Lukas Foss & Improvisation, part 2: Liner Notes

Here are three texts from the 1961 Studies in Improvisation record by Lukas Foss and his Improvisation Chamber Ensemble. We begin with the liner notes on the record jacket, then we'll go into the booklet accompanying the record.

(Here is part one of this blog series.)

Studies in Improvisation - Anonymous (1961)

The back cover of Studies in Improvisation,
RCA LM/LSC 2558 (1961)

". . . musical history in the making . . . a stimulating and live experience in musical spontaneity . . . the beginning of an inspired concept in instrumental music!"
-- Maurice Faulkner, Saturday Review

". . . one of the most notable feats of contemporary music."
-- Ernst Bacon

". . . extremely refreshing, truly fascinating and stimulating . . ."
-- Ernst Toch

". . . incredible delicacy, suggestive at times of the firefly imagery of Webern. And what virtuosity! Each of these men is a creative artist . . ."
-- Louis Biancclli, N. Y. World Telegram & Sun

Ideally speaking, an improvisation should not be recorded. It is music which, when heard live, varies with each playing. It is chance transformed into a moment of significance. The pinning down of the moment, the perpetuation through recording is in conflict with the very idea of improvisation. However, if one thinks of a record not as a perpetuator but as a means of making the new known and available, then the recording of these improvisations becomes imperative and all opposing arguments fade into the background.

Ensemble improvisation as attempted here is new. It is based on new premises. It is an informal, spontaneous type of chamber music, proposed not in lieu of traditional chamber music practice, but in addition to it.

The Improvisation Chamber Ensemble is a pioneering group of four, who believe in improvised chamber music: (1) as an essential new outlet for the many excellent performing musicians in the world; (2) as a new hunting ground for the composer; and (3) as a challenge to the musical curiosity of the listener.

Says Lukas Foss, composer, originator of the technique and pianist of the group:

"The music on this record is the result of extensive research and practice, of constant critical listening to one another, of developing from childish beginnings to the rather complex structures attempted on this record. I should welcome other musicians to follow suit, to form improvisation ensembles, to beuild on what we have accomplished, and to learn from our limitations and errors. It will take more than one approach to establish the art of ensemble improvisation as a way of making music. May this record make new friends for the art."

Lukas Foss has been a professor of composition and conductor of the university orchestra at the University of California at Los Angeles since 1953. He studied in Berlin and Paris before coming to the United States in 1937. He continued his studies at Curtis Institute, the Berkshire Music Center and Yale University. He has appeared as piano soloist and conductor with American symphony orchestras and in Europe. His diverse interests and talents are reflected in his compositions, which include three operatic works, two piano concertos, a symphony and other works for orchestra, chamber music in various combinations and several works for voices.

Mr. Foss' interest in the possibility of ensemble improvisation dates back to the spring of 1957 when , together with Richard Dufallo and Charles Delancey, he formed the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble. Howard Colf joined the group in 1959. A year later the ensemble went on its first national tour which included appearances with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The music of the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble is documented for the first time on this recording. 

Inside the jacket, you'll find a large booklet with more information. Here is an essay entitled 

Notes on Ensemble Improvisation - Lukas Foss (1961)

To the classically trained musician, improvisation means something makeshift, random, haphazard. Also, it invariably means solo improvisation to him, and he is likely to regard it as a form of self-indulgence. Let us make no mistake about it: solo and ensemble improvisation are two different procedures not to be confused with each other. In solo improvisation the artist is in full control, in ensemble improvisation he is part of the whole. In solo improvisation the artist is responsible to himself only, in ensemble improvisation he listens to his fellow players and plays accordingly. In solo improvisation, the artist need not adhere to any preconceived structural principle, in ensemble improvisation he must abide by melodic, harmonic and structural rules lest anarchy and chaos take over. Without order, direction and discipline, there can be no ensemble improvisation. In fact, ensemble improvisation is not possible unless specific ordering principles have been determined beforehand. This involves a study of musical freedom within a controlled field: a study of the predetermined coordination of non-predetermined musical ideas.

Our approach to the idea of ensemble improvisation is the result of research I conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles since 1957. It was in the spring of that year that I founded the first IMPROVISATION CHAMBER ENSEMBLE. This "founding" was at the time no more than a declaration of intent, an expression of faith in a possibility; the possibility of a procedure, of a skill which would enable musicians to literally "make (invent) their music as they make (play) music."

That musician and listener alike would benefit from this additional dimension to musical performance no one would deny. The question is: can one provide a technique which makes ensemble improvisation workable, without constant recourse to set tunes, set chord-patterns, set rhythm patterns, to given "entities" which already are music, thereby relegating improvisation to the sphere of variation and ornamentation? The question is: can one set up an order which will give the performer sufficient free rein for the flight of his imagination, and at the same time set up controls for keeping the musicians together? (An order of abundant horizontal leeway and some vertical control.)

Walter: "Wie fang ich nach der Regel an?" 

Sachs: "Ihr stellt sie selbst und folgt ihr dann."

-- RICHARD WAGNER [Die Meistersinger]

Our earliest attempts were built on the idea of skeleton compositions (some notes written down, others to be added at the moment of performance). This proved to be a failure. In fact, many of our earlier premises had to be discarded because they restricted invention, or did not guide invention properly, or would give us a freedom which we did not know how to use. Our present procedure is something we arrived at through trial and error. It does not claim to provide the complete answer to all questions and expectations. Rather, it lays a foundation, at this writing, the only one of its kind known to us, the only systematic attempt at organizing the materials of music for ensemble improvisation.

The new mode of music-making,-- which I do not propose in lieu of traditional chamber music practice but in addition to it,-- may best be understood as a classical counterpart to jazz improvisation, or to various oriental improvisational forms of ensemble playing. It can also be viewed as akin to the pre-classic practice of continuo playing (improvised harmony over a given base). Improvised ensemble music, music which is the result of diverse minds creating simultaneously, is of course vastly different from music carefully plotted by one individual, the composer, whose supreme effort goes into the producing of enduring work, or a masterwork. In our masterpiece-conscious time, one welcomes a musical expression which need not claim immortality in order to claim validity. While the virtue, the watermark of a masterwork is the measure of its durability and hence its repeatability, improvised ensemble music, on the other hand, derives its fascination from its ever-changing contours. It is unrepeatable. Listener and player alike become absorbed in a process wherein anything may happen any time -- and never again. Sounds may emerge unlike any that any one member of the group would have envisioned. Time and again we experienced that, meager though the individual contributions may be, they "add up" when part of a combined effort. (The total is more than the sum of its constituents.) Furthermore, gifted musicians will discover that any random note-group can be turned into a melodic phrase which makes musical sense. Mere chance formations can become the source for new musical ideas; new possibilities can open up, vistas of new musical simultaneities, answering the need, conscious or dormant in every artist, to experiment, to find a new approach, to make something new, surprising and enjoyable to ourselves and to others.

