Experimentalism Otherwise The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits [Paperback]

InExperimental Otherwise, Benjamin Piekut takes the reader into the heart of what we mean by experimental in avant-garde music. Focusing on one place and timeNew York City, 1964Piekut examines five disparate events: the New York Philharmonics disastrous performance of John CagesAtlas Eclipticalis; Henry Flynts demonstrations against the downtown avant-garde; Charlotte Moormans Avant Garde Festival; the founding of the Jazz Composers Guild; and the emergence of Iggy Pop. Drawing together a colorful array of personalities, Piekut argues that each of these examples points to a failure and marks a limit or boundary of canonical experimentalism. What emerges from these marginal moments is an accurate picture of the avant-garde, not as a style or genre, but as a network defined by disagreements, struggles, and exclusions.

Benjamin Piekutis Assistant Professor of Musicology at Cornell University.

Benjamin Piekut takes scholarship on late twentieth century music to new heights with this inventive and compelling study of the networks of experimental music. Weaving a historical ethnography of performances, practices, sounds, and subjectivities together with insights from recent social and anthropological theory, uncovering new perspectives on key figures from John Cage and Henry Flynt to Carla Bley and Charlotte Moorman, he gives us actually existing experimentalism free from idealization or dilution.

Georgina Born, author ofRationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde



Ben Piekuts methodologically astute history of actually existing experimentalism provides a brilliantly focused, yet ultimately expansive interrogation of the musical networks that flourished in New York City around the year 1964. Engaging, insightful, and important,Experimentalism Otherwiseis certain to prove an indispensable reference not only for musl£