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A Short History of Essential Music
Essential Music was founded in 1987 by Artistic Directors John Kennedy and Charles Wood to present new and neglected music of the American Experimental Tradition.
Hailed by The New York Times as "brilliantly resourceful" and The Village Voice as "New York's fearless and intrepid new music ensemble", the group is of flexible instrumentation and presents concerts in New York and beyond. Essential Music has presented over 85 premieres, including historically important performances of works by Robert Ashley, Johanna Beyer, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Henry Cowell, William Russell, and Edgard Varèse.
The group's repertoire includes works from throughout the Twentieth Century for a variety of small and large ensembles, as well as works composed specifically for Essential Music by some of today's leading composers, including William Duckworth, David First, Kyle Gann, Peter Garland, Larry Polansky, and others. Essential Music has performed at nearly every important musical venue in New York, from uptown at the 92nd Street Y and Lincoln Center, to downtown at The Kitchen and Experimental Intermedia.
The 1990-91 Essential Music season included appearances at major festivals in Philadelphia, Charleston, Salzburg and Zurich. For the Aspekte Salzburg and Zurich June Festivals, Essential Music was asked by John Cage to perform his and other work representative of American experimental music, in conjunction with his appearences there.
The 1992-93 season included an appearance on the World Music Institute's Interpretations series, as well as the first appearance by a new music group on the series "802 Fights AIDs/The Actors' Fund", the proceeds from which benefited musicians with AIDs. In November 1992, Essential Music organized and produced the memorial Cagemusicircus to honor John Cage, uniting over 80 performers and groups in an event that drew inspired praise from the world press.
In 1994 and 1995, Essential Music was the ensemble-in-residence for the Spoleto Festival USA's Twentieth Century Perspectives series, a series termed by the New York Times to be "weird and wonderful", and widely praised for its success in presenting challenging contemporary repertoire to mainstream audiences. They returned to Spoleto in 1996 to present a production of Cage's Europera5.
In 1996, Essential Music was featured at the inaugural Lincoln Center Festival as a 112-musician orchestra performing with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and in a concert of music by Morton Feldman. The 1997 season included concerts for the Henry Cowell Centenary at Cooper Union, and Lou Harrison's 80th Birthday at the 92nd Street Y.
Their CD of the complete works of William Russell on Mode Records has been praised as "a superb recording" by The New York Times and as a "Five Best of New Music in1994" by Fanfare Magazine. Also on Mode is a CD of The Lost Works of John Cage, including his 1942 radio play with Kenneth Patchen, The City Wears a Slouch Hat.
In 1997, Essential Music released a compilation of live recordings on Monroe Street Music, "Ten Years of Essential Music", including works by Ashley, Beyer, Gann, Garland, Goldstein, Kennedy, Wolff, and Wood.
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