Kyle Gann has written a series of radio shows on American music for Minnesota Public Radio, called The American Mavericks: you can find the web page here!
Discs, books, and publications:
Discography:
"Gann brilliantly deconstructs familiar genres like ragtime, boogie-woogie, bop and Tex-Mex and reassembles the pieces in ways that are both achingly familiar and completely new, popular and avant garde, steady and revolutionary, experimental and polished. The combination of microtonal tunings and populist roots gives his music a sound that is simultaneously fresh and nostalgic and completely unlike that of anyone else writing today." - Jerry Bowles, Sequenza21
"Fans of Frank Zappa's Jazz From Hell should check this acoustic masterpiece out. - Art Gumm, Downtown Music Gallery Newsletter
"In one 25-minute exhalation, Long Night never strays very far from its quiet, resigned opening. As it progresses, single notes gather together and build into entrancing patterns. Brief lines begin only to be folded into others, then reappear on another of the three pianos. Many of these phrases bounce slowly from piano to piano, slightly out of synch with each other and overlapping like little, cushioned waves. Even when he starts up a section with more of a pulse it's way over on the subtle side. By the end, all of these slow-moving lines are crossing over, above and around each other, making a soothing mix. Bay-Area pianist and new-music heroine Sarah Cahill gives a thoughtful reading to the piece, never hurrying, always relaxed and placing the notes into the air ever so slightly, often sounding like she's off in Keith Jarrett-improvisation-land. The gorgeous sonics make clear which piano she's playing, and if this is a long night, let it go on and on." -- Marc Geelhoed, TimeOut Chicago
"Pianist Susan Cahill performs the three looping parts of the drifting, 25-minute Long Night (for three pianos) by composer, author, and critic Kyle Gann with elegance and control. Ruminative and impressionistic, the pianos sometimes play independently and at other times synchronize with one another. Heavily influenced during the compositional process by German philosopher Martin Heidegger, specifically his rejection of the idea of personality as a unified, linear consciousness, Gann's work likewise presents a series of moods in 'overlapping discontinuity.' Occasionally the pianos cluster into dense pools while at other times singular lines briefly rise to the surface." -- Ron Schepper, Signal to Noise (summer '05), Textura (May '05)
"I played this piece maybe five times in a row last evening. Every time when it was over, I turned it back on . . . the gentle sounds just filled the early evening beautifully. The sun was disappearing and the night was slowly coming, with a nice spring air filling and mixing the room with this music." -- Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly (The Netherlands)
"Even when the ambience seems to be delicate on the first listen, that's only an illusion. There is depth and gorgeous hidden treasures . . . each piano is heard in crystalline fashion. The repetitiveness of the piece itself is hauntingly mesmerizing and draws you in immediately." -- Tom Sekowski, Gaz-Eta (Poland)
"Pianist Sarah Cahill plays all the three different overlapping manual loops that form the tranquilising architecture of Kyle Gann's "Long Night". Although the music is absolutely not intricate (it works wonders as a source of relaxation while you're immersed in different activities wasn't that the very concept of "ambient music"?), the cross between the casual intersections of modulating chords and the Satiesque peacefulness of Cahill's keyboard painting, with its beautiful natural resonance, is complex enough to substantiate the creative effort and imagination Gann has put into the work. The thin air moves in and around this mature evocation of events definitively entrapped in a past from where they can no longer return; just being able to have a peek at them through this ancient looking glass brings long nights of aural fascination. -- Massimo Ricci, Paris Transatlantic
"Because just intonation sounds out of tune to listeners accustomed to Western musical practice, they may need a few minutes to adjust their ears to Gann's tunings. But the effort is worth it - beneath the piece's shiny surfaces is real gold, the kind that makes us want to listen again and again.... Surely those are triads, and yet not quite major or minor ones, but somewhere in between. Rhythms that initially seem to be quarter and eighth notes refuse to come out squarely on the beat. The pulse seems steady at first, until you try to tap. Do we have one foot too many or too few?.... Custer and Sitting Bull... is as disturbing as any musical-political work in recent memory, for its riveting emotional portrayal of Custer, Sitting Bull, and the events surrounding them." Noah Creshevsky, Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter
"Here we have a wonderfully inventive, two-movement work with a grand architecture, sweeping gestures, and a direct appeal to a tradition.... The piece incorporates fiendishly difficult rhythmic relations derived from the music of Conlon Nancarrow, a poetic ambience related to the Southwestern 'desert music' of Peter Garland, and a harmonic practice that is able to accept Native American hymn tunes (as Ives did the Protestant music of his upbringing; this sonata's second movement made me think of 'Thoreau' from the Concord Sonata).... The tornado of a 41/16 passacaglia that ends the first movement is a wonder to behold.... a major contribution to the piano literature." Robert Carl, Fanfare Magazine
"Kyle Gann's Native American homage 'Hesapa ki Lakhota ki Thawapi' ('The Black Hills Belong to the Sioux') is almost too gorgeous for its own good, but is saved from new age vacuousness by an underlying sadness and an intriguing structural complexity...." Bill Tilland, Option
Stuff you missed - or maybe heard!:
The Seattle Chamber Players premiered Gann's Minute Symphony at the Costa Rican Cultural Center in San Jose on May 27, 2005.
