Connections

I think of our time, early twenty first century, as turbulent but pointing to a reflection of this turmoil in contemporary art or music is not so easy. The late sixties were very turbulent and the evidence is everywhere.

Alarm Will Sound, a new music group which started while the principals were students at the Eastman, returned last night to perform their newest work,”1969.” Three projection screens surrounded the 20 piece orchestra as they played arrangements of pieces originally performed by John and Yoko, Stockhausen, Luciano Berio and Leonard Bernstein, pieces that today clearly express those heady days. Images of Stavinsky, Father Berrigan, Hunter Thompson, Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights protesters, Kent State students and the soldiers in Vietnam cement the connection between the times and the art. I was thinking how Philip Guston’s art changed in that same period but that played no part in this program. These were our formative years so Peggi and I deserved the second row seats we took. Actually we arrived as the show was starting and someone was in our seats already so the ushers said we could sit anywhere we want.

I loved this presentation, short pieces of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass’, Lennon and Yoko’s “Unfinished Music”, the Beatles “Revolution Number 9” and Stockhausen’s “Set Sail for the Sun,” collaged together with dialog taken from the artist’s own words. The entire piece was centered around a connection that actually never took place, a meeting between Stockhausen and John Lennon. They did talk about it though.

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