 |
| http://terryriley.net/rainbow.htm |
In 1969 SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde magazine asked twenty innovative composers the same single question: "Have you, or has anyone, ever used your music for social or political ends?"
In 2015 I asked the same question of twenty composers working today for the
Politics of Sound Art issue of Leonardo Music Journal. Two of those composers – Frederic Rzewski and Terry Riley – also answered the question when it was asked 46 years ago.
TERRY RILEY, 1969
Have you, or has anyone ever used your work for political or social ends?
You mean the big politics in the sky? No, I don't think so.
Have you, or has anyone ever used your work for political or social ends?
You mean the big politics in the sky? No, I don't think so.
Well, in a case like IN C, which certainly is social, were the social elements of that piece a conscious part of its creation?
Yes, I was conscious of the fact that it was very democratic, no one had a lead part, everyone supposedly contributing an equal part. That was one of the main ideas. In that sense, I guess it's social. Everybody should have the same amount to say, if given a vehicle to say it, regardless of their background.
Is Cage's music all social?
That's probably pretty much true. The last thing I went to of his was at the Electric Circus, the reunion thing (Duchamp and Cage), and it was very much like a cocktail party without anything to eat or drink, except that people were performing.
_________________________________________________
Have you, or has anyone ever used your work for political or social ends?
Have you, or has anyone ever used your work for political or social ends?
TERRY RILEY, 2015
How
can we as artists live in a world of such grave social injustice, racism,
military dominance driven by dollar hungry corporations, climate destruction
and war mongering and not be affected? We are supposed to be the sensitive antennae
gathering the emotions and subtle undercurrents of all worlds to nurture and
inspire our creations. What could we say if we are still alive and
compassionate beings that could not possibly be driven by these forces?
We have witnessed in our times some of the worst war crimes imaginable and yet
the perpetrators not only walk free but profit enormously. Why should we
artists not be in solidarity in any way we can with the underdogs of this world
who are forgotten and their voices blocked out by the loud hyperbole and stink
of politicians? It is an age of shocking hypocrisy. A president on his
way to committing mindboggling war crimes picks up a Nobel Peace Prize??? Now
there is a vibratory wing-dinger for you that could inspire an opera! An
Israeli Prime Minister who launches massacres against civilians with a
brutality that rivals those atrocities inflicted by the Nazis upon the Jews.
The list goes on. Yes, I want my music to be for the downtrodden and forgotten,
the victims of racism and social injustice, the poor and the sick and if it
reaches a few of them and gives comfort or awakens some spiritual longing I
would consider that a positive contribution. The utopian poem I wrote for
the Rainbow in Curved Air album 56
years ago still has meaning for me today and the energy that drives a need to
bend the world towards a better place stills fuels my creative ideas.
