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NEW
Musicologists of the distant future won’t be the only
ones astonished to discover innova’s 5CD set, The NYFA
Collection. It brings together in one fat jewel box a
trove of musical gems that document a golden age
of a classic culture; a quarter of a century’s musical
output, all grown in the fertile creative soils of New
York, and judged by its artistic peers to be the best
of its day. In a field glutted with all kinds of musical
chatter, this six-hour, NEA-funded set sorts and distils,
juggles and organizes, sifts and curates, some of the
most notable artists worthy of your attention.
It’s beyond cream; it’s a feast, an education, an
extravaganza, and a Rosetta Stone all in one. There
will be names you recognize and some you don’t; all,
however, have received gold stars for their work and
deserve a close listen. The gold stars in question being
NYFA Fellowships. In 1983, the New York State Council
on the Arts (NYSCA) established fellowships in 16 arts
disciplines so that regional artists could receive unrestricted
support to pursue their work. The New York
Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) administers the fellowships
in Music Composition and Sound. To celebrate 25
years of fellows (of which there have been over 200 to
date), this Collection features 52 of them.
The dozens of works, most heard here for the first
time, are not necessarily the pieces that were submitted
to the fellowship panel; rather they are new works
by composers who have been prize recipients at one
time since 1983. The pieces have been selected by Cristian
Amigo (composer, performer, and NYFA Advisory
Committee member) and Philip Blackburn (innova
director), and together show the vast range of musical
expression that the program supports; diverse enough
to challenge the most catholic of tastes yet each
rewarding those with a hunger for musical adventure.
THE NYFA COLLECTION
25 Years of New York New Music
The pieces go from experimental jam bands, to works for newly invented
instruments (a tap-dance instrument, a faucet, music boxes, a bridge railing…),
electronic manipulations (using the latest analog and software-based
tech wizardry), ethnically specific jazz and world music forms (African banjo,
Indian sax, Chinese jazz band…), music for concert hall (for choir, orchestra,
brass ensemble, string quartet, piano, flute ensemble…), music for dance and
film… Some is crunchy, some is serene, some is tuneful, some noiseful; some go for the gut, some for the cranium; some are by household names, some
still known to only a few households; some Uptown, some Downtown, others sideways. Like Dim Sum, all the works are carefully conceived and crafted,
and all are played by top-shelf performers from around the world. This field of New Music easily disappears beneath the radar of the mass
media; the forward-hearing work of thousands of contemporary artists is routinely ignored by the commercial music (not to mention the classical music)
industry. Where does one go to discover this exciting human endeavor for the first time, to learn about its heroes and its many divergent paths to artistic
research and development? You can start right here.
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