Hubert Howe all the time and John Eaton

Well, I must say, Hubert Howe is very much a presence on the new
music scene in New York this weekend, and he is most definitely a
microtonalist!

He is president of the American Composers Alliance and is very
intimately involved with all the concerts... I guess 10 or so, going
on this weekend and surrounding the weekend...

In fact, his piece today, Sunday... 3PM called _Meditation_ for
electronic media is in 19-tET! Can't make that one, though, since
I'm involved with a meeting of the New York Composers Circle this
afternoon... (busy composer weekend!)

However, I *am* attending a tribute to the electronic music pioneer
Otto Luening this evening (7 PM at the Flea Theatre... 41 White
Street NYC ---take the #1 train to Franklin...) Otto was very
instrumental in our composer's group, the Composers Concordance and
could also be considered a microtonalist through his advocacy of just
intonation, or at least the emulation of just intonation overtone
structures in the 12-tET confines...

Last night's performance of microtonalist John Eaton's _El Dinino
Narciso_ was, indeed divine! This was also on the same American
Composers Alliance series. John considers it one of his best chamber
pieces, and I certainly would agree.

There is hardly one 12-tET pitch in the entire thing...! outside of
the playing of the pitched percussion. There is *lots* of
percussion, lots of wild-interval singing by the protagonists, and
many special echo effects, for the soloist who represents the
god "Echo"... fittingly enough.

This is a *very* complex piece, and I got to look at the score
afterward. Meters constantly shifting, pitches all over the place,
most of them microtonal... dramatic effects, electronic and vocal.

Despite the complexity, the piece was *very* engaging and dramatic.
Lots of stuff going on, that's for sure!

Joseph Pehrson

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:
Otto was very
> instrumental in our composer's group, the Composers Concordance and
> could also be considered a microtonalist through his advocacy of just
> intonation, or at least the emulation of just intonation overtone
> structures in the 12-tET confines...

What in the world does that mean?

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith" <gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <jpehrson@r...>
wrote:
> Otto was very
> > instrumental in our composer's group, the Composers Concordance
and
> > could also be considered a microtonalist through his advocacy of
just
> > intonation, or at least the emulation of just intonation overtone
> > structures in the 12-tET confines...
>
> What in the world does that mean?

***Hi Gene,

Well, essentially, Otto would emulate the chord spacing of the
overtone
series, but would use the nearest pitch in 12-equal to do it...
Maybe
a little "hokey," but at least he was trying to get at the physical
overtones of the acoustical nature of music... He did that in the
piece for bassoon and piano that was played tonight at the ACA
concert
in his honor...

J. Pehrson