Minimalist Music at the Disney Hall (dont sleep)
anthonypearson
2,442 Posts
the program is staggering. the tickets are in most cases only $10. Reich, Branca, Part, Monk Glass, Cage. this is going to be off the hinges.i was told by some high ups that this program is a one shot. these peices of music will most likely never be performed again in such a series. let's face it... this ain't bach and vavaldi. this is some obscure shit that does not exactly pack em' in. so get your ass down there for the performances. a good turnout will insure that things like this keep happening in major halls.$10 tickets. I bought a bunch to three different performances today.Branca: Symphony No. 13 for 100 electric guitars, Hallucination City...http://wdch.laphil.com/minimalism/
Comments
Why couldn't this have happened last year?
Haha - hi JP.
hey dude come down to LA. you can dig in atascadero on the way down. the program will be going on all week. major tee pee smoke stack at my studio before the branca. we can walk to the hall from our studio on west 2nd street. i can hardly contain myself. 100 guitars. talk about facemelt.
deal with it you sexist and homophobic backpackers.
if likes skip spence oar he's gonna love this stuff.
disney hall, next week batches.
be there or be a total butthole.
Or both.
ap
yea the disney hall is a little but of a buttcramp but the sound and scale is just right. im excited. lets do this!
reading the brief by john adams hasn't really helped the selection process. it did make me feel better that though i don't know about minimalist music, he doesn't seem to know about minimalist architecture...
calling the getty center minimal is like calling shell corporate headquarters minimal. boring is not minimal, office park not minimal... anyways.
i was planning on checking out the two $10 nights just to get the concert hall experience and architectural mind melt.
what else is not to be missed minimalist music action?
see Terry Riley.
here is my opinion...
Reich is one of my favorite dudes from the movement. He basically makes this altered states shit where he places a trance on you by using symmetry and repetition and restricted instrumentation.
In example a bunch of heads with marimbas repeating the same pattern until your face melts. Or the one that I am for sure going to is the four organs one. I have the record on nonsuch. It is kind of like a mad hip hop loop in an odd way.
The Branca thing is the one that everyone wants to go to. Basically it is a symphony for 100 electric guitars. Think about that for a minute. When have you ever heard 100 electric guitars at once! incredible.
I am going to Sunday afternoon and then Wed. and Thurs. nights.
A lot of good stuff I am going to miss though.
This Meredith Monk woman is really interesting.
I am thinking about having a few people over to my studio before the branca since my studio is down the street. Hit me up.
ap
yea... Terry Riley. A lunitic bald hippie with some facemelt action for sure.
i already chalked up to pay for the reich program sunday at 2pm. nosebleed for $35.
sounds like a nose bleeding, face melting, blood shitting good time
I don't know much about minimalist architecture either but the point of this music to me is that by listening to what superficially appears to be boring music (repetitive but subtly shifting) you can hear some really interesting things happen. Although sometimes the surface aspects of the music also sound great. You might say the same for tribal drumming or music from other genres...
ap
yeah, dude, pick me up on the way down. I'm 3 hrs south of humboldt.
I heard them talking about this on KCRW, I think I need to be pro-active on this shit. AP give me a call
I saw Steve Reich perform Music for 18 Musicians maybe 6 years ago at the SF opera house while there for a summer. It was gorgeous.
He performed a newer piece which was awful afterwards.
1/2 wasn't bad.
Tehilim is a beautiful composition. Perhaps all those L.A. Kabbalah celebrity phonies will turn out for it.
too bad Reich isn't doing the conducting/performing himself.
and for clarification Branca is usually considered a post minimalist...he certainly uses some of the same tactics in compostion (repitition, use of long tones). this is a good book to check if you're interested in the connection
collection of very well informed interviews with all of the big four (the la monte young/marian zazeela one is particularly fascinating) as well as folks like branca, meridith monk (even fucking john zorn), in addition to early experimentalists like cage.
dan90210 and i were there along with others. dick chaney on drums. those guitar playing folls brought the house down.