UK Cover Picture
USA Cover Picture
References
- UK Title: American Originals: Interviews with 25 Contemporary Composers.
- USA Title: New Voices: American Composers Talk About Their Music.
- Author: Geoff Smith and Nicola Walker Smith.
- First Published in 1994 by Faber and Faber Limited, London, UK.
- Published in USA by Amadeus Press Inc. in 1995.
- © Geoff Smith and Nicola Walker Smith.
- ISBN: 0-571-17088-9 (UK Edition).
- ISBN: 0-931-34085-3 (USA Edition).
Contents
vi Acknowledgements.
vii Introduction.
003 John Adams.
017 Charles Amirkhanian.
033 Laurie Anderson.
041 Robert Ashley.
051 Glenn Branca.
059 Harold Budd.
071 John Cage.
085 Philip Corner.
093 George Crumb .
103 Paul Dresher.
113 James Fulkerson.
123 Philip Glass.
137 Lou Harrison.
147 Alison Knowles.
155 Daniel Lentz.
167 Alvin Lucier.
173 Ingram Marshall.
183 Meredith Monk.
195 Robert Moran.
205 Pauline Oliveros.
211 Steve Reich.
227 Terry Riley.
239 Michael Torke.
251 Christian Wolff.
261 La Monte Young.
273 Discography.Total Pages 280.
Notes
- A unique survey of the most exciting and original trends in the American new music scene, including interviews with John Cage, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Laurie Anderson.
With the late John Cage as the moving force, two British musicians have talked to the leading figures of the American experimentalist and minimalist movements. The interviews range freely across the boundaries of jazz, rock and art music to illuminate the distinctive contribution of twenty-five American composers to the contemporary field.
The composers are linked by their desire to rediscover the essentials of shared musical experience with little or no reference to European traditions. From Cage's belief that one should hear music as sound rather than language, through Alvin Lucier's refusal to complicate his music with 'composerly intent', to Terry Riley's reassertion of music's fundamentals or Lou Harrison's 'not being afraid to make something pretty', all seek to reaffirm the primacy of sound over metaphor.
- An interview with Geoff Smith and Nicola Walker Smith conducted in April 1995 by Dr. Brian Stewart, Sony Classical Marketing Communications. (Extracted from an interview found at Sony Classical).
How did your new book on minimalist composers, American Originals, come about?
GS: It was at Oxford; I got various prizes and I used the cash to come to America the first time with Nicola, in 1988, to talk to John Cage.
So that was the genesis of the book?
GS: Yes - my first composition tutor in England, who was an American, had worked with him a lot and gave me this phone number, and I rang him up from England - I was only 20. He of course was great and generous, and let us come by, and while we were there he gave us a few more phone numbers, so we called and spoke to six other composers. About six months later we got some more money from some other academic board and talked to about ten more people and we just kept doing that, going back to America, and eventually we collected about 35 interviews. We trimmed them down to something a bit more digestible, which was 25. The book comes out in March in the U.K., and I think August in the U.S.
First of all, why don't you tell us a little about what the book is, what's in it.
GS: The seeds of our book date back to 1989 when we were both students at university doing post-graduate theses on John Cage. We both got various academic prizes to raise the money to go to America for the first time to meet John Cage. We spent a couple of days talking to him, and the idea was that was it - see the sights and go home. But we talked to a few other composers whose music interested us and then went home. Six months later we went back again to talk to a few more people. And then we got to talking, we got the idea for this book, and we spent the next five years going back to find more people to talk to.
Why did you go to America to begin with, to talk to composers?
NWS: Well, mainly because we were interested in not so much the music but the aesthetics of John Cage. We found him a very liberating influence already, at that time.
GS: He seemed to offer a release from some of the ideas going around in European academic institutions. And once we found that first lead we just followed our noses and found more composers who were somehow essentially American and whose music was created without, or with very little, reference to Europe and the European tradition and European classical models.
NWS: Basically the book is a collection of 25 interviews with these American composers. It's published by Faber and Faber in the UK and Amadeus Press in America.
GS: Most of the interviewes would be labeled either minimalist or experimentalist. Those two movements I feel are American movements. They were born in America. Both movements for me were an attempt to return to some of the fundamental values in music, and that for me was a change from those values that were being encouraged in Europe. In America it seemed to be stripping the layers away to get back to basics like concerts, directness, and both those movements to me did that. That was what was refreshing. Just to be reminded of those basic communicative aspects of music. And also to be given the inspiration and courage to say "yeah, that's what I want to do" and to ignore Europe.
So the book was part of a search for an escape from European traditions?
GS: Yes, but that only became evident later.
NWS: We didn't start out that way. It just started out as a very deep interest in those ideas. But in the end it helped formulate very much our own musical identity.
GS: It turned out to be a kind of therapy. I really don't think we'd be doing what we're doing had we not gone through that experience. I mean, we spent afternoons with Terry Riley in his Moonshine Mansion, which were very important, inspiring experiences. They were very important in getting us to where we are. In giving us the courage to go back to what we really deeply want to say. Not to have to bother about interesting ideas. Not to bother even about ideas or trying to be interesting, which are the sort of values that Europe seemed to be after. Just to try and find what we wanted to say deeply and musically, and take away all decoration.
Had you been actively composing before that, or did you develop as a composer during this process?
GS: During the process, yes.
NWS: Well, you'd written music before but it was very restricted and constrained by all these European academic models which we've had rammed down our throats at university.
GS: Yes, I had composed university music but it wasn't music music.
NWS: What a couple of the composers in the book, like Lou Harrison and Harold Budd for instance, one of the things they said was their music was not being afraid to be pretty. To say something pretty. And we kind of just took that on board as well. Geoff's music isn't so much pretty but it's beautiful and it's expressive and it's emotional and a lot of its power comes from that.
GS: Yes, the refreshing thing about the Americans was that they were just fed up and had had enough talking. Talking about music and writing articles and prospectives about new music. The people that we were interested in seemed to be saying "just be quiet and try and find what you want to say directly". That was very important to us. A lesson.
Had you actually been afraid to do that before? You used the word courage.
GS: Not afraid. It's just very difficult sometimes to realize that you're in a tradition. When you don't see any alternatives. You think it's perfectly normal where you are, writing university music. Maybe you're not happy but you don't know why you're not happy because you can't see over the wall. The experience of going to see alternatives to the European approach helped us be ourselves.
NWS: Find ourselves, our own true nature.
GS: It's not that the American context is another context or an alternative context to the European one, the thing about America is that there are no ways to do it. I mean, all the composers in the book are worlds apart stylistically, from Branca to Robert Moran, miles away. Say the same for all twenty-five. But the point is that they're united in that they're all seeking to re-affirm the primacy of sound over metaphor. So it's not about ideas, its about sound. It's going back to sound and communication.
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