"Morton Subotnick, to make it short, is an icon of electronic music. Subotnick's "Silver Apples of the Moon" was commissioned by Nonesuch Records in 1967 and represented the first electronic work written with a specific record release in mind. Back then, Subotnick was one of the protagonists of the Buchla Modular Synthesizer and his use of the instrument was a deciding break in the tradition of focussing primarily on tape manipulations - epecially after "Silver Apples of the Moon" turned out be a huge critical and commercial success."Title link takes you to the interview on tokofi. Peter Grenader of Plan b got a nod.
Couldn't the interviewer come up with anything better than trying to prove how "witty" he/she is? And geez y'think Mort could be more annoyed by these dumbass questions? How embarassing.
ReplyDeleteAt least the discography was incomplete.
ReplyDeleteI was Morton Subotnick's "handler" for a concert at SFMOMA five years ago. Basically, everything with the technical and logistic aspects of setting up his performance. He is definitely quite capable if being "annoyed", it was quite an experience :)
ReplyDeleteThe questions are the standard ones that they ask most of the composers in their interviews. If you check some of the many other interviews on the site, you'll see that most of them use the same questions, and most of the composers make some sort of effort to answer them.
ReplyDeleteSubotnick's answers were obviously tossed off in a five-minute email session. I'm wondering why he even bothered, if he wasn't interested in doing it right.
I'd rather say: "Morton, you have 3 to 5 minutes. Share."
ReplyDeleteAnd that would be better than attempting to layer that bizarre question grid down in an attempt to parametrize innovation.
re: questions:
ReplyDeleteTobias (tofaki.com) asks the same 15 questions to everyone he interviews. Have a look at the others on the site.
"Handler?"
ReplyDeleteIs he so stuck up he 'needs' a handler to function properly?
Or was the 'handling' out of respect?
What's this guys wavelength at?
" he so stuck up he 'needs' a handler to function properly?
ReplyDeleteNot at all. I as just clarifying because I knew about this as I've tuned into his site for some time. Personally, I think it's an interesting twist.