Seen in this light, ensemble improvisation is likely to stimulate composition. In fact, my own interest in ensemble improvisation is that of the composer first, the educator second and the performer third.

The basic conception, the planning of the structure, the "lucky accidents" which occur in abundance when we play, give the composer valuable hints and ideas for his own work and point toward areas worthy of his investigating powers, worthy of that curiosity which is at the bottom of the composer's need to compose . . . "The next work [in this period of exploration] . . . will mix composed with improvised elements."

 -- IGOR STRAVINSKY

 As to music education, it will have to take into account and foster the instrumentalist's capacity for inventing imaginative passages on his instrument. This capacity is hampered at present by the gaps in even the best performing musician's training. Many musicians who have attempted our ensemble improvisation have felt a shock upon realizing how unprepared they were to hear what need be heard, to find notes on their instrument, to assume the new responsibilities which come with ensemble improvisation. Solfege, ear training and general musicianship courses seem, in the light of our need, unimaginzative and inadequate.

A word about the audience. In our recitals we have had occasion to notice that the audience, after a while, adopts a new listening attitude which is in sharp contrast to the devotional listening rightfully customary at concerts when the music of the masters is played. I dare say that the listener will be in a better position to follow complex compositions if he has had the experience of the kind of "active" listening required from him at improvisation concerts. This active listening is a combination of curiosity and excitement similar to that which we feel when we watch a game or contest. (Peculiar to ensemble improvisation is the element of danger, of "hit-or-miss," which an audience is quick in grasping and enjoying.)

Finally, a word about ensemble improvisation and its function within contemporary music. To the historian, it will be significant that the recent renaissance of interest in improvisation has followed close on the heels of the discovery of electronic music. Both improvisation and electronic music have a vital stake in chance. Apart from this they stand at opposite poles: electronic music is produced directly on tape. Whenever the piece is played it will be identical in every detail. Improvised music, as we have seen, is ever-changing, unpredictable, unrepeatable, and should be heard "live." Electronic music eliminates the performer. Improvised music, on the other hand, allots the performer new responsibilities.

To the long conflict between composer and performer -- partners who, ideally speaking, should complement one another in a relationship built on mutual need (and who are separated today by the widest gulf) electronic music offers one solution: divorce. Ensemble improvisation offers another: it brings composition, or more accurately, musical invention, together with performance. In fact, the two become an undistinguishable process. Good therapy for a distinct marital problem.

At the risk of being proven wrong, I should like to predict that in due time, ensemble improvisation, in one form or another, will be studied in conservatories and universities.* String and wind groups, etc. that will try their hands at it, will play masterworks the better for it. Chamber groups of three to six players will spring up and bring informal, improvised concerts to the devotees of the new way of making music. Because: as a natural outlet, as a joyful exercise of one's musical gifts, as an education of musical spontaneity, alertness, sensitivity, restraint, and as a listening discipline few things can take the place of ensemble improvisation.

*Since these lines were written, a program charging the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble with the recruiting of other improvisation ensembles has been inaugurated at the University of California, Los Angeles under a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation. Also, in preparation: a text book on ensemble improvisation as practiced by the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble.

A slightly different version of this essay (dated 1958) was included in Karen Perone's "Lukas Foss: A Bio-Bibliography", Greenwood Press, 1991, pp. 12-16.

Finally, here is the first page of notes detailing the process behind Foss's ensemble improvisation.

Studies in Improvisation - Lukas Foss and Richard Dufallo (1961)

The music on this record is not composed, not the result of random ad-libbing, not jazz. It falls into the category of what might be named: SYSTEM AND CHANCE MUSIC. A specific formal or textural musical vision is committed to paper. Instead of traditional musical notation, the paper contains instructions set down in symbols, letters, numbers. Example: S1 -----> HL (signifies: supports player 1 until ready to lead the harmony). The musicians, as they play, translate the symbols into sound. They do not stake their hope on the element of chance and its capacity for yielding interesting musical results, - they do not put their trust into the order, the system, which coordinates the chance happenings. System and chance form the basis for ensemble improvisation, but the performer holds the reins. He does not passively translate his symbols into sound, he listens critically and plays accordingly. His task is to find the appropriate note, rhythm, phrasing, dynamic, register on his instrument, and at a moment's notice. He corrects chance rather than surrenders to chance - chance controlled rather than chance in control.

The resulting music sounds at times as contrived as a written-down composition. Advance planning, ordering, is responsible for the "composed" effect. Actually it is the rigid planning which makes spontaneity, improvisation possible.

The Theory

It would be presumptuous as well as impossible to reproduce the technical procedure here in toto. We shall limit ourselves to such theoretical data as are essential for those who wish to follow the score (the charts) while listening.

Guide-Sheets Each musician has a guide-sheet in front of him on which his tasks are listed. The guide-sheets are like individual parts extracted from the score (the charts).

Guide-Tones - predetermined, appear on the guide-sheet. They are used only in pieces (or parts of pieces) where tonality is desired. Guide-tones usually consist of easily memorizable four-tone patterns. (Example: F Eb Bb F) These may be rigidly transposed to the degree of the second or third note. (Example: Eb Db Ab Eb - Bb Ab Eb Bb) Or inverted. (Example: G A D G)

Guide-tones are not themes, not even musical motives. They are points of reference, helping the musicians stay together; sometimes they are "roots," sometimes just a degree of the scale on which to form the "preferred-intervals series."

