From the Ives Studio || Kyle Gann

Senior Vice President of the Charles Ives Society Kyle Gann and author of the book Charles Ives's Concord: Essays After a Sonata joins us to speak on his relationship with and viewpoint on Ives' music and life.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Kyle Gann, born 1955 in Dallas, Texas, is a composer of both microtonal and conventionally- tuned music, and the author of seven books on American music. His magnum opus is Hyperchromatica (2015-17), a three-and-a-half-hour cycle of pieces for three retuned, computer-driven pianos in a 33-tone scale. His books include The Arithmetic of Listening: Tuning Theory and History for the Impractical Musician (University of Illinois Press, 2019); Charles Ives's Concord: Essays After a Sonata (University of Illinois Press, 2017); Robert Ashley (University of Illinois Press, 2012); No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33" (Yale University Press, 2010); Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice (University of California Press, 2006); American Music in the 20th Century (Schirmer Books, 1997); and The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (Cambridge University Press, 1995). Since 1997 he has taught at Bard College, where he is the Taylor Hawver and Frances Bortle Hawver Professor of Music, and from 1986 to 2005 he was the new-music critic for the Village Voice.
Gann studied composition with Ben Johnston, Morton Feldman, and Peter Gena, and about a fourth of his music is microtonal, using up to 58 pitches per octave. His other major works include two piano concertos; a symphony; Transcendental Sonnets, a 35-minute work for choir and orchestra commissioned by the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir; Custer and Sitting Bull, a microtonal, one-man music theater work he's performed more than 30 times from Brisbane to Moscow; and The Planets, commissioned by the Relache ensemble. In 2007, choreographer Mark Morris made a large-ensemble dance, Looky, from five of Gann's works for Disklavier (computerized player piano). His writings include more than 3000 articles for more than 45 publications, including scholarly articles on La Monte Young, Henry Cowell, John Cage, Edgard Varese, Ben Johnston, Mikel Rouse, John Luther Adams, Dennis Johnson, and other American composers. He was awarded the Peabody Award (2003), the Stagebill Award (1999) and the Deems-Taylor Award (2003) for his writings. His music is available on the New Albion, New World, Cold Blue, Lovely Music, Mode, Other Minds, Innova, Meyer Media, New Tone, Microfest, Vous Ne Revez Pas Encore, Brilliant Classics, and Monroe Street labels. In 2003, the American Music Center awarded Gann its Letter of Distinction, along with Steve Reich, Wayne Shorter, and George Crumb.
~~~~~~~~~~~
From the Ives Studio is a series of videos produced by the Charles Ives Society to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth in 1874. The videos, called commentaries, are shot at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which transferred Mr. Ives' studio from his summer home in West Redding CT to the Academy's headquarters in Manhattan in 2012. The entire studio has been painstakingly re-created at the Academy - all the bookshelves, desks, bulletin board, Ives' piano, all the photos, everything is placed at the Academy in the precise location it occupied in the Ives home in West Redding. In every month of 2024 the Society will post a new commentary by a scholar, writer or performer offering a very personal perspective on Ives. All videos and more information on Charles Ives can be accessed at charlesives.org
~~~~~~~~~~~
Filmed in the Charles Ives studio at the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Videographer / Editor: Gil Gilbert
Producer: Kathryn King / Kathryn King Media
Executive Producer: Kathryn King / Ives Society
#charlesives #ives #ivessocety #fromtheivesstudio #americancomposers #contemporarycomposers #ives150 #classicalmusic #classical #pianomusic #piano #newengland #concord

[@alexfetchina9416]

I could listen to Kyle Gann talk about ives all day! You guys should get Brodhead in to talk about the 4th next!

[@KeaneSouthard]

I didn't realize you had this affinity for Ives, Kyle! I too played the Alcotts and Thoreau in high school and college, but never was close to attempting to tackle Emerson or Hawthorne!