Compositions 1960

To Feed a Piano

I was introduced to the music of La Monte Young while reading “Words Without Music”[1] by Phillip Glass and was struck by his account of La Monte Young’s premiere of “Piece for David Tudor #1” in which a piano is fed with hay and a bucket of water. Immediately after reading this account, I was determined to give a performance of this piece. It was so strange, and so intimate that I felt it would be perfect for the New Century improv! Ensemble. While searching for performance materials for this piece, I came across the other works that comprised Young’s “Compositions 1960” and, after a great deal of searching, decided to compile the text scores that make these works into a single, readily accessible document for the ensemble to use. Some of these works proved difficult to find, and even after consulting the leading expert on La Monte Young was unable to locate a few of the pieces in this collection. After compiling all the Compositions 1960, I had to find the right circumstance for the pieces to be performed under. I decided early on that Spring 2018 would focus on new compositions that included found sounds, and I decided that this would provide great counterpoint to the La Monte Young works. With the target of a May concert, we sat down for rehearsal in early March to decide which of these works we would like to do. I allowed everyone to voice opinion, and we ended up with five selections from “Compositions 1960” to be performed during the concert. The next challenge was how best to present the works.