Steve Reich : Music for 18 musicians (question)

Is this the part where I'm allowed to say I never liked him as much as everyone else anyway? (This is true btw.)

This is a good take.

Steve Reich is probably one of the most over performed composers of all time. Less Reich only means more obscure stuff getting a foot in = win win win.

— Fielding Hope (@fieldinghope) September 8, 2020

otm

Piece doesn’t mention that Come Out was created as a benefit to aid the Harlem Six, this Pitchfork piece has a bit more on the background to its creation. https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9886-blood-and-echoes-the-story-of-come-out-steve-reichs-civil-rights-era-masterpiece/

Makes more recent comments all the more dispiriting.

Not the first Jew of his generation to go from civil rights ally to trump supporter.

As long we get to keep Riley I'm fine

the trump thing feels a bit unsubstantiated

If not a full Trump supporter. A Reagan Democrat. I speak from close first hand knowledge of the political evolution of the New York metropolitan area boomer Jew.

Reich was always my fave and I backed him in any number of Reich vs Glass arguments but recent viewings if interviews and documentaries definitely has me preferring to hang out with Glass, should I be invited.

Riley of course I’m unimpeachable and just shy of being a deity himself.

"If not a full Trump supporter"?

Makes more recent comments all the more dispiriting.

What are the more recent comments? The Wilmer quote is her memory of something he allegedly said about 50 years ago, in the "civil rights ally" days, right? The quote from Trump's book isn't even based on hearing his music.

Tbf I've never seen a photo of him without a cap.

"One of the most over performed composers of all time" is almost jawdropping tbh. You've seen a symphony calendar before?

It may be not be true, but it is truthy.

not referring to the quote in his book but to someone mentioning rumors that he supported or voted trump.

It just seems very nebulous.

Rumoured to be a Trump supporter too, to top it all off.

― mirostones, Tuesday, September 8, 2020 5:13 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

source?

Pretty sure the 'source' is Trump's ghostwriter and Twitter telephone.

Twitter's having a field day with this I see. Almost responded to a comment about the problematic nature of working with the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which is islamaphobic, thus he is. Starting writing about the Cave, but decided to not step into that minefield. Don't know why I'd do the same here.

Literally the only thing I could find about him being a Trump supporter was one totally rando accusation based on literally nothing (at least last I checked) on that Twitter thread. I find no other indication or evidence that that is the case. Could it be true? I mean, I guess. He is in his 80s after all. However, I doubt it. The idea that he has been a secret right winger, let alone racist, is I suppose possible, but seems ... unlikely? Kind of reminds me of when Wendy & Lisa accused Trevor Horn of being a virulent homophobe, which was a shock but also was the beginning and end of the claim.

Rumoured to be a Trump supporter too, to top it all off.

― mirostones, Tuesday, September 8, 2020 5:13 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

source?

― trapped out the barndo (crüt), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 03:49 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well, there is this:

Not surprising considering some pro-Trump comments he made at PASIC a few years back and—OH YEAH AN ENTIRE CAREER BUILT ON CULTURAL APPROPRIATION https://t.co/2F1W1TFumy

— Annika Socolofsky, PhD (@aksocolofsky) September 8, 2020

She seems to imply she was an eyewitness? If so, that could have credibility. But who knows.

Whole lotta hearsay goin on. Again, could all be true, but this is a guy who has been in the public eye for decades. To read the person you just posted literally say "we should outright cancel the guy" ...

if i'm pom's "specific ilx user who could expand on this anecdote" i can't really -- except to say that the screenshotted quote is from wilmer's conversation onstage with richard williams* at birkbeck in 2015, tho as budo jeru the story is also told in her book AS SERIOUS AS YOUR LIFE, with SR very mildly anonymised (p.12, 1977 quartet edn). the one thing i wd stress is that wilmer's memory is legendary and her understanding of the social context in the moment (ghana, new york, london in the early 70s) as solid as yr likely to get. she's also a super-careful journalist. so i fully trust her version of events and her reading of their import. but as ppl are saying, this was 50-odd years ago (drumming is dated 1971), and VW was very much talking abt the past and what things meant then -- so the mapping onto current agitations is maybe not entirely straightforward (and wasn't what wilmer was doing at the conference).