Preferred-Intervals Series Over a given guide-tone the musician has the choice of a major second, minor and major thirds, the fifth, the minor and major seventh. These intervals are the least likely to undermine the supremacy of the guide-tone. Their use is therefore safer for vertical (harmonic) control than the use of the remaining five intervals. Naturally all existing intervals may be used wherever it is possible to arrive at a choice of note by way of "listening." The restriction to preferred intervals is recommended only when such listening is impossible (for instance, when a chord is struck by all, simultaneously). When the guide-tone shifts, the preferred-interval series is transposed accordingly.

Duration of a guide-tone, or of a particular area, is sometimes indicated on the individual player's guide sheet in terms of bar numbers, but more frequently it is not fixed in advance: an area, or guide-tone duration will be shorter or longer depending on the moment of entrance of the subsequent leading instrument.

The Roles*

Melody or Theme - usually the leader unless otherwise indicated.

Support This is the most characteristic role in ensemble improvisation: the critical listening to another, and playing accordingly.

Harmony, when called for on the guide-sheet, usually stands for chords, struck on cue from either the melody player or harmony leader.

Counterpoint A line, resulting from the interplay between three instruments who keep "out of each other's way." Each of the three usually has a specific part of the bar assigned. If guide-tones are in effect the counterpoint players will adhere to the preferred-intervals series.

*Only the four basic roles are listed here. The chart will reveal many subsidiary roles.

The Practice

No matter how often the musicians play from the same guide-sheet, the music emerges changed: "We try to remember the good notes, forget the bad ones. We work toward a goal, the realization of the basic, initial, musical vision. The piece changes, grows in unity and clarity as we keep playing it. We do not play 'anything that comes to mind,' rather, we play 'anything that comes to mind within a pre-determined, limited sound-conception.' After we have performed a piece a dozen times, it usually emerges a new piece, one in which the first attempt can barely be recognized. In a word, we evolve our pieces through the process of improvisation. Even when we feel that a piece has been achieved, even then we do not memorize. We cannot; since one of us will invariably inject an unexpected element which forces everyone to change his course. Only when a player is on a solo, may he end up by repeating, memorizing his improvisation (example: the pizzicato cello-solo in Air Antique). Short themes, motifs, might be remembered, spontaneously altered, exploited. Then comes the point when the musicians feel the need to improvise new themes, or abandon the piece altogether, discard that particular guide-sheet. Improvised pieces seem to have their own life-span. The basic vision which prompted the piece may yield so much and no more. Other pieces stay, as it were, in the repertoire, yielding ever new ideas for improvisation.

The rest of the booklet consists of the guide-sheets used on the recording, along with some text explaining what is going on. The guide-sheets were copyrighted by Foss and Dufallo and I will not include them here, unless I am given permission to republish them. So, that's it for now.... part 3 will be posted soon.

𝄇

Lukas Foss & Improvisation, Part 1: "Foss Invents New System of Ensemble Improvisation"

[Note: the introduction to this post was updated later on 1/24/21.]

After spending some weeks on Larry Austin's New Music Ensemble, next I'd like to turn to Lukas Foss (1922 - 2009), who worked in the field of improvised music from about 1957 until 1963. Initially inspired by the Modern Jazz Quartet, he sought a process for musicians with 20th-century classical training to engage with each other through improvisation. Foss formed the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble (ICE), recorded an album with them, and wrote a book on the ensemble's processes (though it was apparently never published or circulated). The album, Studies in Improvisation, was recorded in 1961 for RCA/Victor (it is yet to be reissued on CD). Foss's work in improvisation in this period culminated in 1962 with Time Cycle, a composition which featured the ICE.

In 1960 Foss received a $10,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for two improvisation workshop programs, 10-15 weeks in length. At least one of these programs culminated in a concert. In 1963 Foss accepted a position as Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, left his post at UCLA, and shifted his focus away from improvisation.

For the first entry in this series, I have included two articles by Albert Goldberg about the ICE's debut performance at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall on Thursday, February 26th 1959.

THE SOUNDING BOARD

by Albert Goldberg

Los Angeles Times

Lukas Foss

A form of musical activity that promises to be new and possibly revolutionary will be unveiled in UCLA's Schoenberg Hall Thursday night when the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble makes an official debut in performances of improvised ensemble pieces after a year and a half of preparation and a few out-of-town tryouts.

The motive force behind the experiment and the inventor of the idea is Lukas Foss, noted composer-pianist and UCLA faculty member, who is the pianist of the group. His associates in the venture will be Charles DeLancey on percussion instruments; Robert Drasnin, flute; Richard Dufallo, clarinet; William Malm, bass clarinet, and Eugene Wilson, cello.

At the concert Mr. Foss will offer an explanation and demonstration of the principles involved, showing, in his words, "how we stay together, how we make up melodies and harmonies without a given melody or harmonies and without a rhythm section on the job to keep us playing together."

Famous Composers Improvised, Too

Johann Hummel

Improvisation, of course, if nothing new in music; such great composers as Bach, Mozart, Handel and Beethoven were noted for their extemporizations, and such 19th-century virtuosi as Liszt, Thalberg, Herz, Mendelssohn and Hummel were invariably expected to improvise at their public performances. Cadenzas to concertos by 18th-century composers were left to the improvisatory powers of soloists, a habit that even Beethoven followed until the "Emperor" Concerto, although the custom may have been followed more in the breach than the observance.

But since the middle of the 19th century solo improvisation has become practically obsolete in public performance; only an occasional pianist and a few organists indulge in it nowadays.

Idea Came When Listening to Jazz

The Modern Jazz Quartet
L-R: Milt Jackson, Connie Kay, Percy Heath
Seated: John Lewis

Nor is ensemble improvisation unknown, as Mr. Foss points out. Harpsichord players were expected to fill out 18th-century ensembles from a figured bass that indicated harmonies; East Indian music uses ensemble improvisations based on traditional ragas, and contemporary jazz is a form of group improvisation. But in all these there is a given theme or set of harmonies or rhythms as a foundation. Mr. Foss and his group start from scratch, as it were.

"What we are doing has nothing to do with jazz," he said, "though the idea came to me when listening to the Modern Jazz Quartet. It occurred to me that these musicians had the chance to be really creative. So my idea was in part born of jealousy.

"When we first started out it was like trying to fly, but we had no wings. For six months we were helpless. We tried everything and nothing worked. Either the rules we contrived would constrict us to an extent where imagination could not function or we had so much freedom we did not know what to do with it.

