Morton Feldman Article in Newcity Magazine

I wrote an article for NewCity Magazine last month about Morton Feldman as a concert preview.  It starts like this:

“It’s a story by now legendary in classical music circles. Among the audience at the New York Philharmonic’s premiere of Anton Webern’s Symphony, Op. 21 in January of 1950 were two composers who were incensed at the audience’s obvious disdain for the new work and who were uninterested in the more traditional fare on the rest of the program and so stepped out into the lobby. They met, struck up a conversation and became fast friends who would go on to have a profound impact on twentieth century American music.

I’m talking about John Cage and Morton Feldman and the story is so famous that to this day composers routinely leave concerts at intermission all over the country to go roaming the halls of various symphony centers looking for fellow innovators with whom they can change the world. Actually, I made that part up but it’s certainly plausible.”

Read the rest here.

• Written by: Seth Boustead
• On: August 12, 2018