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Other Minds (OM), new music's pre-eminent Bay Area champion, has announced plans and details for a busy Fall 2011 schedule. From 15-17 September, OM will present an ambitious tribute to the legendary art revolution FLUXUS, 2011 being the 50th year since its inception. The 3-day homage, Something Else: A Fluxus Semicentenary, includes performances by Alison Knowles, film screenings, a special exhibition curated by OM, and new realizations of groundbreaking Fluxus works by Knowles, LaMonte Young, Yoko Ono and George Brecht. Host Charles Amirkhanian will delve into the world of Fluxus in interviews with Knowles and Hannah Higgins, author of Fluxus Experience. While Fluxus novices and aficionados alike count the days to Something Else, they can whet their appetites by listening to Flux Art: An Historical Perspective - a radio program originally broadcast in 1977 featuring an interview with George Maciunas, writer of the Fluxus Manifesto. Now available free in streaming audio at OM's archive of radio interviews, www.radiOM.org, the Flux Art program explores the Fluxus movement, whose aims, according to Maciunas' 1963 manifesto, were to
"Purge the world of bourgeois sickness, 'intellectual', professional & commercialized culture, PURGE the world of dead art, imitation, artificial art, abstract art, illusionistic art, mathematical art, - PURGE the world of Europanism [sic]! PROMOTE a revolutionary flood and tide in art. Promote living art, anti-art, promote Non Art Reality to be grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals. FUSE the cadres of cultural, social & political revolutionaries into united front & action."
Initially inspired by John Cage's Experimental Music Composition classes at the New School for Social Research; La Monte Young's influential series of performances in his Chambers Street loft in Manhattan; and the growing interest in conceptual art happenings of the 1960s, the vibrant aesthetic of Fluxus inspired a loose confederation of artists including Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Allan Kaprow, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles and George Brecht.
Something Else Schedule/ Sundance Kabuki Cinemas / 7:30pm
September 15 / Something Else onscreen
Screening of films by and about Fluxus artists George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Ben Vautier, Nam June Paik and more, curated by Other Minds and filmmaker Peter Esmonde. Q&A and reception to follow.
September 16 / Something Else on the air / KALW 91.7fm; streaming on KALW.org / 11pm
Other Minds Executive and Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian hosts a special Fluxus edition of Music From Other Minds, OM's weekly radio program on KALW 91.7fm. September 16's broadcast will feature music by Fluxus visual artist and composer Henning Christiansen (1932-2008), who composed his Farewells Symphony by altering a recorded concert he gave in Hamburg on 29 Nov 1985 with Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik. Christiansen's thought-provoking compositions, from chamber music to the happening-like material in his Abschiedssymphonie, Op.177 (1985; 1987) are celebrated in this special program, which will also be made available after broadcast as streaming audio on www.otherminds.org/mfom.
September 17 / Something Else in performance / SOMArts Cultural Center / panel 7pm; concert 8pm
A concert featuring works by Fluxus composers Alison Knowles, Yoko Ono, La Monte Young, George Brecht and Dick Higgins. Pre-concert panel with Alison Knowles, Hannah Higgins, Charles Amirkhanian. Special exhibition of Fluxus materials curated by OM.
Something ElseTickets: $20 / students $15 / benefit level $50 / 2- event pass (Thursday & Saturday) $35 are available now at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/188420.
In October, Other Minds invites one and all to Iceland for ten days (1-10 October), an adventure combining country and city sightseeing with free admission to the legendary Nordic Music Days Festival (6-9 October), now in its 123rd year of operation. The Festival - a celebration of the contemporary music of the five Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden - will present 15 concerts over the course of its three days. Most of the concerts will take place in Reykjavik's spectacular new concert hall, Harpa. Nordic Music Days will present genres ranging from chamber, choral, symphonic and electro-acoustic music to children's concerts and laptop/alternative events. The music of dozens of Nordic composers will be featured at Nordic Music Days, from bright young unknowns to more established voices like Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Per Magnusson and Øyvind Torvund, whose Neon Forest Space will also be performed at the 17th Other Minds Festival (1-3 March 2012) in San Francisco. Just added to the Iceland itinerary is a visit by OM and Nordic Music Days to Videy Island on the final night of the Festival. There Yoko Ono will light the Imagine Peace Tower, a laser exhibit in memory of John Lennon, whose birthday falls on October 9th. OM has entirely arranged this fascinating Icelandic journey and will keep the group small. The cost to share a double room will be €1525 (approximately $2171 USD), not including airfare. The surcharge for single occupancy rooms is €250. Participants' flights must arrive in Reykjavik no later than 1 October and depart no earlier than 10 October.
In other news, Other Minds has announced a new distribution deal for its recordings. As of January 2012, all Other Minds productions and re-issues will be distributed by Naxos. Charles Amirkhanian notes "Our alliance with Naxos will provide Other Minds recordings much broader distribution, in North America through Naxos of America, and worldwide through Naxos Global Media. We're very excited to join forces with the world's leading classical music marketer." The first recording in the pipeline is Scenes from a Séance (OM 1019-2), to be released in January. The CD features Kate Stenberg (violin) and Eva-Maria Zimmermann (piano) in music of Charles Amirkhanian, George Antheil, Henning Christiansen, Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Josef Matthias Hauer, Alan Hovhaness, Amy X Neuburg, and Ronald Bruce Smith.
For more information about
Something Else: A Fluxus Semicentenary, visit Fluxus.
About Nordic Music Days: Iceland
For more information about Other Minds,
call 415-934-8134 and visit www.otherminds.org.