
\ndowntown and uptown music; but based on most of the concerts I have heard in NYC of late, the
\ntwo aesthetic encampments are no longer all that distinct from one another. There seems to be
\njust one broad, rather eclectic concept of music-making in the city.<\/P>
\n

Anyway, I am still wondering if it would turn out that fewer women composers than men are
\nlikely to claim they are transcendentally inspired. As women reach equality [see Where Are the Women?<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> — JH], will a matriarchy evolve that
\nfollows the general patterns of patriarchy? Who knows? A good example of a matriarchal
\ncomposer might be Pauline Oliveros<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>.<\/P>
\n

Hastily written thoughts for nothing…<\/P>
\n

— Bill<\/B><\/P>
\n

Postscript:<\/B><\/A> Kyle Gann, whose self-deprecation is one of his many charms as a
\ncritic, writes: “As you can imagine, Bill’s note sent me into reflexive paroxysms of
\nself-justification.” Here’s Kyle: Exaggerated Rumors of Downtown’s
\nCooptation<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jan — A few days ago Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner pointed out that women seemed to represent about 50 percent of the downtown electronic music composers. I wondered why there seem to be more women in that scene (if there are). I speculated that it might be because the downtowners have possibly rejected the concept of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-fX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}