Gann presented his Custer and Sitting Bull, along with four Disklavier works, at the University of Costa Rica, San Jose, on May 25, 2005.
On May 5, 2003, Gann was honored with the American Music Center's Letter of Distinction, along with Steve Reich, George Crumb, and Wayne Shorter.
Kyle Gann performed his Custer and Sitting Bull at the Cornish Institute in Seattle on March 29, 2003. The New Performance Ensemble also played his chamber work Hovenweep.
Gann's and Sichel's opera Cinderella's Bad Magic was performed at Olin Auditorium, Bard College, on February 26, 2003. The event was followed by a panel with Gann, Sichel, choregrapher Jean Churchill, flutist Pat Spencer, and conductor James Bagwell.
Gann spoke on a panel celebrating Muzio Clementi's 250th birthday (a little late) at the City University of New York on February 1, 2003.
Gann's and Sichel's opera Cinderella's Bad Magic was performed at the Beloselski-Belozerski Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Nov. 1, 2002, along with Gann's performance of Custer and Sitting Bull. Prior to the performance, on Oct. 28, Gann spoke on American new music at the Pro Arte Institute in St. Petersburg.
A new opera by librettist Jeffrey Sichel and Kyle Gann, Cinderella's Bad Magic, was premiered on the Alternativa festival at the Dom Foundation in Moscow on October 26, 2002. Also on the program, Gann perform his Custer and Sitting Bull. A few days previous, on Oct. 23, Gann spoke on American new music at the Moscow Coservatory.
Gann's Transcendental Sonnets for chorus and orchestra was performed at the East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis by the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir , Eric Stark conducting, on October 19, 2002. Also on the program was Morton Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna. Said Tom Aldridge in Nuvo magazine, "Sonnets is unarguably resonating and is, at minimum, a candidate to survive the public non-acceptance of much contemporary music."
Gann was a featured composer at "Mini to the Max: A Celebratory Investigation of Post-Minimalism in Music & Text" at the Brisbane Powerhouse in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. On August 2 and3, 2002, the festival presented Gann's New World Coming and Custer and Sitting Bull, along with his complete eight works for Disklavier.
Gann performed on the Electric Words festival in San Francisisco on June 20 and 22, 2002; and in between he presented his Disklavier works at the Chapel of the Chimes, on June 21.
On May 17, 2002, pianist Lois Svard played two Gann works, Time Does Not Exist and Private Dances, at the Faust-Harrison piano series in New York City. 205 West 58th Street (near 7th Avenue), at 8 PM.
John Kennedy conducted Gann's orchestra work The Disappearance of All Holy Things from this Once So Promising World at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 25, 2002.
April 17, 2002: Bassoonist Tamara Plummer and the Da Capo ensemble played Gann's New World Coming at Olin Auditorium, Bard College.
Gann performed Custer and Sitting Bull at Dartmouth University on April 3, 2002.
Gann performed a concert of his works at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, North Carolina, on March 15, 2002, including Custer and Sitting Bull, So Many Little Dyings, Time Does Not Exist (John Cheek played this on piano), and several Disklavier works, including the world premiere of Tango da Chiesa.
August 5, 2001: New music piano virtuoso Sarah Cahill played Gann's Time Does Not Exist and Private Dances at Old First Church in San Francisco.
May 17, 2001: pianist Marc Peloquin performed Gann's Time Does Not Exist and give the world premiere of his The Question Answer'd, at the Bloomingdale School of Music in New York. See Marc Peloquin's site.
The Relache Ensemble performed Gann's Astrological Studies, Book II on May 11, 2001, at The Ethical Socity Building; on May 12 at The Instute of Contemporary Art; and May 13 at the Settlement Music School, all in Philadelphia.
