After giving my lecture on Feldman at yesterday's Feldman festival being presented in Philly by Bowerbird, I spent a half-hour talking to - Feldman's niece! Feldman's personality was so universally described as "avuncular" that I told her she must be one of the most effectively uncle-d people in history. She remembered, as a humiliating experience for a 13-year-old, Feldman (and Cage) being booed in 1964 when Leonard Bernstein performed their music with the Philharmonic. And when I told her that I considered her uncle the greatest composer of his era, it seemed to blow her mind. It's one thing for an artist to face early disapproval and eventually be vindicated, we kind of expect that. But what must that steep trajectory look like to a closely-involved younger family member not in the arts herself? The mind boggles.

Copyright 2011 by Kyle Gann

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