Two Approaches to Art - The Sane Yet Visionary vs. The Insane Yet Blind

I. Two of my lifelong favorite creative artists are the English poet, illustrator and printmaker, William Blake, and the German composer, Ludwig van Beethoven. Both had a profound impact on later artists, helped define the beginnings of Romanticism, and were sometimes thought to be batshit crazy by their contemporaries.

They both died in 1827. As biographers have looked back upon their immense influence on 19th and 20th century art, most have come out to defend what these two artists' contemporaries had thought to be insanity. Blake's Swedenborgian spiritual references throughout his work, thought to be beyond bizarre when he created them, are now revered by people from backgrounds as diverse as Zen Buddhism and Kabbalistic Judaism. Beethoven's ethereal late string quartets, believed to be unplayable, unneeded and unhinged when he composed them, are now regarded as the pillars which supported the expansion of Classical forms into larger areas of time and space.

II. Jocelyn Clark, the creator, director and producer of the Juneau-based CrossSound Music Festival, has had to deal with people thinking her idea of a moving feast of freshly created new music to be more daft than deft. Who would have thought that what some insiders now regard to be the Pacific Northwest's best kept new art experience would annually seek out such venues as Haines, Wasilla or Sitka?

Beginning last Friday, 2009's iteration of this wondrous set of concerts is underway. This Sunday, September 6th, at 8:00 p.m, at the University of Alaska Anchorage Fine Arts Recital Hall, the festival's instrumental ensemble, KnikKlang, will present six recent works by three composers, all with Alaska or Pacific Northwest roots:

• Matthew Burtner (Anchorage/VA)
  Kuik (aria) (2006)
  for voice, percussion, computer sound and video
• John Luther Adams (Fairbanks)
  Make Prayers to the Raven (1996/98)
  fl, vln, hp (or pno), vlc, percussion
  
• Matthew Burtner (Anchorage/VA)
  Broken Drum (2003)
  automobile brake drum and computer
  
• Owen Underhill (Vancouver, B.C.)
  Sakalaka (2007, CrossSound Commission)
  vln, vcl, fl, cl, tbn, pno
• Metasax&DRUMthings + ThinkThank, Mindcam (2006)
  metasax, drum kit, computer interaction, snowboard video
  
• Matthew Burtner (Anchorage/VA)
  Portals of Distortion (1999)
  version for tenor saxophone + 8 prerecorded tenor saxophones

I can't emphasize enough how exciting CrossSound's concerts are.

John Luther Adams is perhaps Alaska's greatest living non-Native artist. Make Prayers to the Raven was one of the defining works in his odyssey to, as Beethoven did for early 19th century music, create new approaches to time and space for the early 21st century.

Matthew Burtner, who grew up in Naknek and on the North Slope, now teaches at the University of Virginia. His works explore different aspects of time and space than does that of Adams, though they sometimes intersect.

Owen Underhill, who directed the premiere of one of his two works in this concert, in Sitka two years ago, teaches at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C.

The ticket price for Sunday evening's UAA concert by KnikKlang, will be $15.00 general admission, $10.00 for students, which is insanely cheap!

Be there!

III. Speaking of insane - blindly insane - takes on what art is, here's the most dangerous man in America on that notable communist/fascist/liberal/progressive, John Rockefeller:


Whoa.....

Keep praying for this dangerous hack to drive himself totally fucking nuts.

It seems to be working.