On May 5, 2001, clarinetist Mieghan Stoop and pianist Bari Mort performed Gann's "Last Chance" Sonata at the Hudson Valley Composers festival in Hudson, New York.
Pianist Emily Manzo gave the New York premiere of Gann's Time Does Not Exist at Christ and St. Stephen's Church on 69th street betweenBroadway and Columbus on April 23rd, 2001. The program also included works by Cage, Gubaidulina, Brian Chase. and John Zorn.
At 8 PM on April 11, 2001, the Da Capo ensemble performed Gann's Hovenweep and two movements of the "Last Chance" Sonata at Olin Auditorium, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, along with works by Joan Tower and Ehren Hansen.
On April 7, Gann performed Custer and Sitting Bull at MicroFest, a festival of microtonal music at Harvey Mudd College in Los Angeles.
March 26-26, 2001: Kyle Gann was one of the featured composers at a Composers Symposium at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. One March 26 he presented three works for Disklavier, including the world premiere of Bud Ran Back Out; and on March 28 he performed Custer and Sitting Bull. He gave a discussion of his music on March 28.
March 1-13: Kyle Gann gave a lecture series at Goldsmiths College in London. He also lectured on Nancarrow's music and his own at Dartington College, Totnes, England on March 2.
February 3, 2001: The St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble premiered Gann's Hovenweep at 2 PM at the Dia Center for the Arts, 548 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th avenues, in New York City.
December 6, 7, 8, 9, 2000: Gann performed his Custer and Sitting Bull at the Kitchen in New York City, in a theatrical version directed by Jeffrey Sichel, with visual and lighting design by Andrew Hill.
On December 1, 2000, pianist Emily Manzo played Gann's Time Does Not Exist at Oberlin College.
On November 17, 2000, the notable new-music pianist Tomoko Yazawa performed Gann's Private Dances at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, Brooklyn.
On November 16, 2000, Gann presented an evening of his music at Olin Auditorium, Bard College. The superb West Coast pianist Sarah Cahill premiered Gann's Time Does Not Exist and Private Dances, Sara Phillips performed his "Last Chance" Sonata, and Gann premiered Texarkana and Nude Rolling Down an Escalator for Disklavier, as well as playing his Windows to Infinity.
On November 11, 2000, Gann performed "Sitting Bull: Do You Know Who I Am?" from his Custer and Sitting Bull at the American Festival of Microtonal Music in New York City, at the Quaker Meeting Hall.
Kyle Gann participated in a panel, "Death or Transfiguration: The Future of Publishing," at Toronto 2000, the massive conference of musicological organizations in Toronto on November 2, 2000.
Kyle Gann was one of the featured composers on the Storm King Music Festival, June 30, July 1, and July 6, 2000; the July 6 performance featured his Custer and Sitting Bull, along with music by Joshua Fried. Check it out here.
On May 11, 2000, Gann presented a paper, "Mikel Rouse and the Simulation of Normalcy," at a postmodernism conference at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Clarinetist Sara Phillips and pianist Bari Mort premiered Gann's "Last Chance" Sonata on May 4, 2000, at Blum Hall, Bard College. Phillips is the soloist for whom the piece was written.
Gann performed his Custer and Sitting Bull at the Cornish Institute in Seattle, April 15, 2000. He shared the program with Trimpin, who played works by Conlon Nancarrow, with commentary by Gann.
Kyle Gann gave a concert of his electronic music, including Custer and Sitting Bull, at the Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT) in San Francisco on April 13, 2000.
On April 8, Kyle Gann spoke on "Downtown Music: An Ancient Tradition" at the conference of the Music Theory Society of New York State, at NYU.
From November 8th to 12th, 1999, Kyle Gann visited Oberlin Conservatory (his alma mater) for a week-long residency, during which he gave three lectures and a concert that included Custer and Sitting Bull and other electronic works.
Kyle Gann was interviewed by John Schaefer on WNYC as part of the New Sounds program on June 24, 1999.
Kyle Gann gave a concert of his music at 8 PM on February 24, 1999, at Olin Auditorium, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. The program included Custer and Sitting Bull, How Miraculous Things Happen, Arcana XVI, Desert Sonata played by Lois Svard, and world premieres of two works for Disklavier, Despotic Waltz and The Waiting.