"We kept remodeling the basis of our operations until now we have a system on which we can operate. The principles are so involved they make the 12-tone method seem elementary. Eventually I will publish a book explaining the method so that other people can form similar ensembles. We do not want to remain the only ones doing this sort of thing."

Specialization May Be Bane of Musicians

Mr. Foss feels that ensemble improvisation will open new vistas. "Specialization has done away with improvisation," he said.

"Musicians become either performers or composers, or performer - composers, but usually they keep these activities apart. We owe our great art to this specialization. But we may now have reached a point where specialization has dried us out and produced a kind of sterility.

"No one was ever meant to play just a cello, for example, and to play only printed notes all his life. The life work of a musician has become nothing but slavery to the printed note. I do not mean in any sense to do away with the printed note or with written-down composition. I think, on the contrary, that composition will gain from improvisation.

"And a performer will come to understand better how to play the compositions of other people if he knows how compositions are made and if he can pick his notes on the strength of what others do. As a more practical kind of solfege the system should prove invaluable and might eventually make our present way of training musicians antiquated.

"It must be understood that by improvisation I do not mean daydreaming at an instrument, but a very involved new scheme, the mastery of which will take years. At both the invention and the practice we still are only beginners.

"Performers learned 50 years ago to get along without new music and to subsist on museum pieces. And the composer has just learned how to get along without the performer by means of electronic music in which the composer works directly with sounds arranged on tape. All this indicates a breakup in music.

"But it will be a terrible society in which the composer and performer each learn to be self-sufficient to the point of getting along without each other - as bad as a society in which men and women do not need each other. It will be sterile.

'It's Making Music Together That Counts'

"All this is the result of specialization, the great cultural danger of our time. It is really what prompted me to attempt a merger of the performer and the composer. I would like to see a generation of composer-performers who literally make their music as they make music.

"In solo improvisation you can do anything you want, but that does not interest me. I like ensemble improvisation because we can make music together. If you want to be alone you might as well compose. I became a musician because as a child I was fascinated with the idea of making music with other people. I was not obsessed with sounds. I use sounds, but I am not obsessed by them.

"Electronic composers make the mistake of thinking they can become composers because of their sound obsession. I don't believe that. I think that the techniques of ensemble improvisation may prove to be a valuable countertrend. It is not something which will eliminate electronic music but it may help to strike a proper balance. The two things are opposites.

Improvisations Will Always Be Different

"Electronic music exists on tapes and the tapes will always be the same. Our improvisation will always be different. It will restore the performer and it entrusts him with an unprecedented creative task. Electronic music only does away with the performer.

"Electronic music is ideal for background purposes. Human beings are ideal for foreground. I would like to help in restoring our vanishing foreground. In our lives we fill our daily routine with so much background that most of us are not 100% alive. Chamber music improvisation is one way of becoming more musically alive for the composer and performer as well as for the listener.

"I am not trying to do away with anything. I am trying to add something to our present musical scene - a more informal type of chamber music, offering both the composer and the performer a new hunting ground; ultimately, possibly, a much-needed new career."

[22 Feb 1959, p. 106]

The performance was reviewed, also by Goldberg, in Saturday's paper:

Improvised Music Performed at UCLA

UCLA's Schoenberg Hall

Concerts at which new music is performed are no rarity. Nor is there any dearth of concerts at which new music is played once - and never again. But a concert consisting entirely of new music which could never be repeated even if anyone wanted to, because it is all improvised, ranks as a major novelty in the present scheme of things. Such was the debut appearance of the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble in UCLA's packed Schoenberg Hall Thursday night.

Lukas Foss is the mastermind and pianist of this revolutionary experiment and his colleagues are Charles DeLancey on the percussions; Robert Drasnin, flute; Richard Dufallo, clarinet; William Malm, bass clarinet, and Eugene Wilson, cello. They have been working at Mr. Foss' system of "controlled chance" for a year and a half at the results proved to be extraordinarily provocative, though naturally still in a formative state.

Not Like Jazz

Jazz, of course, is to an extent ensemble improvisation, but this differs from jazz in that there is no given tune, rhythmical scheme or predetermined set of chord combinations. Both the mood and the content are spontaneous, although in the course of preparation a fairly definite and complicated set of rules has been evolved to serve as guide posts in the search for freedom.

As Mr. Foss explained the system at some length, though none too clearly, it primarily consists of six "rows" or complexes of four tones each, presumably chosen arbitrarily, and a corresponding set of six inversions, all of which serve as tonal centers, the various notes of which may be used either as melodic or harmonic components, apparently much on the order of Schoenberg's 12-tone system, but with the addition of primary and secondary notes.

And to assist in formal organization there are formulas which indicate the order in which the players are to improvise the solo part, the counterpoint and the harmony. These are written on cards which the players follow in performance, and any player who does not happen to be busy at the moment conducts and indicates the lapse of measures in what seemed to be mainly four-bar patterns.

Apart from these restrictions, which did not appear to be very restrictive, each player is on his own to improvise freely and to fit his ideas together with those of his partners.

Anton Webern.
Source: Mahler Foundation

Varied Results

The music that emerged took many forms. Most frequently it sounded like the pointillistic music of the Webern school, and generally it was atonal in the Schoenbergian sense. Sometimes it developed the swing of jazz; sometimes a player would hit upon a diverting tune which his colleagues would echo or develop, and now and then the music proceeded in straightforward rhythmical patterns. And always it was free and imaginative.

Obviously the system works, primitive though it may be in its present state of development. But equally obviously, it requires gifted musicians to make it work.

The possibilities are fascinating. Mr. Foss hopes that it will give rise to a new generation of composer-performers who will make music together spontaneously, freed of slavery to the printed page. That is a larger order, but there is no doubt that he has struck out on a new path, and one which may lead to unsuspected discoveries. At least the foundations have been laid - and with surprising success.

[28 Feb 1959, p. 12]

Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble Receives Rude Reception

In my interview with Randall Snyder, he said:

We played one performance at an arts fair, and a couple people complained about the noise. This was an indoor amphitheater, it sat about 2,000 people. They came and told us we had to stop. Some of my students were there, and they complained about this, so they wrote letters to the editor, and it became sort of a cause celebre for a while.

