We're happy to say the presentation on minimalism by Dustin Zemel & Robby Kraft on Dec. 5th at Grand Detour was a success.The evening began with Dustin performing a piece by Terry Riley titled "Pendulum music". 3 speakers were placed on their back with the speakers pointing upward towards the ceiling. Above the speakers hung 3 microphones, six inches above the speakers. On the count of three the mics were released to swing over the amps, creating bird-like and low tone feedback.
Discussions included the impedance behind the creation of minimalism, spearheaded by Terry Riley, Steve Riech and Lamount Young. Those composers felt that the existing formulas utilized by previous composers left listeners without a PhD in theory out in the cold. They wanted to strip it down, thus... minimalism.
Also discussed was the visual equivalent of minimalism in the form of video art using repetition and shifting of time through editing.
The evening rapped up with Robby Kraft first showing his "glass marimba". Coils were placed under a section of the glass plates that tapped the plates creating mechanical glass marimba music. Robby lead a hand clap-minimalist performance by those attending, showed his use of Philip Glass's compositions interpreted through his own computer programming. Finally he presented another computer program which had rotating geometric shapes that created a repetitive 'randomness' through out a time-line.
Robby Kraft's "Glass Marimba"
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