MUSIC FOR AUDIENCE & SOLOIST

Four audience groups, four conductors.  composers note:

Music
for Audience and Soloist
dates from the mid-1970s. It was originally intended for a conference of and
for gifted teenagers. These young people were the first “performers” (and also
the first “audience!!”), at a session I led on the subject of experimental
music – in particular, the overlap between music and theater, and the
possibility of group improvisation within a framework of tight control. 

In this piece,  the audience is divided into four groups,
each led by a separate conductor and each reading from a separate part
containing four “cues.”  These cues can
be activated (i.e. chosen by the conductor) in any order and at any time. On
the surface this may seem like a recipe for chaos. But in fact Music for Audience and Soloist ˆ has a
very limited vocabulary of only 16 musical-theatrical events (4 times 4),
almost all of them related either by close similarity or sharp textural
contrast. (Ideally,  the conductors will
explore these relationships as the piece progresses.)

Against this flexible texture
created by the audience groups, the soloist adds another level of activity –
offsetting the audience fabric, or blending into it, or prodding the conductors
into altering it. There’s a separate part for the soloist, containing
suggestions for activity and a loose ground plan for overall formal design. He
or she must play an instrument small enough to be carried around while playing,
as the solo role is quite theatrical and involves invasion of the audience
space (literally as well as musically). As with the audience part(s), the solo
part places seemingly random improvisation within a framework of boundaries and
landmarks – so much so that (for many listeners) the resulting performance may
sound controlled and even (!) logical.