From Kyle Gann's MP3 page, Balls a'Plenty recommends Time Does Not Exist (mp3), a work for solo piano. And on his blog, Gann continues his ranting about downtown versus uptown. As a listener, I'm fortunate that I don't have to declare an allegiance, although clearly I have preferences. As a reader, sometimes Gann's writing strikes me as polemic and "inside baseball," and sometimes he makes the music more vivid and contemporary by illuminating the struggles associated with producing it:
But those are a completely different matter from
supplying an artist with a living wage, or providing a modicum of
helpful recognition after years of hard work. Every composer knows how
your art improves: produce a lot of it, which requires loads of time
and freedom from exhausting day jobs. Everyone knows how you gain the
technique needed to increase your work’s scale and ambition: by getting
the practical experience of being performed. Denying these to artists
does not make them spiritually pure, it stunts their artistic growth.
Presumably, this also applies to uptown composers as well, unless you are at the top of the hierarchy, but as Joseph Horowitz apparently argues, even that hierarchy may in fact be shrinking.
But I have to say, Kyle Gann has done an excellent job promoting his downtown cause via his blog, MP3s, streaming radio, etc. In the last several years, I've heard a significant amount of new and good music via the "Gannosphere"...
Gann via Wikipedia
