This Music is Still New
Learn More about the History of New Music
Charles Amirkhanian
A good friend to Relache, Charles performed some of his sound text pieces also known as lexical music on a concert in Philadelphia in the 1980s. A leader in the world of "New Music," he co-directed the Telluride Institute's Composer to Composer festival in Telluride, Colorado, between 1988 and 1991. The Relache Ensemble performed on the festival stage in the Telluride Opera House. Amirkhanian is the executive director and artistic director of the Other Minds Music Festival in San Francisco.
On January 26, 2024 the Other Minds Archive went live. The Archive hosts thousands of audio and video recordings, rare photographs, and ephemera documenting the history of 20th and 21st century experimental music, including The Relache Collection.
New Music America
The Philadelphia festival took place October 2-11, 1987. Events were held at The Independence Seaport Museum, Memorial Hall in Fairmont Park, The Broad Street Subway underground, The Painted Bride Art Center and the Delaware River. A conference called "talking Music" took place at the Art Museum of Philadelphia and the Academy of Music. Installations were also installed near City Hall and in other locations around the city.
Download the PDF Catalog below.
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A collection on Substack -by Georges Dupuis.
Music America: The Secret History of Music of the Eighties
The New Music America festival was a nomadic composer's festival which changed cities each year. Anniversaries, descriptions, memorials, updates on alumni, works presented, opinions about all of them.
Settling Scores: A Life in the Margins of American Music
This book reveals the life of one who embraced change, and, in the process, gained political leverage and intellectual freedom. It is the story of Joseph Franklin and a legion of collaborators, both musicians and composers and it is a snapshot view of a slice of America's musical landscape in the final quarter of the 20th century, including a history of The Relâche Ensemble.
Music in Motion
Music in Motion was a six-year national residency program created in collaboration with the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL and designed to expand audiences for new American music through the creation of musical works in a broad context of public outreach activities.
Bang On A Can
Bang on a Can grew from a one-day New York-based Marathon concert (on Mother's Day in 1987 in a SoHo art gallery) to a multi-faceted performing arts organization with a broad range of year-round international activities. Relache participated on the festival several times and commissioned some works for Bang On A Can.. Critic Bernard Holland of The New York Times said this of a May 20 1990 performance. Of special interest was James Tenney's ''Critical Band.'' Featuring solo winds, accordion, electric keyboard and percussion and played here by Relache, Mr. Tenney's music explores at first the outer walls of a single pitch, creating the closest of close harmony through instruments that explore the sharpness and flatness of one tone and all the spaces in between.
Further Reading
Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice
by Kyle Gann
Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond
by Michael Nyman
New Sounds: A Listener's Guide to New Music
by John Schaefer
20/20: 20 New Sounds of the 20th Century
by William Duckworth
The Voice of New Music: New York City, 1972-1982
by Tom Johnson
American Music in the 20th Century
by Kyle Gann
All American Music Composition in the Late Twentieth Century
by John Rockwell