I’ve been waiting for months for some kind of announcement, and I’ve seen nothing public about this at all. But through the grapevine I’ve long known that the Foundation for Contemporary Arts granted this year’s Robert Rauschenberg Award to Elodie Lauten and the John Cage Award to Phill Niblock. Both carry pretty large cash components. Week after week I watch a myriad groove-made, even-measured, monotonous, non-rhythmed, indoor-smelling, priest-taught, academic, post-adolescent, conservatory-trained hacks win every golden prize in the classical-music world’s milquetoast pantheon, and finally, two incredible, vastly underrated, true breathing genius composers win two well-named prizes worthy of them, and there seems to be no stir about it whatever. But I can’t think of anyone more deserving.
What’s Going On Here
This is a blog mostly about composed music of the last few decades, with a focus on that coming from the “Downtown,” minimalist, and post-Cage directions….
Kyle Gann
I’m a composer (since I was 13), a music critic (since I was 27), a musicologist (since I was 32), and a music professor (since I was 39)….
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More than you ever wanted to know about me at www.kylegann.com