Darmstadt “Classics of the Avant Garde” curators Nick Hallett and Zach Layton announce their fourth annual Institute at ISSUE Project Room. This festival, their first at ISSUE’s new space in downtown Brooklyn, celebrates all of June as the ersatz new music history month in New York and draws on a wide variety of experimental approaches from the canon and current practice.
The month begins with an all-star celebration of Pauline Oliveros’s 80th birthday [6/1] and closes with a composer portrait of drummer Kid Millions and his Man Forever project [6/29]. In between sees performances of rarely heard electroacoustic work by Gordon Mumma [6/8], early minimalism from Gamelan Son of Lion [6/22], an offering of music for strings and chorus for the John Cage centennial [6/9], and the world premiere of a new work for voice and ensemble by compositional linguist Chris Mann, performed by Either/Or [6/23].
On June 21, as part of Make Music New York, Darmstadt and Goethe-Institut present a performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s dream music-theater work, Musik Im Bauch (1974), performed by Iktus Percussion at Central Park’s iconic bandshell [6/21].
As always, Darmstadt presents learning opportunities outside the concert-going experience. This year’s workshop (past instructors have included Joan La Barbara and Anthony Braxton) will be taught by Tristan Perich [06/16], on the assembly of his 1-Bit instruments. Talkbacks with Wet Ink composers after they premiere new work and similar are to be expected through the month.
Darmstadt’s curators enlist the torchbearers of the experimental tradition, cutting-edge ensembles such as Mivos Quartet, Object Collection, and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, to complete this month of boundary pushing sounds.
