John Schneider and his group “Partch” gave their annual REDCAT concert of Partch’s music last night. The program included Partch’s film of U.S. Highball: A Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip (1958, film completed in 1968). The program began with the eight hitchhiker inscriptions of Barstow (1941/1943/1968); this interesting site provide clips of different performances of the first inscription. The second half of the program included rousing performances of Ring Around the Moon (1950) and Castor & Pollux (1952), both involving the seven instrumentalists in the group. The audience jumped up and called their approval at the end.
There were ten Partch instruments (in addition to the voice): the Adapted Viola (1930), the two Adapted Guitars (1935 and 1945), the Kithara (1938), the Chromelodeon (1941), Harmonic Canon (1945), Diamond Marimba (1946), HypoBass (1950), Cloud Chamber Bowls (1950) and Bass Marimba (1950).
Two of the instrumentalists, Vicki Ray and David Johnson, were key in Tuesday night’s concert by Xtet at the County Museum. For me a high point was The Four Seasons of Futurist Cuisine for orator, piano, violin and cello by Aaron Jay Kernis. (Amazon’s sound clip doesn’t include the oration, so it lacks the flavor of the piece.) The program began with three songs to Shakespeare by Stravinsky, and included three songs by John Cage and Morton Feldman’s lovely The Viola in My Life 2. Phil O’Connor, Xtet’s frequent clarinetist/saxophone, presented the premiere of his new work War Again(st) ? (T)error!, a work of several episodes which didn’t seem linked to the title but which kept active.
Sorry, Becca, but I don’t know. I know, however, that John Schneider has shown Partch films before, which is added reason to contact him directly. His “MicroFest” site gives his email as johnoschneider@hotmail.com. z
I had no idea that a film of U.S. Highball existed – I’ve always thought that it would make a great one. Do you have any information on its visual content or making (or anything else)?