Table Of ContentThis Life of Sounds
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This Life of Sounds
E venings for New Music in Buffalo
RENÉE LEVINE PACKER
1
2010
1
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Copyright © 2010 by Renée Levine Packer
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levine, Renée, 1940–
This life of sounds : Evenings for new music in Buffalo / Renée
Levine Packer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-973077-3
1. Music—New York (State)—Buffalo—20th century—History and
criticism. 2. Concerts—New York (State)—Buffalo—History—20th century.
3. State University of New York at Buffalo. Center of the Creative and
Performing Arts. I. Title.
ML200.8.B8L48 2010
780.78'74797—dc22 2009034967
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Arnold Packer
and
to my mother, Ruth Wolfe (in memoriam)
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Acknowledgments
Pinning down the past, regardless of whether one was there or not, is
a precarious enterprise. After more than forty years, how can one be
certain that they’ve got it just right? Is that what really happened?
Were we in Paris or Berlin? Did he say that before the concert or
afterward? I am deeply indebted to Lukas Foss (in memoriam), the
Creative Associates, and the many interviewees who shared their
time and recollections with me. Their voices animate these pages as
they relate their experience of those bygone days.
How many cities can claim the good fortune to have had an arts
patron of the caliber of Seymour H. Knox II, whose vision and
generosity would be hard to match anywhere? Yet he was engaged
and supportive of our enterprise, so much so that if I called him with
a problem, he was ready and willing to help. Buffalo was blessed also
with two daily newspapers during those years, the Buffalo Evening
News and the Buffalo Courier Express . Press coverage of the arts was
generous for a city of its size, and, although frank, the critics were
interested and never condescending. I wish to salute the late John
Dwyer, music critic of the Buffalo Evening News , in particular, for his
steadfast allegiance to the core mission of the Center of the Creative
and Performing Arts—the study and performance of contemporary
music—and for the unfailing perspective he brought to his task.
I am grateful to Drs. Nancy Norris and John Spitzer of Johns
Hopkins University and to Timothy Madigan, formerly of the
Rochester University Press, for their early encouragement and
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
guidance. John Bewley of the Music Library at the State University of New
York at Buffalo (SUNYAB) was indispensable throughout the entire period of
researching and writing this book. His patience and many kindnesses are
deeply appreciated. My thanks also to Nancy Nuzzo at the Music Library and
to the staff at the Special Archives at SUNYAB; to Susana Tejada at the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery Library; the librarians at the Buffalo and Erie County
Public Library, the Buffalo State College Library, the Rockefeller Archive
Center, and the Milton Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University.
Edward Yadzinsky, historian of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, was also
a fount of information.
S heldon and Mary Berlow, Steve and Diana Childress, the late Betty
Freeman, Barbara and Joel Packer, Eleanor and Richard Rubinstein, Jan and
Diane Williams, and David and Rachel Wolfe all graciously offered me encour-
agement and hospitality numerous times when I visited their cities to do inter-
views. Linda Alston transcribed those interviews. Carol Plantamura, Esther
Harriott, Robert and Katherine Martin, Gerald O’Grady, and Alan Rich were
kind enough to read drafts of the manuscript at various stages of its
development.
F or permissions, I am grateful to Margaret Sullivan at the Buffalo News ,
Daniel DiLandro of the Buffalo State College Courier-Express Collection;
Kenneth Simon of Kosco Media, Inc., for the B uffalo New Times ; Life magazine;
Larry Austin and S ource Publishers; Mrs. Ilaria Narici at Universal Music
Publishing Ricordi for Sylvano Bussotti’s score; Gene Caprioglio and the C. F.
Peters Corporation, Laura Kuhn and the John Cage Trust, and Suzanna
Tamminen at Wesleyan University Press for materials from the estate of John
Cage; Horace and Walter Cardew for the Cornelius Cardew estate; Albert
Cohen, W. H. Bonsall Professor of Music Emeritus at Stanford University;
Zeren Earls for Paul Earls’ estate; Mrs. Frances Eastman and Gerald Eastman
for Julius Eastman’s estate; Cornelia Foss for Lukas Foss’s estate; Barbara
Monk Feldman for the Morton Feldman estate; Michael Fredericks; Sherwin
Greenberg; Esther Harriott; Irene Ikner Haupt; Amanda Hiller for the Elizabeth
and Lejaren Hiller estate; University of California Press for the quotes from
Allan Kaprow; Silvia Cecere Neuhaus for Max Neuhaus’s estate; Pauline
Oliveros and Deep Listening; Pennebaker Hedegus Films, Inc.; Tom Johnson
and the Village Voice; Kenneth W. Rose for the Rockefeller Foundation Archives;
Alan Rich; Anthony Sapp and Chris Dawson for the Allen Sapp estate; Richard
Siggelkow; William Thomson; Bruce A. Glena for Don Glena’s estate, David
and Rachel Tuttle for Jim Tuttle’s estate; and Christian Wolff, Stuart Bratesman,
Jr., Lucy Childress, and Mickey Osterreicher for photographs.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are from the collection of the
Music Library, SUNYAB. The Music Library digital photography collection
may be accessed at http://ubdigit.buffalo.edu/ .
A s we edged closer to publication, I will forever be grateful to Jan Williams
and my sister Irene Kraas for their help and advice. Sincere thanks also to copy-
editor and steadfast compatriot Ryan Dohoney; Suzanne Ryan, Madelyn Sutton,
the anonymous readers, and the staff at Oxford University Press. Most of all,
though, it is to my husband Arnold Packer, who stood by me and kept me to the
task over many years, that I wish to offer my profound thanks.
