Monday 19 September 2016, 8pm
Composer, musical theorist, multi-instrumentalist, and one of the founders of Fluxus, Philip Corner performs at OTO for the first time in a very special programme alongside Phoebe Neville.
““We are looking back at, and longing forward to, a world of artistic cooperations without artificial boundaries,” Corner said of his time with Fluxus. Even as a name it could perhaps only ever be a starting point, as his remarkably wide-ranging travels would indicate.” – Ken Hollings, The WIRE
Philip Corner (b. New York, 1933) is an American composer, theorist, visual artist and a founder of the Fluxus art movement.
An early participant in pre-Fluxus activities since 1961, he was a resident composer and musician with the Judson Dance Theatre from 1962 to 1964 and later with the Experimental Intermedia Foundation, for whose dance company he served as musician. He co-founded the Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble, Sounds Out of Silent Spaces, and Gamelan Son of Lion (still active today).
Many of his scores are open-ended, some employ standard notation, whereas others are graphic scores, text scores, etc. His music also frequently explores unintentional sound, chance activities, minimalism, and non-Western instruments and tuning systems. Contact with artists in other media, especially dance and the visual arts, as well as a long-standing interest in Eastern religions such as Zen Buddhism and study of the music of composers from the Baroque and Pre-Baroque eras, has likewise impacted his music.
He divides his work into five distinct periods, each reflective of his attitudes and interests at the time:
1. Culture 1950s
2. The World 1960s and 1970s
3. Mind 1970s and 1980s
4. Body 1980s and 1990s
5. Spirit; Soul, 1999 – present
