Marcus Maroney wrote:

>Stirling Newberry wrote:
>
>>Benjamin is a hack.  He doesn't need worries about accessibility to
>>trip him up, he does that quite well on his own.  It is true there are
>>hacks that think they are better compsoers because they make music with
>>a particular kind of pleasing sonic surface.  But the over riding
>>problem is that they are hacks, and would be whether writing complex
>>poly-tuning/poly-rhythm/multi-ethinic serial music or I-IV-V rehashes.
>
>Having the pleasure to work with Benjamin this summer at Tanglewood,
>I have problems with this extremely off-base and generalized remark.
>Simply put, Benjamin is one of the most ingenious, genuine musicians I have
>ever gotten to work with.

Just maybe people are talking of different Benjamins?? There's Arthur
Benjamin (b. 1898; d. 1960) by whom I know only his "Jamaican Rhumba"
which I actually find quite nice, and whom I *thought* at first everybody
was talking about until I found out that there was also a George Benjamin
(b. 1960), by whom I don't recall having heard anything.

Hey, people were getting their Williamses confused just a short while ago.

Walter Meyer