Monday, January 10, 2011

Mumma in MusikTexte

The current issue of MusikTexte has a feature suite of articles (in German) on composer Gordon Mumma. Among the contributions is an item by Chris Brown (who teaches at Mills College) discussing Mumma as a teacher. Mumma was (and is) the teacher who was most consequential to my work, a valued extra set of critically acute ears, a walking compendium of technicalia and music-historial realia, and a constant source of questions and encouragement (emphasis on the "courage" part) to push the conceptual envelope on one's ideas and practice. His own compositions for both electronic and acoustic media are elegant in both form and detail and continue to provide both pleasure for the own sake and as rich models for new music; they should be better-known and I can recommend these articles as well as Daan Vandewalle's recent recording of works for piano by Mumma.

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