30 June 2002
Imminent MiniMax
Just a quick journal today - I just finished upgrading (finally) Erik Satie's Crystal Ball, which is now all snazzy, web-standards-friendly & has done away with the dreaded frame structure. Hey, I even updated some of the content...
Why this sudden flurry of activity, you ask? I've been asked to participate in the Mini[]Max festival - "a celebratory excusion into music and ideas about music beyond minimalism and the death of John Cage" - which is happening in Brisbane in the last week of July. I'm to be on a panel for the public forum hosted by Andrew Ford, which is going to look at the topic "Erik Satie, John Cage and the Minimalists", along with such eminent musicians as William Duckworth, Kyle Gann and Stephen Whittington. With the whole thing directed by Vincent Plush, I'm going to be fairly surrounded by luminaries! Hopefully some of the glow will rub off on me...
To that end, I've not only redesigned the site, but have also been reviewing the content & re-reading an assortment of sources, not least of which is Michael Nyman's indispensible "Experimental Music: Cage and beyond" which was finally reissued in its second edition in 1999. Even better the second time around.
So there's been a lot of music flying about lately - and a good thing too. I've started on a second movement to go with the flute & piano piece [mostly] moto perpetuo which I completed in April this year, and am currently researching texts on the themes of 'night' and 'nature' for a series of pieces for counter-tenor and piano. All of which is designed to keep me very much occupied over the next month or so!
