Pwyll ap SiônGann KylePotter Keith - The Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music

This is an extremely welcome addition to the growing literature on minimalist and postminimalist music. Its diversity of approaches, variety of topics and perspectives, and varied array of authors successfully quashes any reservations that might be made about a book with such a title. The Introduction provides a splendid summary of the historical and contemporary situation whilst demonstrating awareness of (and successfully tackling) the many complications, complexities and ambiguities of the term minimalism. It serves as an excellent introduction to the book but is also an intelligent and engaging exploration of the core and tangential repertoire. The book adds up to a fascinating study and will be much valued by non-academic and academic readers both within and outside of the academy alike.

Philip Thomas, University of Huddersfield, UK

The Ashgate Research Companions are designed to offer scholars and graduate students a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research in a particular area. The companions editors bring together a team of respected and experienced experts to write chapters on the key issues in their speciality, providing a comprehensive reference to the field.

Edited by

KEITH POTTER

Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

KYLE GANN

Bard College, USA

PWYLL AP SIN

Bangor University Wales, UK

ASHGATE

Keith Potter, Kyle Gann, Pwyll ap Sin and the contributors 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Keith Potter, Kyle Gann and Pwyll ap Sin have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.

Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited
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England

Ashgate Publishing Company
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www.ashgate.com

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
The Ashgate research companion to minimalist and postminimalist music / edited by Keith
Potter, Kyle Gann and Pwyll ap Sin.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-3549-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4094-3550-1 (ebook)

ISBN 978-1-4724-0278-3 (epub) 1. Music20th centuryHistory and criticism. 2. Music
21st centuryHistory and criticism. 3. Minimal musicHistory and criticism.
I. Potter, Keith, editor. II. Gann, Kyle, editor. III. ap Sin, Pwyll, editor.

ML197.A785 2013

780.904dc23

2013004624

ISBN 9781409435495 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409435501 (ebk-PDF)
ISBN 9781472402783 (ebk-ePUB)

In Memoriam

William Duckworth (1943-2012) and Steve Martland (1959-2013)

they found the line between minimalism and postminimalism,
and danced across it

Virginia Anderson specializes in British experimental indeterminacy, minimalism and alternative notation. She has written articles and chapters for a number of journals and books on experimental organology, time and listening, linguistics, language and politics. She is on the editorial board of the French journal Tacet and is editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of Experimental Music Studies. She has published articles, reviews and obituaries in newspapers and magazines; has given festival talks, podcasts, blog and radio appearances; and has recorded as a clarinettist. She runs the Experimental Music Catalogue with Christopher Hobbs.

Pwyll ap Sin is Senior Lecturer at Bangor University, Wales. His monograph on The Music of Michael Nyman was published by Ashgate Publishing in 2007. He has recently edited Michael Nymans collected writings for publication. As composer, he has written for bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, the European Union Chamber Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He writes regularly for Gramophone magazine.

Maarten Beirens is Lecturer in Musicology at the University of Amsterdam. He studied at the Catholic University of Leuven where his PhD thesis was on European minimal music, then was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship of the FWO Flanders to conduct research on the music of Steve Reich. He has published articles on Michael Finnissy, Karel Goeyvaerts, Louis Andriessen and Michael Nyman in Tempo, The Belgian Review of Musicology, The Dutch Journal of Music Theory, The Journal of the Royal Dutch Society for Music History, and New Grove Online entries on Wim Mertens and Jean-Paul Dessy. He is also music critic for the Flemish newspaper De Standaard.

Jonathan W. Bernard is Professor of Music Theory at the School of Music, University of Washington. His articles on minimalism, popular music, the history of theory and the history of twentieth-century compositional practice, and on the music of Varse, Bartk, Carter, Messiaen, Ligeti, Zappa and Feldman, have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and anthologies. His books, as author and editor, include The Music of Edgard Varse (Yale University Press, 1987), Elliott Carter: collected essays and lectures, 19371995 (University of Rochester Press, 1997), Music Theory in Concept and Practice (University of Rochester Press, 1997) and Jol-Franois Durand in the Mirror Land (University of Washington Press, 2005).

Sarah Cahill is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory. When she was 17, John Adams wrote his piece China Gates for her, and she has since commissioned and performed a number of minimalist and postminimalist works by Terry Riley, Julia Wolfe, Ingram Marshall, Kyle Gann, Frederic Rzewski, Yoko Ono, Evan Ziporyn and many others. She also focuses on the early twentieth-century American experimental music of Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford and Dane Rudhyar. She has recorded for the New Albion, New World, Other Minds and Tzadik labels. Her most recent recording features Mamoru Fujiedas Patterns of Plants.

David Dies is a composer and theorist. His music has been performed worldwide, including New York, London, Chicago, Lima and Lenox, Massachusetts. A solo album of his music featuring Mimmi Fulmer, Judith Kellock, Jakub Omsky, Christopher Taylor and Marc Vallon was released on the Albany label in 2012. His research areas include the music of Arvo Prt, music perception and composition pedagogy. He lectures at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh.

Rebecca M. Doran Eaton is Lecturer in Music Theory and Aural Skills at Texas State University in San Marcos. She has presented her research at the Third International Conference on Minimalist Music, the 11th International Congress on Musical Signification and the 38th Annual Society for American Music Conference. Her research has been supported in part by an Albert B. Alkek Library research grant.

Tristian Evans is Lecturer in Music at Bangor University, Wales. He is also research coordinator for the Companion to Welsh Music project, funded by the Welsh Federal College. He completed BMus, MA and doctoral studies at Bangor University between 2002 and 2010, receiving support from the AHRCs doctoral programme. His doctoral thesis focused on postminimalism and multimedia, particularly Philip Glasss film music. He is currently completing a book for Ashgate Publishing entitled