*(the guardian piece that kicked this all off said i was her interviewer, but no, it's richard williams)

the essay cited in the following tweet expands on (and "complicates", as academics like to say) SR's relationship to the material in the found-voice tapeworks (mostly abt a project and an SR work i knew nothing of till all this beef went viral yesterday):

And for some more interesting reading on Reich's politics:https://t.co/xzpgtAXLIQ

— Pierce Gradone (@piercegradone) September 8, 2020

essay possibly still downloadable for free here:

Sharing is caringhttps://t.co/19tm05UUsW

— ɥsɐʞɐɹdɯɐɹ ɥsəʌɹɐs (@sarvesh__) September 8, 2020

(sumanth gopinath is also the editor of an OUP anthology: RETHINKING REICH) -- which looks interesting once you get past the cut-and-paste title

Almost responded to a comment about the problematic nature of working with the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which is islamaphobic, thus he is.

I’m probably misinterpreting this, but i thought the Daniel Pearl foundation actively supports dialogue between Muslims and Jews, so find it a bit of a leap that he’d be islamophobic for working with them.

Thanks, mark, that's exactly the expansion I was angling for.

I have a hunch anyone that would immediately call for the "cancellation" of Steve Reich based on that 50 year old anecdote might also find the Daniel Pearl Foundation problematic simply for supporting Israel's right to exist and/or anti-BDS stance.

OH YEAH AN ENTIRE CAREER BUILT ON CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

rmde

Steve Reich is the Led Zeppelin of American minimalism.

Steve Reich stole Music for 18 Musicians from Spirit.

The world of modern composition is almost certainly full of people with terrible views and would prefer to just not look under the bonnet in the first place but obviously this blowing up big style might help Mark sell loads more books so it's six of one really.

The world of modern composition is almost certainly full of people with terrible views

Are we talking about 80 year-olds such as Reich or…?

if the modern composer in question sues me i will call ilx as a character witness

Err, 83 year-olds.

xp

The world of modern composition is almost certainly full of people with terrible views and would prefer to just not look under the bonnet in the first place but obviously this blowing up big style might help Mark sell loads more books so it's six of one really.

otm

Are we talking about 80 year-olds such as Reich or…?

The discipline is filled with rockists iirc.

Seriously, even if the anecdote is true, I'm not sure it's compelling evidence of Reich being a person with terrible views. As far as his activity on record from the time is concerned, he was clearly an activist for civil rights and justice. It's a weird comment but I don't really know what to make of it and it's older than I am. I'm p sure we'd find as bad or worse if we went through e.g. the Forced Exposure or noise board archives.

sund4r the "watermelon" paper i linked is i think v good on how SR was changing in approach and attitude (and possibly politics) between the mid-60s (the full-on "civil rights ally" period) and the early 70s, when he had quit the west coast for the east i think, and a specific avant-garde milieu, and was very much reconfiguring his approach to his composition -- residually still an ally no doubt but with other professional concerns now

as for the "anecdote" as everyone keeps calling it, it's the report of an encounter that consisted of more than just two sentences (this is tbf clearer in the 1977 book), and the reporter is channeling how it felt to her in context as well as the actual words used -- as i say, she is someone i trust to do this accurately

But how can she, after 50 years, without paraphrasing?

Anyway, xpost, cancel Steve Albini.

Emancipating dissonance? Talk about white privilege.

xxp P sure it meets the definition of an anecdote but downloading the 'watermelon' paper.

Anyway, none of this should come as a surprise now that we've established that music theory is racist.

https://youtu.be/Kr3quGh7pJA

downloading the 'watermelon' paper.

But I mean, if what it boils down to is "still an ally but with other professional concerns", that doesn't sound cancel-worthy.

difft ppl boil it down to difft things based on difft evidence is how i boil it down to an extent

Wuorinen so far was the only person of that generation who somewhat openly admitted to being on the Trump train.

it's gonna boil
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The world of modern composition is almost certainly full of people with terrible views

how exactly do you define "the world of modern composition" ?? This phrase already seems kinda problematic because obviously it/you don't mean to include all non-improvised music of the 20th century ...

"The world of modern composition is almost certainly full of people with terrible views"

lol, was looking up a Benjamin Britten thread earlier and it consists of two posts about paedophilia!

the world [insert anything whatever here] is almost certainly full of ppl with terrible views

The world of ILM excepted, of course.

i couldn't possibly comment