A Scene Without a Name: Indie Classical and American New Music in the Twenty-First Century
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A SCENE WITHOUT A NAME: INDIE CLASSICAL AND AMERICAN NEW MUSIC IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY William Robin A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music. Chapel Hill 2016 Approved by: Mark Katz Andrea Bohlman Mark Evan Bonds Tim Carter Benjamin Piekut © 2016 William Robin ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT WILLIAM ROBIN: A Scene Without a Name: Indie Classical and American New Music in the Twenty-First Century (Under the direction of Mark Katz) This dissertation represents the first study of indie classical, a significant subset of new music in the twenty-first century United States. The definition of “indie classical” has been a point of controversy among musicians: I thus examine the phrase in its multiplicity, providing a framework to understand its many meanings and practices. Indie classical offers a lens through which to study the social: the web of relations through which new music is structured, comprised in a heterogeneous array of actors, from composers and performers to journalists and publicists to blog posts and music venues. This study reveals the mechanisms through which a musical movement establishes itself in American cultural life; demonstrates how intermediaries such as performers, administrators, critics, and publicists fundamentally shape artistic discourses; and offers a model for analyzing institutional identity and understanding the essential role of institutions in new music. Three chapters each consider indie classical through a different set of practices: as a young generation of musicians that constructed itself in shared institutional backgrounds and performative acts of grouping; as an identity for New Amsterdam Records that powerfully shaped the record label’s music and its dissemination; and as a collaboration between the ensemble yMusic and Duke University that sheds light on the twenty-first century status of the new-music ensemble and the composition PhD program. iii Combining archival and digital research, reception history, interviews, and fieldwork, I uncover the flows of cultural and economic capital that govern how classical and new music operate in the present day. iv To the joy of family v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not have been possible without my research participants. I am immensely grateful to the sixty-two composers, performers, administrators, critics, and publicists with whom I spoke, both for the generous time that they gave me and for their efforts on behalf of new music. I am also deeply indebted to my academic mentors and colleagues. My advisor, Mark Katz, shepherded this dissertation from its origins, kept it (and me) on track, and offered discerning guidance and encouragement. Committee members Andrea Bohlman, Mark Evan Bonds, Benjamin Piekut, and Tim Carter provided supportive commentary, excellent advice, and necessary critique. I am thankful to professors Annegret Fauser, Philip Vandermeer, Severine Neff, and David Garcia for supervising my graduate work and inspiring many of the ideas that informed this dissertation. And this project was greatly inspired by the many enlightening discussions I had with my brilliant graduate colleagues at Carolina, including David VanderHamm, Gina Bombola, Chris Campo-Bowen, Christa Bentley, Ryan Ebright, Joshua Busman, Brian Jones, and Joanna Helms. I am grateful to UNC’s Royster Society of Fellows and the UNC Music Department for generously funding my graduate work. This project owes much to the longtime mentorship and friendship of Alex Ross. Finally, I am most appreciative for the incredible support of my parents, brother, and family and, of course, Coco, Igor, and Halie. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES AND EXAMPLES......................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 Assembling the Social.......................................................................................... 3 Prehistories ........................................................................................................... 6 Methodology and Sources.................................................................................. 20 Chapter Outline .................................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER 1: INDIE CLASSICAL AS GENERATION .............................................. 30 In the Berkshires ................................................................................................ 35 In the Academy and on the Road ....................................................................... 4 1 In the Club.......................................................................................................... 48 Online ................................................................................................................. 57 In the Cohort ...................................................................................................... 72 In the Press ......................................................................................................... 82 Among Other Generations ................................................................................. 88 CHAPTER 2: INDIE CLASSICAL AS INSTITUTION ............................................ 103 Origins.............................................................................................................. 104 The Rise and Fall of Indie Classical ................................................................ 113 Curation............................................................................................................ 138 Travel ............................................................................................................... 159 vii CHAPTER 3: INDIE CLASSICAL AS COLLABORATION ................................... 178 Multiple Identities ............................................................................................ 185 New-music ensembles ..................................................................................... 191 The University ................................................................................................. 198 Residency Activities ........................................................................................ 205 Balance Problems............................................................................................. 213 Polyrhythmic Hocketers................................................................................... 223 Collaborators .................................................................................................... 235 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 247 APPENDIX 1 ............................................................................................................... 256 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 265 viii LIST OF FIGURES AND EXAMPLES Figure 1: Screenshot taken 6 June 2016 from WQXR, “Vote: What Does the ‘New’ in ‘New Music’ Mean to You?” Q2 Music, 5 November 2015, http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/vote-define-new-new-music/. Figure 2: Screenshot taken 6 June 2016 from Alex Ambrose, “The Mix: 100 Composers Under 40,” NPR Music, 17 April 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/04/23/135473622/the-mix-100-composers-under-40. Figure 3: Screenshot taken from chat forum, WQXR, “Hear Color, See Sound,” The New Canon, Q2 Music, 16 May 2011, http://www.wqxr.org/story/133750-hear-color- see-sound/. Figure 4: Stephanie Berger, “Four Organs by Steve Reich,” NPR, 10 September 2014, http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2014/09/10/347392860/philip- glass-and-steve-reich-at-bam-together-again-yet-still-apart Figure 5: William Robin, photograph of Battle Trance, 25 January 2015. Figure 6: yMusic at Casbah, 5 November 2013. Photo credit: Duke Performances. Example 1: Ben Daniels, X, mm. 1–5. Printed with permission. Example 2: Daniels, X, mm. 33–40. Printed with permission. Example 3: D. Edward Davis, karst, mm. 5–11. Printed with permission. Example 4: Sarah Curzi, to form an idea of size or distance, mm. 1–4. Printed with permission. ix INTRODUCTION In a December 2007 press release, New Amsterdam Records proclaimed a bold mission: “To provide a haven for the young New York composers whose music slips through the cracks between genres.”1 Newly launched, this record label proposed to represent “music without walls, from a scene without a name.” But among the journalists and critics who received this notice, careful readers might have detected a puzzling inconsistency. The release announced the creation of an accompanying website in order to “foster a sense of connection among musicians and fans in this ‘indie classical’ scene.”2 Was it a scene without a name, or an indie classical scene? Such rhetorical ambiguity would become typical of New Amsterdam’s attempts to simultaneously transcend genre boundaries while positioning itself in the market. And what exactly is—or was—indie classical? This dissertation offers several answers to that question, examining the phrase’s many meanings and practices. More importantly, indie classical offers a framework for understanding the web of relations through which American contemporary music coheres. This