Composer, musical theorist, multi-instrumentalist, and one of the founders of Fluxus, Philip Corner's debut show at OTO was funny, sincere and inventive. Alongside his wife Phoebe Neville, the pair mixed relatively unheard compositions with stage interventions and brand new improvisations. At one special point, Corner and Neville - both blind behind Javanese masks - played a borrowed Casio and named the piece 'Understanding'. Gold.
Solo, Corner performed one of his more recent pieces, 'Agnesia', a one note near-Elemental number inspired by the painter Agnes Martin. 'An Ideal Amen' was derived from the final chords of the Berlioz Requiem and features Neville adding vocals. Corner and Neville closed by playing touching tribute to their dear friend and esteemed Fluxus collegue Ben Patterson - a piano version of Patterson's 'Paper Piece'. A generous and wonderous pair of people -- more high-jinks and meditations inside.
Notes for the show as printed for the audience:
"buy something
to eat or drink
and then sometime during ……
make
consciously & explicitly
a sound with it.
Thus adding to the music …”
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Philip Corner / piano, keyboard
Phoebe Neville / vocals, keyboard
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Recorded live at Cafe OTO on Monday 19th September by James Dunn. Mixed and Mastered by James Dunn. Photo by Dawid Laskowski.
Available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC
Tracklisting:
1. Exhibit - 3:26
2. Piano Work - A Movement - 1:08
3. Mudes Flower Sutra - 0:58
4 Petali Petalissimo - 4:48
5. Une Petit Prelude - 12:59
6. Understanding - 9:42
7. Agnesia - 13:54
8. An Ideal Amen - 5:43
9. In Memorium, Ben - 8:08
Please note, should you wish to skip the silent-ish cuts, go straight to 'Une Petit Prelude'. We thought it best to include everything.
Philip Corner (b. April 10, 1933, Bronx, New York). American composer, now resident in Italy, of interdisciplinary works that have been performed throughout the world; he is also active as a performer, visual artist and writer.
Mr. Corner studied composition with Mark Brunswick and musicianship and piano with Fritz Jahoda at the City College of New York, where he earned his BA in 1955, and composition with Henry Cowell and Otto Luening at Columbia University, where he earned his MA in 1959. He also studied analysis with Olivier Messiaen at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris from 1955–57, where he earned a deuxième prix, and studied piano privately with Dorothy Taubman in New York from 1961–75.
