Presentations

Presentations & Reflections on the Music of Cage, Cowell and Harrison
Four presentations. All free and open to the public!

Schedule

Saturday, March 28

Event Time: 1:00 pm

• The Art of Noise: John Cage, Lou Harrison, and the West Coast Percussion Ensemble

  Presented by: Dr. Leta Miller, musicologist; Professor of Music, University of California, Santa Cruz
  

  Lou Harrison and John Cage were at the forefront of the development of the percussion ensemble in the 1930s and 1940s. They not only wrote numerous percussion works that remain staples of the literature today, but they also found or invented new instruments and new forms of musical organization. Harrison did most of this work in the San Francisco area. Cage’s most important discoveries were made during his two years teaching at the Cornish School in Seattle (1938–1940). Both men were profoundly influenced by Henry Cowell, who encouraged their exploration of new instrumental resources and opened their ears to sounds of non-Western musics.

  Cage’s groundbreaking work in percussion extended to his first use of electronic sounds. In one of his Seattle works, two players operate turntables, creating electronic sliding tones by changing the record speed. His development of the famous “prepared piano” was his response to a need for percussion sounds in a Seattle theater that was too small for his ensemble and instruments. The work of both Cage and Harrison was intimately linked to modern dance; many of their pieces were written to accompany dancers at Mills College and the Cornish School.

  This talk will trace the development of the percussion ensemble through the work of Harrison and Cage in the 1930s, with special emphasis on the Cornish School connection and on works to be performed on the present festival, such as Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No. 2 and their jointly-composed Double Music. The talk will be illustrated with slides showing people, instruments, and (rare) programs, and will also include illustrative recorded examples.

• Three Excellent Ideas: A Composer‘s View of Cowell, Harrison and Cage

  Presented by:
  

  • Larry Polansky, composer
  • Jacob H. Strauss Professor in Music, Dartmouth College

  This lecture discusses three compositional ideas described by two of the festival’s featured composers, as well as the development of those same ideas by other composers. A composer myself, I intend this presentation as public “shop talk.” I hope to make the kinds of things that we composers talk about and are interested in (even, sometimes, obsessed with) more transparent.

  By way of introduction, I call attention to the compositional ideas outlined by Cage in his two writings: “In Defense of Satie” and “Lecture on Nothing.” In these two essays—the latter an extraordinary recursive synthesis of theory, art, prose, and performance—Cage elucidated his composition through three terms: structure, method, material. Cage’s emphasis on method, I believe, has a lot to do with an important way we might approach the music of both Cowell and Harrison.

  Next, I will talk about three musical ideas, two from Cowell and one from Harrison, and give examples of how these ideas have been explored by other composers. The first idea, that of tempo melody, was described in Cowell’s New Musical Resources (1930). Composer Johanna Beyer adopted this idea in her two clarinet suites (1931) to startling effect.

  The second idea of Cowell’s, melodic dissonant counterpoint, is closely associated with the Seegers, but is also explained in New Musical Resources. I will discuss its use by the composer James Tenney in much of his work from about 1980 on. Tenney developed an ingenious and elegant computer algorithm that demonstrates that this simple American modernist melodic definition of atonality can have wide-reaching and powerful implications for a great deal of contemporary music. The idea of melodic dissonant counterpoint, through the lens of Tenney’s simple mathematics, might provide an interesting direction for exploration by younger composers today.

  The third idea, free-style intonation, emanates from Lou Harrison. He used the term to refer to the expansion of the notion of “scale” in extended just intonation to include relative tunings (not just absolute ones). In this way a richer and more complex universe of tuning possibilities becomes available. Harrison’s (few) experiments with free-style intonation (I know of only three) have important ramifications for computer music. I will give an example of the way this idea has influenced my own work, in particular, the piece B’rey’sheet for voice and live computer system.

Sunday, March 29

Event Time: 1:00 pm

• Henry Cowell and Russia: Connections and Influences

  Presented by: Dr. Elena Dubinets, musicologist; Director of Artistic Administration, Seattle Symphony Orchestra; Artistic Advisor, Seattle Chamber Players
  

  We know very little about Henry Cowell’s foreign trips. One of the most important was the Russian “exchange,” which he organized in the 1920–1930s and which was very fruitful for both sides. My paper is an account of this Russian tour. It is based on facts I have uncovered from studying a wide variety of sources found in the Henry Cowell Collection at the New York Public Library and in archives in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia. In addition to reconstructing the details of this trip, I will discuss Cowell’s relations with Russia and its music.

• John and Lou and Me and You: A Cornish Reminiscence of John Cage and Lou Harrison

  Presented by:
  

  • Janice Giteck, composer; Professor of Music, Cornish College of the Arts
                                       
  •                                           Jarrad Powell, composer; Professor of Music, Cornish College of the Arts                                      
  • Matthew Kocmieroski, percussionist; Adjunct Instructor, Cornish College of the Arts; co-founder, Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet

  Since my time at Cornish, dating from 1980, Lou Harrison and John Cage both have been in residence a number of times, culminating in a final joint residency in January of 1992. Knowing them a little made all the difference in my appreciating and trying to understand their music and their relation to the world. How do we preserve and document the work of these great men, and also their humanity and spirit, which was as strong as their music and words? They represent American ingenuity at its best. In the uncertain times we now face, their resourcefulness in a time of economic crisis—the 1930s and 1940s, the Great Depression—is an example for artists today. They created a new path, not with money and institutions, but with their own hands and minds, and with the help of their fellow artists from many disciplines. A few reminiscences, a few facts, a few opinions, and a few stories may help us rejoice in their continued presence in our lives. —Matthew Kocmieroski