Agnesia - Homage To Agnes Martin. A ‘Near-Elemental’ (2015, FP) Solo Performance ‘Elementals’ was the 1-note performance shown at The Kitchen in New York in 1977. ‘A pulsing c# which  lasted 5 days (duration indeterminate, with many players coming & going)’. The ‘Near-elementals’ are  variants in which some small changes are permitted. In this, a fairly long and softly-played tone may be  subject to slight improvised changes in dynamics, color, articulation, etc. The effect is analogous to the  restrained brilliance of a painting by Agnes Martin. [Philip Corner] Tom Johnson about ‘Elementals’: I can’t be completely objective about Philip Corner’s ‘Elementals,’ since I was one of the performers, but  I find it impossible to ignore. ‘Elementals’ is a general concept, which can be realized by unvaried  repetition of any sound at any tempo, but for his recent realization of it at The Kitchen, Corner selected  the C-sharp above middle C, and the tempo of 60 notes a minute. He rounded up several dozen musicians  who agreed to come at various times during the week, so that the note could continue, night and day, for  five days. The idea was to keep the sound as constant as possible, but, of course, as singers, pianists,  guitarists, and wind players entered and dropped out, the note took on a variety of colors. And, since the  performers are human, neither the pitch nor the tempo was really accurate very often. So far as I know,  however, at least one or two people were keeping the tone going in one way or another for the complete  123 hours of the performance. The music was severe, restrained, and sometimes quite lovely, but as the  week progressed I began to feel that its real significance was not musical so much as social, and that it  was not intended for an audience so much as for the performers. The event brought many musicians  together, allowed them to really tune in on one another, encouraged them to spend a few hours practicing  musical self-denial, and demonstrated a rather remarkable degree of appreciation for the principle of  minimalism among local musicians. It also demonstrated quite dramatically that, as we attempt to  eliminate more and more variety, we always end up discovering that more and more interesting things  remain uneliminated. That, I think, is how minimalism got started, and why it continues to be fruitful. [Tom Johnson: Seven Kinds of Minimalism; The Village Voice, December 5th, 1977] Philip Corner see Carrot Chew Performance.
Thursday, November 26th, 2015, 20.30
Philip Corner
Agnesia - Homage To Agnes Martin. A ‘Near-Elemental’ (2015, FP) Solo Performance
SO FAR! SO GOOD. SUAL 2015 ABOUT PROGRAMME PRESS IMPRINT