I was able to find a letter to the editor of the Lincoln Star that describes this incident, and a follow-up from the paper which give more details. Enjoy!

Musical guest group offered little courtesy

Rude reception

The Lincoln Star, 5 May 1978 Page 4

Lincoln, Neb.

On Saturday, April 22, we witnessed an event that any proponent of freedom of expression would have found appalling.

The Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble, who had been invited as guest performers, were scheduled to play at 4:30 p.m. The program, however, was running behind schedule and the group did not ascend the stage until approximately 5:10 p.m. No sooner had they announced the first number and begun to play than a representative of the Arts Festival intervened.

The Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble, Feb 1975

Judging from the clearly audible comments shared between the official and the ensemble members, he apparently asked them to play some "real music." He asked if they would lower the volume on their instruments because they were "scaring away the customers," and then stated to the audience that "some people were wondering when they were going to stop tuning up."

He then inquired: "Who wants to listen to this?" Ignoring the enthusiastic affirmative response of the 25 to 30 people who had gathered to listen, he asked the remaining performers to leave (two performers were so insulted, they had already departed).

The L.I.E. was invited to play at the festival on a no-fee basis -- they did not ask to come. As guest performers, they should have been accorded the respect due any guest. The 25 to 30 members of the listening audience should have been accorded the respect due any patron. Basic social graces and humane consideration seemed to be lacking. Regardless of whether the Arts Festival personnel knew of the L.I.E.'s musical style (and they should have), the moment of the performance is not the time to decide if the band should be perform. Rather, it would seem to the average person that this issue should have been decided prior to the invitation.

What happened to the Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble is akin to the initial rejection of the then-progressive musical styles of Louis Armstrong and the Hot Fives in the 1920's. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in the 1940's, as well as John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk in the 1960's created music in the face of such rejection. Their music is now acclaimed as classic or modern jazz. This phenomenon is not peculiar to jazz music, but may also be found in philosophy, literature and painting. Throughout history, people have consistently resisted any new idea that seemed to be a radical departure from tradition.

An arts festival is traditionally a vehicle which provides for the cultural exchange of conventional and unconventional art forms between the patron and the artist. Lincoln should consider itself fortunate to include the Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble as members of its artistic community. Freedom to express that creativity is a necessary prerequisite to its continued growth.

ROBIN BUCHMAN
DAVE SKOW
BARB STIMSON

This letter was printed 11 May, 1978 by the Lincoln Journal. Ten days later, a response came:

 

Quartet or ensemble? Music or noise?

by Helen Haggie

Illustrator - Karen Blassen

An incident of April 22 at the Festival of the Arts sponsored by the Lincoln Community Arts Council seems to have been blown out of proportion as the result of letters to editors of Lincoln newspapers.

The incident centered on the volume of music made by the Lincoln Improvisation Ensemble at the festival, and the circumstances surrounding the group's departure from Pershing Auditorium during the festival.

The letter writers claimed that a festival official told the musicians they were "scaring away customers["], asked them to play "real music" and to "lower the volume." The letter writers quoted the official as asking, "Who wants to listen to this?"

The letter writers asserted that 25 to 30 people had gathered to listen to the ensemble but that the official finally asked all of the musicians to leave after two of them departed, feeling that they had been insulted although the ensemble was there by invitation of those who arranged the festival.

Arts Council President William Schlaebitz responded to a request for another side of the incident, saying that he went to the musicians with certain requests after noticing people "streaming out" of the auditorium and being approached by several artists who had displays in the arena. Several asked: "Can't you do something about all that noise?"

Schlaebitz said he found that [the] source of the "noise" was the Improvisation Ensemble, a group he described as 8 to 12 musicians on stage; Schlaebitz says he asked them to turn down the sound amplification, but this request did not get results "so I returned and I did ask them to leave."

He said this was to protect a "captive audience" in the auditorium from sound that was annoying many rather than entertaining.

Chairman Keith Heckman of the festival's performing arts program, said the invitation was for a quartet of  improvisers, not a large ensemble, and that group appearing "was much larger than I expected." He recalled that the entire festival was moved into the auditorium because of bad weather outside and speculated that the ensemble's music played outdoors would have made no problem because those who didn't like it could have moved on and still been in the festival area. "A lot of persons had to make concessions when it (the festival) was in the auditorium," Heckman added.

As for an assertion by the letter writers that the festival officials were, in effect, stifling innovative performing artists, Arts Council Director Sam Davidson said in response to a question that the festival never has been described as a haven for unconventional art. "Every new innovative art has its place, but it is hard to force it on the public in large doses," Davidson said.

Schlaebitz said he apologizes if the group and its admirers are unhappy, adding he wants no verbal shooting match over the incident.

𝄇

The New Music Ensemble, Part 4 - Documented Performances and Misc.

The final installment of this series is sort of an info dump. I have compiled all of the known performances by the NME, with and without Larry Austin, from its inception in summer 1963 to its dissolution in 1967. This probably doesn't contain every performance. Concert programs, program notes, personal accounts, etc. would likely reveal more. In the mean time, this is a lot more than we had before, and we can see in greater detail than ever:

1. who played in the ensemble over the years,
2. that the group improvised alongside its performances of contemporary repertoire,
3. that often these contemporary compositions were themselves infused with improvisational ideas, and
4. what newspaper reviewers thought about the NME's activities.

I use the following format:

Year

• Month, Date - Day, time, location. Here I'll usually offer a short synopsis, followed by

Program included

Any compositions performed.

Performers

Any named performers.

"Anything contained in quotation marks is a direct quote from one of the media resources linked to in the entry."

Review (if extant)

1963

• February 12 - Not an NME performance, since the name is not used. Larry Austin's "Improvisations for Orchestra and Jazz Soloists" was performed here. Also on the program were "Improvisations", performed by Austin, Woodbury, Lunetta, and John Mosher, a bassist.

• July 31 - Wednesday, 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall, UC Davis. This was the NME's debut performance.

Austin: "The idea is to perform significant, contemporary, chamber music; whatever is instrumental; to explore new composing and performing techniques; and to develop a concept of group improvisation."

