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Looper's Delight
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I'd like to weigh in on the subject of the health (or lack thereof) of the new music scene, from the perspective of the "new music" tradition that grew out of the classical avant garde. I just had a rather depressing phone conversation with a composer/performer colleague whose career as an artist and arts administrator spans several decades. In particular, he founded and ran a contemporary arts venue from 1975-86 and he founded a record label specializing in avant garde music in 1991. The label record label now has a catalog of 70 CDs and is well established in new music circles as a source of high quality recordings of experimental music, yet this past year they have posted a net operating loss for the first time. As a result, my friend has decided that there is no longer a viable market for recordings of experimental art music and therefore has decided to suspend operations. He also says that from his perspective as a composer/performer that support for live performance has also decreased. Whereas in the 1980s it was possible for a solo performer or small group to mount a tour of art spaces throughout the U.S., playing cities just a few hours drive from each other and getting paid an average of $500 per gig, those days are long past. I realize that public arts funding took a big hit from Jesse Helms and his barbarian horde, and I've been off the circuit myself for more than ten years, but it comes as a surprise to me that a small, high quality record label should suffer such a decline. What's your experience, and why do you think this is happening? Is this collateral damage from the overall dumbing down of American culture, or is it a case of a finite listening audience being spread thinner by an increase in do-it-yourself electronic music and the availability of downloadable music. -- ______________________________________________________________ Richard Zvonar, PhD (818) 788-2202 http://www.zvonar.com http://RZCybernetics.com http://www.cybmotion.com/aliaszone http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?autostart=rz