Shaker Loops (1978). John Adams /father knows best/

Here's a promising concert tomorrow night in San Francisco by Formerly Known as Classical - the San Francisco Bay Area Teenage New Music Ensemble:

My Father Knew Olivier Messiaen - our musical heritage

Clapping Music by Steve Reich
Theme & Variations by Olivier Messiaen
A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten
Bantu by Andrew York
Shaker Loops by John Adams

The program's title is of course a play on John Adams' My Father Knew Charles Ives and is also some good-natured generational pretending. I suppose if I were a composer, I'd write My Father Knew Cole Porter. But given my current musical interest centers around Terry Riley, Albert Ayler, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, I suspect my honorees might have struggled with my hypothetical piece. I also wonder what Charles Ives would make of John Adams' work.

I'll also claim Shaker Loops was the apex of true minimalism before that aesthetic fragmented into post-modernism like everything else. It's a stretch to make this claim since I haven't heard this piece live since I heard the late Iona Brown lead a performance last century (coupled with Barber's Adagio). Unfortunately, I can't attend tomorrow night, but I'll at least imagine it still has the same impact.

Their next concert A previous concert also has an interesting theme:

Since We've Been Born - a program of music written since 1988.

Hmm, in the past, I've thought of focusing my listening on exactly that, music written in my time. Fortunately or not, my time has more candidate music than their time.

Tim Rutherford-Johnson, although off by one year, has some blogging about this slice of contemporary music. And a quick check shows I need to revise my list of favorite works since then,  especially those of the Bill Clinton era. How tastes and preferences change.

Note I'm also grapping with the idea of these musicians not being around when Nixon in China debuted. Why, it seems only yesterday that PBS was showing this on television.

Thanks to Matthew Cmiel and musicians for some stimulating and clever thinking and good luck with the concerts. It's nice to see our next "Greatest Generation" off to a collective good start.

And here's hoping we Boomer prophets do a better job of stewardship.

mark swed: john adams is about to turn 60

Comments

[Matthew Cmiel]

Thanks for writing about our concert!
I think we'll have a large audience of high school students but people over 18 are definitely welcome. I don't know if it is a further incentive or disincentive but we've added choreography to Clapping Music. Thanks for your excellent blog, I'm sorry you can't join us.

[veronica]

haha. it's funny that you're gripping with the fact that these kids weren't even alive in the mid-70's. it's a pity that just about all of the music they played was written before they were born, or for that matter, before i was born (1984).

i think there is a real problem with the contemporary music scene in that there is no scene. if a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? no.

the same goes for what so many of us long for: a contemporary idiom of music that speaks to our younger generation of music lovers. when i say younger, i guess we could say anyone under the age of 50. but hell, i'm sure there are plenty of older people who have a void in their souls as well. it just doesn't exist.

well, at least you posted about this group. it's a good start. :)