Steve Reich : Music for 18 musicians (question)

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

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

Not a hill I'd die on but, from all accounts I've come across, the way Britten handled the urges that troubled him was pretty brave and admirable.

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 ...

OK I mean the world of modern orchestral/classical/notated music then. (And why do they call is 'dance music'? You can dance to all sorts of music???!!!!)

Hey, Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer.

lol in a piece i was writing earlier in the year i used the phrase "composed music and chart pop" and nearly got into a fight with the editor bcz he said "but isn't pop music also composed?"

"yes you're right but also literally everyone will know what i'm getting at here"

(i didn't say this and i changed it to something even more inadequate which didn't seem to bother him so everyone's the loser really)

I like "notated music". It does mean that you include show tunes and exclude electroacoustic music on fixed media, which seems fine to me.

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

― Boring, Maryland, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Lol no way

The person with the downright worst politucs I am mutuals with and tolerate is an avant-garde pianist and teacher whom I've known on a couple of classical internet message boards I've been on. He was pro Change UK (non-Brits wondering as to what that is please don't bother).

Mutuals with on twitter...he is quite good on music, just utter thrash on anything else.

Cancel pianos.

Alexander Hawkins is a comrade ftr

what about rzewski?

Elitist cis white man who appropriated the struggles of POC.

ilx always circles back to cardew to in the end :D

serves imperialism iirc

i guess there's no way getting round the fact that 99% of people in this world (REAL ENGLAND being thisworld) who can afford either
a) a piano b) to be a composer
are going to be tory as fuck.

/from tory as fuck backgrounds and so prone for backsliding

plenty of poor as fuck council house families had a rented Steinway in the living room with a 50p slot on the side!

Yeah wtf

uh, the cost of music school and "being a composer" vastly exceeds the cost of a piano ...