"In frequent rehearsals over the past two months the ensemble has been primarily concerned with developing various approaches to group improvisation, particularly since all the works on this debut concert involve improvisatory and/or chance techniques in varying degrees. To begin with, all the players are fluent improvisers, either as creative performers, as composers, or both. The problem for the group was to perfect a sort of creative rapport which would enable us to improvise freely as a group and create aesthetically successful musical moments."

Program included:

Elegy for solo percussion (Jerome Rosen)

Extrados for solo clarinet (Garrett Bowles)

Collage (Austin) ["which makes use of considerable free improvisation"]

Domains II for solo percussion (Richard Swift)

Refrain for piano, celeste and vibraphone (Stockhausen)

Densities for clarinet, vibraphone, harp and bass (Schuller)

Scherzo (Over The Pavement) (Ives)

Of Collages, Austin said:

"This work is an agglomeration of nine musical fragments. The present order of the fragments is arbitrary. In fact, in the future I will no doubt add more fragments or perhaps discard some, depending on the music situation. In two fragments, the instrumentation is indeterminant [sic], Square being for any combination of from two to four instruments and Uncommon Canon for any combination of any number of instruments. The remaining fragments, including the improvised interludes, are for specific instrumentations.

"I have used improvisation and chance as compositional resources. Varying degrees of compositional control are exerted, from freely improvised fragments with only the time span indicated to through-composed compositions with only a few free [elements].

Austin also describes the other five fragments, which include homages to the Modern Jazz Quartet and Ornette Coleman.

Performers:

Larry Austin, trumpet

Jerome Rosen, 

Richard Swift, piano

Donald Brewer, trombone

Adrienne Castelian, piano

Sylvia Hoffman, harp

Jon Gibson, saxophone

Barbara Johnson, piccolo

Wayne Johnson, reeds, vibraphone

Jerry Lopes, bass

Arthur Woodbury, reeds

From a different article: "Several of the members play more than one instrument during the concert. There is even one new instrument - a pianoform - derived from an old upright piano."

Review by William C. Glackin

• September 27 - 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall. "...a program of contemporary works..."

Program included:

A Broken Consort (Larry Austin, MJQ Music)

Serenade No. 2 (Morton Subotnick)

Domains I (Richard Swift)

Concert for piano and orchestra (John Cage)

"A Broken Consort ... In six movements, it applies the tone row technique of serial composition to certain elements of traditional jazz, including the 12 bar blues. The players are given room to improvise."

Performers:

Larry Austin, trumpet

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, winds

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Donald Brewer, trombone

Alexander Chambers, tenor

Barbara Johnson, flute

Sally Kell, cello

Mura Kievman, percussion

Paul Marsh, tuba

William Michael, horn

John Mosher, string bass

Noami Sparrow, piano

Marvin Tartak, piano

• October 13 - 3:00pm, E. B. Crocker Art Gallery.

"...the ensemble will perform some free group improvisations. These will be of varying lengths and for various groups within the ensemble."

Oct 13th, 1963

Larry Austin

Jon Gibson

Wayne Johnson

Stanley Lunetta

Jerome Rosen

Richard Swift

Arthur Woodbury

Billie Alexander

Program included:

Apparitions (Jon Gibson)

Octet '61 (Cornelius Cardew)

Uncoverings (Stanley Lunetta)

Cuttings (Richard Swift)

• October 17 - 8:15pm, "Improvisation '63" lecture/demonstration by Austin / Swift. Home Economics Auditorium, UC Davis.

"The group will illustrate the discussion with explorations of free improvisation using the common languages of 20th century music."

Performers:

Larry Austin

Richard Swift

Jerome Rosen

Jon Gibson

Wayne Johnson

Stanley Lunetta

Arthur Woodbury

[Billie Alexander apparently sat this one out. -ME]

• December 15 - 2:00pm, Belmonte Gallery. 2975 35th Street, Sacramento, CA

"...an improvisation concert."

Larry Austin

Wayne Johnson

Richard Swift

Stanley Lunetta

Arthur Woodbury

Jon Gibson

Pat Woodbury
Jerome Rosen

In one blurb, Pat Woodbury / Billie Alexander is mistakenly [??] referred to as Dixie Alexander!

1964

• January 20 - 12:30pm, luncheon for Sacramento Symphony Center

"Larry Austin and his seven piece New Music Ensemble will be the featured entertainment."

No program or personnel info listed. 

• April 3 - 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall, 101 Horticulture Building

"In addition to a number of free improvisations, the group will perform..."

Alarm, Square, Parle (Larry Austin)

May, 1962 (Philip Krumm)

Variations I (John Cage)

Hundreds of Butterflies (Stanley Lunetta)

Cuttings (Swift)

Billie Alexander, soprano

Larry Austin, trumpet, flugelhorn

Jon Gibson, flute, soprano saxophone, clarinet

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, flute, alto saxophone, bassoon

Review by Glackin.

"Trying to convey in words what happens in one of these [free improvisation pieces] ... would be like trying to convey Finnegan's Wake in sign language, only harder."

• April 23 - Thursday, 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall. "Research Concert". Not an NME performance, but several members were included.

Performers:

Marvin Tartak, harpsichord

Jean Cunningham, flute

Bruce Haynes, oboe

Helen Stross, cello

Linn Subotnick, viola

Morton Subotnick, clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, celesta

Theodore Karp, oboe

Arthur Woodbury, bassoon

Larry Austin, trumpet

"...all on a variety of instruments."

Program included:

Bucolics (Richard Swift)

Sonata (Jerome Rosen)

Continuum (Larry Austin)

Sonata for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord (Elliott Carter)

"Rosen describes his work as a 'long, rather free and rhapsodic piece; the performer is called upon to improvise on material previously given him and is more than usually responsible for details of phrasing and proportion.'"

Review by Philip C. Freshwater

Freshwater includes this puzzling note: "Although [Continuum] has grown out of his work with the New Music Ensemble, as Austin states in the excellent program notes, the free improvisation of that group has been sharply reduced, leaving only tempo and meter relatively free."

• April 24 - 7:00pm, TV broadcast (Channel 9).

• April 27 - 10:30pm, TV broadcast (Channel 6, KVIE). Re-run of previous concert?

• April 29 - 12:15pm, Hertz Hall "Noon Concert"

The Noon Concerts were a regular series at Hertz Hall for years. The Berkeley Improvisation Ensemble also performed several of these later in the 1960's. I wasn't able to find any more info on this.

