A musical performance with Kate Steinbeck & Byron Hedgepeth
Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011 – 3:00 pm
$12 / $10 for BMC Museum + Arts Center members / Students FREE
Limited seating
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in downtown Asheville is pleased to announce a musical performance on Sunday, Nov. 6th at 3:00 p.m. Celebrated Asheville musicians Kate Steinbeck (flutist and director of Pan Harmonia) and Byron Hedgepeth (percussionist) will perform a program of music composed by Lou Harrison and others at the museum located at 56 Broadway. Seating is limited!
This performance is presented in conjunction with the exhibition John Cage: A Circle of Influences which focuses on the visual art of the musician, composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist and amateur mycologist John Cage. It was Cage who recommended Lou Harrison to Black Mountain College to help his friend recover from the stress of living in NYC. The idyllic setting inspired Lou's interest in Asian music and sounds. Harrison taught at the college in 1951 and 1952. This performance of Harrison's music surrounded by Cage's artwork brings the two pioneers in music and art together again through the powerful connection between visual art and live music as presented by Kate Steinbeck and Byron Hedgepeth.
Lou Harrison (1917 – 2003) was one of the great composers of the twentieth century–a pioneer in the use of alternate tunings, world music influences, and new instruments. Born in 1917 in Portland Oregon, he spent much of his youth moving around Northern California before settling in San Francisco. There he studied with the modernist pioneer of American Music, Henry Cowell, and, while still in his twenties, composed extensively for dance and percussion. He befriended another of Cowell's students, John Cage, and the two of them established the first concert series devoted to new music for percussion. They composed extensively for these concerts, including their still popular collaboration Double Music. In 1942, Harrison moved to Los Angeles to study with the famous Arnold Schoenberg at UCLA. Steeped in the atonal avant-garde of Schoenberg's school, he moved to New York the following year, where he made a name for himself not only as a composer, but also as a critic under the tutelage of composer/writer Virgil Thomson. Harrison also worked at editing the scores of American composer Charles Ives and conducted the first performance of Ives's Third Symphony (which won Ives the Pulitzer Prize). Harrison also published a study of the music of atonal composer Carl Ruggles, and the influence of Ruggles and Schoenberg comes through in works such as Harrison's Symphony on G and his opera Rapunzel. However, the stress and noise of New York led to a nervous breakdown in 1947. To help his friend recover, Cage recommended him to Black Mountain College in rural North Carolina, where the quiet and idyllic setting proved conducive to studies in Harrison's new interests, Asian music and tuning.
The Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center preserves and continues the unique legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College for public study and enjoyment. We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs.