Kyle Gann premiered his 35-minute electronic vocal work, Custer and Sitting Bull, at 8 PM on February 22 at the Ahmanson theater of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, in a concert sponsored by CalArts, the Colburn School of the Performing Arts, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The concert was part of the 1999 CalArts Festival, entitled "Gradual Processes: Antecedents, Crossovers, and Consequences of Minimalism in American Music." Other composers on the program were James Tenney, Christian Wolff, and David Tudor.
Pianist Genevieve Lee performed two works by Kyle Gann, Fractured Paradise and How Miraculous Things Happen, at Pomona College's Lyman Hall, Claremont, California, at 8:00 on February 13, 1999.
Kyle Gann's new work for orchestra, The Disappearance of All Holy Things from this Once So Promising World, received three performances by the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Luis Garcia-Renart:
On May 30, 1998, the Relache ensemble played Kyle Gann's complete Astrological Studies at the Ethical Society Building in Philadelphia, 1906 South Rittenhouse Square.
February 19, 1998: Kyle Gann played a half-concert of his music along with Bernadette Speach, on the "Interpretations" series, Merkin Hall, New York City.
July13, 1997: Essential Music played Gann's Snake Dance No. 2 as part of their three-day Tenth Anniversary festival at The Kitchen. Ironically, the event elicited Gann's first review ever in the Village Voice
May 23, 1997: Kyle Gann played a new work, How Miraculous Things Happen, at the American Festival of Microtonal Music. Frederick Loewe Theatre at New York University, 35 West 4th Street, New York City.
March 15, 1997: Kyle Gann lectured on "Henry Cowell's Rhythmic Theory as a Living Language" as part of Henry Cowell's Musical Worlds: 1997 Centennial Festival, Tishman Auditorium at The New School
February 19, 1997: Chicago Spiral played by the Hartt Contemporary Chamber Players, Hartt School of Music, 8:00; Kyle Gann gave a pre-concert lecture on the American Experimental Tradition.
A collection of Gann's Village Voice writings, Music Downtown, will be published in fall 2005 by the University of California Press.
Gann's new CD Nude Rolling Down an Escalator has just come out on New World, June, 2005. The disc contains all of Gann's Disklavier works to date.
Gann's new CD Long Night was released on Cold Blue in March, 2005.
Kyle Gann won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for his article Minimal Music, Maximal Impact
Gann's article "No Escape from Heaven: John Cage as Father Figure" is now published in The Cambridge Companion to John Cage, new from Cambridge University Press.
The new Fourth Edition of H. Wiley Hitchcock's Music in the United States has just been published (Prentice Hall, 2000) with a final chapter - "New Currents Coalesce: Since the Mid-1980s" - by Kyle Gann.
Gann's first analytical article about his own music was published in the journal The Open Space: "Navigating the Infinite Web of Pitch Space." A description of his microtonal composing techniques, with examples from How Miraculous Things Happen and Custer and Sitting Bull, it's in The Open Space Issue 2, spring 2000, available at www.the-open-space.org.
Nude Rolling Down an Escalator, on New World (being released June, 2005).
Contains:
Texarkana
Nude Rolling Down an Escalator
Petty Larceny
Bud Ran Back Out
Cosmic Boogie-Woogie
Despotic Watlz
Folk Dance for Henry Cowell
The Waiting
Tango da Chiesa
Unquiet Night
Long Night, performed by pianist Sarah Cahill on Cold Blue CB0019.
Custer's Ghost: The Electronic Music of Kyle Gann, Monroe Street msm 60104 (Now available! - 7.21.99)
Contains:
Fractured Paradise
How Miraculous Things Happen
Superparticular Woman
So Many Little Dyings
Ghost Town
Custer and Sitting Bull
Desert Sonata, on Other Places, Lois Svard, pianist: Lovely Music LCD 3052 (with works by Jerry Hunt and Elodie Lauten)
Hesapa ki Lakhota ki Thawapi, performed by the Relache Ensemble on Pick It Up, Monroe Street msm 60102 (with works by Michael Nyman, Arturo Marquez, and Stephen Montague)
Snake Dance No. 2, performed by Essential Music on Ten Years of Essential Music, Monroe Street msm 60101 (with works by Johanna M. Beyer, Robert Ashley, Peter Garland, John Kennedy, Christian Wolff, Malcolm Goldstein, and Charles Wood)
Ghost Town, on Century XXI, New Tone nt6730 (with works by Carl Stone, Ben Neill, Mikel Rouse, Nicolas Collins)
November 7, 1998, at Church of the Holy Cross, Kingston, NY
November 8, 1998, at St. John's Church in Hurley, NY
November 11, 1998, at Olin Auditorium, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
