Kevin Sutton responds to general criticism:

>Ahh good.  My ploy worked.  Of course I know that there is good music
>since '62.  My next question would be, why don't our major symphony
>orchestras ever play this music past the premiere?

An excellent question that I don't have an answer for but which the
directors of those orchestras should give us.

>Further, why do these pieces seem to lie relatively dormant
>while "bang on a can" gets seemingly regular hearing?

That's not a piece, so maybe what you really mean to ask is why does it
get press coverage? I suppose because what they play is new each time.

>What I have found most intriguing though is that there is very little
>avant garde music on these lists.  I am certainly not opposed to new
>forms of expression.  There are several works by avant garde composers
>that I do enjoy.  But one more question/observation:  Most of the avant
>garde works that people have mentioned are either from the 60's or by
>composers who flourished in the 60's and are still around.  Who is in
>the current avant garde and what are they doing? I am not trying to be
>a smart-ass here, I really want to know.

Take it from someone who completed a dissertation in 1975 called "Judging
the Avant-garde:  Originality and Value in the Arts," that the avant-garde
was getting pretty moribund even then, after a whole century of shocking
audiences with the new.  When I summarized my thesis to a graduate student
of literature in Freiburg several years ago, he said, "That was a long
time ago, right?" Even in the late '80's there was very little audience
for new music in Boston, judging by attendance at Musica Viva concerts.
Present Music in Milwaukee tends toward minimalism.  What is left of the
avant-garde, I think, is mostly what is considered "performance art," which
I assume would include works by Oliveros.  (I'd like to attend one of her
concerts, for old times sake.) You might want to look at a book I reviewed
on Classical Net, by Kyle Gann, American Music in the Twentieth Century,
at http://www.classical.net/music/books/reviews/002864655Xa.html for other
current composers who might fit the avant-garde description.

>If you want to tell me that Pauline Oliveros is having a concert of her
>guided improvisations and the ticket will be thirty bucks to participate,
>then fine.  I now know what I am in for and can participate at my will or
>peril.  If you are telling me that Ms. Oliveros has composed some new
>pieces for me to hear, and then I get to sit and listen to my heart-beat,
>then you have commited fraud and I am due redress.

Fine.  But you should know that in aesthetics circles, there used to be
serious discussion of the claim that art is whatever a representative of
the artworld chose to present as a candidate for appreciation.  This is not
something that currently interests me but, in the unlikely instance that
you would care to look into that, I could provide some references.

>Further, the random zipping and unzipping of a gig bag isn't [music]
>either.  If a composer can use extra-musical elements to create music
>(not let the performers just make up anything on the spot) then I am
>all for it.  One of my favorite examples of this would be Alvin Curran's
>"Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden." He incorporates wind chimes
>and the hum of high voltage powerlines to create a specific voice in the
>piece.  Bravo to him.  I doubt that any future generation can take any
>Reasonable definition of a musical composition and plug in case zipping
>and plunger scraping at random intervals and conclude that it's music....
>Sorry, but that's noise.  I have no objection to the avant garde.
>Stockhausen's "Stimmung" and Swayne's "Cry" as well as the above mentioned
>Curran piece are all faves of mine, but let's get real here.  These
>aren't new age pieces of schlock.  They took some time and thought and
>work on the part of the composer.  The examples in the review I quoted
>earlier couldn't possibly have.

Is it just the randomness that bothers you? You want control?
Suppose the zipper was written into the score and operated by one of the
percussionists? You say you accept "extra-musical elements" in music.  In
the extra-musical world, randomness is characteristic of a range of reality
from the movements of electrons to drive-by-shooting deaths.  Why shouldn't
music reflect that occasionally? (Are you sure it isn't really paying $30
for this that bothers you?)

Jim Tobin