Studies in the Bowed Disc

Sun, November 3, 2024 — 7:00 PM

Location

Dream House
275 Church Street
New York, New York 10013
Directions

About this event

CONCERT SERIES
IN CELEBRATION OF

LA MONTE YOUNG'S 89TH BIRTHDAY YEAR
THE MELA DREAM HOUSE'S 31ST YEAR

MELA is pleased to announce a series of four concerts to celebrate both the 89th birthday of La Monte Young (born 14 October 1935) and the 31th consecutive year of the MELA Dream House sound and light environment at 275 Church Street, New York City. 89 and 31 are both prime numbers, and prime numbers (as manifested in the musical domain by numerically expressible frequency relationships among two or more “well-tuned” sounds) have been an elemental source of inspiration for Young throughout his career as a composer. 

Season passes are available for $131 and include admission to each concert series. Purchase season passes HERE.
 
The music on the four programs emerges from the historically crucial period during the middle of the twentieth century (coinciding with La Monte Young’s years as a student and budding master) when certain like-minded musicians—trained in the Western tradition but working under a novel aesthetic aegis famously expressed by Edgard Varèse as “the liberation of sound” and by John Cage as “letting sounds be themselves”—first began to move beyond the limits of a fixed-pitch scale system, to recognize and explore the musical properties inherent in everyday sounds (in other words, "noises”). The series also celebrates the spirit of shared purpose and collaboration in that ecosystem, made tangible in the fruits of creative relationships that are sometimes mentor-to-student (as between Richard Maxfield and La Monte Young or between Young and Jung Hee Choi) and sometimes peer-to-peer (as with Young and his fellow avant-garde travelers Robert Morris, and Walter De Maria). By no means is that history over, however: While each concert is an “event” in the conventional sense, we can—as we contemplate the contributions, influences, reactions, and counter-reactions of these independent artists at independent moments in time—gain a palpable sense of history as a living organism, unfolding over periods of years or even decades.
 

Program 1

La Monte Young
Studies in the Bowed Disc (1963)
on
Robert Morris
Gong for La Monte Young
Performed by La Monte Young, Charles Curtis and Jung Hee Choi,
using the gong designed and constructed by Robert Morris (1963)
November 2 and 3, 2024 at 7 pm

MELA Foundation Dream House
275 Church Street, 3rd Floor, New York

In Program 1, that kind of history will be present both in the person of composer-performer La Monte Young and in the metallic body of the original four-foot diameter gong designed and built for Young by artist Robert Morris (1931-2018). Young wrote Studies in the Bowed Disc in 1963 specifically for this instrument, and the work’s many iterations since then include the recording 23 VIII 64 2:50:45-3:11 AM The Volga Delta (published originally as side B of the celebrated “Black Record” and recently re-released on the Superior Viaduct label), which Young and Marian Zazeela performed together using double-bass bows to set the vibrations in motion. The latest 2024 realization will be a trio, with Young, Charles Curtis and Jung Hee Choi commanding the three bows.

These concerts make up Program 1 in a four-part celebratory concert series. For a complete listing of all programs, see MELA's website. Season passes are available for $131 and include admission to all concerts. Direct links to tickets for the additional programs are below.

Program 2
Jung Hee Choi
Composition
in the Style of
La Monte Young's
1960 Sustained Friction Sounds (2000)
November 10, 2024 at 7 pm

Tickets →

• • •

Program 3
Richard Maxfield
Perspectives
for
La Monte Young (1961-62)
December 12 and 13, 2024 at 7 pm

Tickets →

• • •

Program 4
Jung Hee Choi
Seven
on
Walter De Maria
Instrument for
La Monte Young (1966)
December 20 and 21, 2024 at 7 pm

Tickets →

 

MELA's programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and generous contributions from individuals and MELA Members.

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