• May 10 - 1:00pm, Belmonte Gallery.

"An unusual experiment mixing painting with music, both on an improvisatory basis, will be staged ... next Sunday ... The New Music Ensemble of [UC Davis] will play group improvisations in various combinations of instruments. On the same program four painters from the university will demonstrate the similar experiments which have been going on in the art department, in which several artists, taking turns, work on the same painting."

Performers:

Larry Austin

Richard Swift

Arthur Woodbury

Wayne Johnson

Jon Gibson

Stanley Lunetta

Billie Alexander

• July 7 - 10:00am, SCC Auditorium (Sacramento City College)

Performers:

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon

Billie Alexander, soprano

Jon Gibson, clarinet, flute, soprano saxophone

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Wayne Johnson, bass clarinet

Austin was not mentioned as a performer, likely because he was overseas in Rome.

• August 12 - Wednesday, 8:15pm, East Hall Studio Theater, UC Davis

Program included:

Recitative and Improvisation (Elliott Carter)

Serenade (Jerome Rosen)

    -written for Billie Alexander and Arthur Woodbury

The Trial of Tender O'Shea (Richard Swift)

    "an opera for the New Music Ensemble". Libretto by Dorothy Swift.

"In addition, the New Music Ensemble will perform a group of free improvisations."

Performers:

Billie Alexander, soprano

Jon Gibson, flute, clarinet, soprano saxophone

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, flute, alto saxophone, bassoon

Again, no mention of Austin.

Three UCD students, Carolyn Francis, Mary Offerman, Phillip Symonds, are also named. David Freund directed The Trial of Tender O'Shea.

Review by Glackin

• August 13 - Mime Troupe Theater, San Francisco

"[The] New Music Ensemble ...  gave a program of improvisations, preceded by 'musical' compositions of John Cage, Jerome Rosen and Philip Krumm."

Review by Paul Hertelendy.

• August 14 - Mime Troupe Theater, San Francisco

"The ensemble saved the best for the end, playing Richard Swift's short opera The Trial of Tender O'Shea after several short instrumental improvisations."

Review by Hertelendy.

"With the improvising instrumental group in the background, the soprano sings about O'Shea in various roles, and O'Shea himself sings at some length on tape recording (played by Alexander Chambers)."

• October 18 - Sunday, 3:00pm, Belmonte Gallery. 

"Concert Will Feature Musical Monopoly Game"

Program included:

Lincoln Center (Philip Krumm)

Variations I (Cage)

Performers:

Richard Swift, piano

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Wayne Johnson, woodwinds

Jon Gibson, woodwinds

Arthur Woodbury, woodwinds

Robert Bloch, violin

Billie Alexander, soprano

"The entire concert will be repeated Monday (10/19) in San Francisco in a live broadcast over KPFA."

• November 22 - 3:00pm, Belmonte Gallery, Sacramento. (Recorded for KPFA? Possibly a separate show)

Program included:

Ad for 11/22/64 concert

Concerto For Anything (Philip Krumm)

Concert With Aria (John Cage)

"The group also will include several of its free improvisations, spontaneous and collective."

• November 23 - 8:30pm, KPFA-FM Studio, 321 Divisadero St., San Francisco

Their press release is quoted in a strange blurb here.

Concerto For Anything (Philip Krumm)

Concert With Aria (John Cage)

• December 11 - 8:30pm, Eaglet Theater, 15th and H Streets, Sacramento, CA.

Program included:

The Trial of Tender O'Shea (Swift)

Concert Piece for solo violin (Seymour Sheffren)

Duo For Two Fluent Improvisers for piano and percussion (unknown composer)

Performers:

Billie Alexander

Robert Bloch

Richard Swift

Jon Gibson

Wayne Johnson

Stanley Lunetta

Arthur Woodbury

1965

At the beginning of 1965, the NME received an invitation from Franco Evangelisti to participate in the 1966 Nuova Consonanza:

Evangelisti: "We are extremely impressed by the creative virtuosity and control displayed by the composer-performers in the NME ... This is particularly significant for European musicians, for such groups of cooperatively creative composer-performers are all but non-existent in Europe. Hence, an appearance by your group would have great - even historic - impact in Europe, we are certain."

• March 21 - Sunday, 8:15pm, Belmonte Gallery

Program included:

[unknown title] (John Cage)

May 1962 (Krumm)

as well as "several of the group improvisations for which the NME is noted..."

Billie Alexander, soprano

Robert Bloch, violin, mandolin

Jon Gibson, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, alto saxophone, bassoon

John Moore, trumpet (guest on the Cage piece)

• April 7 - 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall, UC Davis

"As a result of these [free group] improvisations, which recently have been recorded, [the NME] has been invited to appear at the Venice Festival, Palermo Festival, and the Nuova Consonanza Festival in Rome during the spring of 1966.

Program included:

Atlas Eclipticalis (John Cage)

Winter Music (Cage)

Concerto for violin and chamber ensemble (Richard Swift)

and eight improvisations.

Performers:

Billie Alexander, soprano

Robert Bloch, violin, mandolin

Jon Gibson, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, alto saxophone, bassoon

Review by Glackin

• June 14-15 - Little Theater, Sacramento State College. Recording for New Music Ensemble II.

• July 7 - Wednesday, 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall

Program included:

Concert for piano and orchestra (John Cage)

Aria (Cage)

Projection 4 (Morton Feldman)

Digressions (Robert Moran)

"...in addition to characteristic freely improvised pieces."

Performers:

Billie Alexander, soprano

Robert Bloch, violin, mandolin

Jon Gibson, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, alto saxophone, bassoon

Review by Freshwater.

• November 14 - Monday, 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall

The Applicant (Richard Swift)

Speculum Dianae (Frederic Rzewski)

Inerziali (Roland Kayn)

"The group ... devoted more than half of the evening to what is quite evidently their favorite method of performing, free group improvisation."

Billie Alexander, soprano

Larry Austin, flugelhorn, string bass

Robert Bloch, violin, mandolin

Jon Gibson, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, alto saxophone, bassoon

[Austin returns from Rome. -ME]

Review by Glackin.

