New York Composers: Searching for a New Music

1997 / 58 min. / color
Directed by Michael Blackwood
Featuring: Tan Dun, Michael Gordon, Phil Kline, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Lois V Vierk, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. With the participation of the Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All Stars, Reigakusha, and others. Filmed in the composers’ studios and at rehearsals and performances.

New York Composers: Searching for a New Music explores the fascinating world of composition and explorative musical creation. Featuring a group of New York musicians following in the footsteps of dynamic predecessors such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich, this film serves as a portrait of an avant-garde musical movement. Rooted in the belief that philosophy, performance and spectacle are bound to individual interpretation, musicians like Julia Wolfe and Phil Kline produce a new form of sound that challenges our notion of modern music. Unlike the artists before them, who saw themselves as coming from the classical tradition, they live in an era of permissiveness, free and open to experiment in their work. Their sources are as diverse and unique as world music, Beethoven, and Led Zeppelin, combined with their direct connection to New York – a place which offers them inspiration, diversity, and dissonance.