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Emil Awad: Cognitive and Behaviorist in Music

11 February 2024
The brilliant and enterprising composer Emil Awad is the founder and director of the Festival Camarata 21 at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Vera Cruz, Mexico. Many of us have participated – Mario Davidovsky, Robert Pollock, Suzanne Farrin, …
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Mortise-and-tenon

19 December 2023
In a modern building, like a Frank Gehry building, the joinery is often custom joinery designed specifically for the needs of one building. The angles might not be 90 degrees. So also in music. I am so accustomed to customized joinery that I find …
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Blues Based Music Theories

8 December 2023
also touching on 21st C. Homophony Manuel Ponce the Progressive Following up on some earlier thoughts on George Lewis and Philip Ewell and their call for blues-based music theory. I repeat that call and elaborate. For decades I’ve complained …
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Martin Boykan and Richard Festinger Harmonic Movement and Backgrounds

26 October 2023
In progress… Yesterday at Oktaven Studios in Mount Vernon, New York, Cygnus recorded Martin Boykan’s “Diptych” and Richard Festinger’s “Hidden Spring”. Some notes on Boykan, HERE. Those comments mostly about …
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Scott Johnson & how he gives us a feeling for where we are in his structure

24 September 2023
Taking up Bowery Haunt again with Oren Fader has led to a continual stream of quiddities emerging from the experience of the music. Talking about them makes them seem abstract, but these are visceral. I am only interested in the visceral – what …
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What Scott Knew notes on Scott Johnson's "Bowery Haunt"

11 August 2023
Sept 14 T h e V i l l a g e T r i p GuitarFest 1 In Memory of Scott Johnson at Loft393 will include Scott’s Bowery Haunt (2005). Eventbrite Tickets –> https://www.thevillagetrip.com/event/tvt-guitarfest-1/ I don’t know what …
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Thinking about Scott Johnson, by Frank Brickle

20 July 2023
Composer Frank Brickle shares his thoughts about Scott Johnson Frank Brickle was always less pig-headed than I was. Frank was an early advocate for Morton Feldman within certain cirlces in which and at a time when Feldman was a hard sell. He advocated …
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Anecdote: RSF Found Dina Koston and her relationship with David Del Tredici

22 May 2023
Dina Koston, founder of the RSF, complained about neo-romantic music. The phrase I remember her using was “warmed-over Schumann”. But that was directed at other names, not at Del Tredici. I was surprised to learn that she programmed the music of …
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