• December 6 - Monday, 8:15, Freeborn Hall 

Not an NME show, but some of its members were featured.

Program included:

Meditation (Gunther Schuller)

Galaxis (Roland Kayn)

Ordini (Franco Evangelisti)

Fluxion (Enrique Raxach)

Catharsis (Larry Austin)

also works by Mozart and Wagner

Catharsis is "for a four track tape of electric sounds ... plus a big ensemble and a small ensemble (a quintet last night, made up of members of the New Music Ensemble). The tape was heard from four speakers, two on each side of the hall; the players were onstage. The players have freedom to improvise along lines suggested by the score, which does not indicate any pitches or rhythms..."

Review by Glackin.

1966

• January 9 - Sunday, 8:15pm, Wyatt Pavilion Theater, UC Davis. "Music Theater"

Program included:

The program "will include improvisations, the group's favorite field, and three structured events":

Views (John Heineman)

Roma, A Theater Piece in Open Style for Improvisation Ensemble and Tape (Larry Austin)

Quartet, 1965 (Stanley Lunetta)

"Austin calls Roma an abstract theater piece: Within an explicit context the piece asks for interpretive movement as well as interpretive sound. The attitude of the 'movement improvisation' is suggested by the reaction - before, during and after the event - of the player to the lighting, the stage properties, the movements of other players, the audience and the nature of the hall. The reaction to the tape sounds and/or the group's improvisations determines the attitude of the 'sound improvisation.'"

Lighting by Carolyn Tash. Stage director was David Freund, designer was Natalie Dobb.

Performers:

Billie Alexander, soprano

Larry Austin, flugelhorn, string bass

Robert Bloch, violin, mandolin

Jon Gibson, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, alto saxophone, bassoon

Guests:

Roberta Baines

Barbara Johnson

Stephen Wolfe

"A grant from the Music Performance Trust Fund of the Recording Industries supplies performers' fees."

Review by Freshwater.

Review by Philip F. Elwood

• In early 1966, the NME's second record was released.

• March 3rd - Thursday, 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall. "Research Concert".

Not NME, but its members performed.

Program included:

PanJorGin (Stanley Lunetta)

Green and Red (John Mizelle)

The Maze (Larry Austin)

10 Beginnings (Jerome Rosen)

Carmina Archilochi (Richard Swift)

"Members of the New Music Ensemble and guests" including

Larry Austin

Richard Swift

Jerome Rosen

Stanley Lunetta

(Dary) John Mizelle

• May 5 - SSC Little Theater, Sacramento State College. 

Possible performance by the NME? There was a graduate seminar at SSC on American music, described by Philip Freshwater. The NME is mentioned only in passing. No program or personnel notes are included.

• May 22 - Sunday, 8:15pm, Home Economics Theater (Room 176), UC Davis. "Composer's Forum"

"New works by Philip Krumm, Stanley Lunetta, John Mizelle, Julian Woodruff will be performed along with the "First Piano Sonata" by Boulez and improvisations by the New Music Ensemble."

• In August a headline appeared saying "Modern Music Concert Unit is Forming". The article is about the founding of Composer/Performer Edition. Here's another article, mentioning the founding of SOURCE.

• September 7 - 5:00pm, 9:00pm, Freeborn Hall. "Twoconcert".

Program included:

First half, 5pm

Sound Machine (Philip Krumm)

Prelude to Naples (Joel Chadabe)

Obos (Harold Budd)

..."and some group improvisations by the NME."

Second half, 9pm

Music for Prepared Piano (John Cage)

Liaisons (Roman Haubenstock-Ramati)

III (Harold Budd)

..."and more improvisations." Hertelendy mentions five improvisations total.

Performers:

Billie Alexander, soprano

Larry Austin, flugelhorn, string bass

Robert Bloch, violin, mandolin

??Jon Gibson, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute

Wayne Johnson, clarinet, bass clarinet

Stanley Lunetta, percussion

??Richard Swift, piano

Arthur Woodbury, alto saxophone, bassoon

Guests:

Marvin Tartak, prepared piano

Harold Budd

Thomas Gentry, piano

Barbara Johnson, flute

John Mizelle, trombone

Fred Utter, cello

Review by Glackin

Review by Hertelendy

"It should also be added that if the men in the group really appreciate Miss Alexander's thoughtful vocal contributions they ought to quiet down once in a while so she can be heard."

• October 13 - Thursday, First Unitarian Church, Sacramento. Composer/Performer Edition.

"The C.P.E. turns out to be the N.M.E... under another name, but this prgram [sic] had a good deal less improvising and much more written or at least blueprinted music than most N.M.E. concerts have had."

Some improvisations are mentioned. Lunetta and Bloch are mentioned.

Review by Glackin.

• November 10 - Thursday, 12:00pm, Music Building (Room 115) UC Davis

"The second free concert of the NME's 66-67 season"

Program included:

In Memoriam Esteban Gomez (Robert Ashley)

John Smith (Ashley)

Pfft (Stanley Lunetta)

Thursday Afternoon (Alvin Curran)

"Members of the Ensemble then will perform two free-group improvisations."

Performers:

Billie Alexander

Larry Austin

Wayne Johnson

Stanley Lunetta

John Mizelle

Arthur Woodbury

Guests:

Sherman Amerson

Steve Reuben

Robert Bloch

• December 9 - 7:30pm (TV, Channel 6) "The Mod Sound In Music"

An "unusual program of contemporary music".

• December 27 - 7:00pm (TV, KVIE) "Horizons '67"

A shared program. The NME appeared alongside several other groups.

1967

• January 6 - 8:15pm, First Unitarian Church 2425 Sierra Blvd. [Postponed]
• February 17 - Friday, 8:15pm, Freeborn Hall

Program included:

Kontakte (Karlheinz Stockhausen)

Kontra-Punkte (Stockhausen)

Klavierstuck XI (Stockhausen)

Zyklus (Stockhausen)

Spazio A5 (Franco Evangelisti)

World One (Michael von Biel)

Performers included:

Stanley Lunetta. The NME is mentioned, but no other specific performer names.

Guest:

David Tudor

Review by Glackin

• February 19 - 8:30pm, Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley

Apparently a follow-up performance of the Stockhausen concert from Feb 17.

NME - That New Sound From Davis Is Experimental Music