Bang on a Can

The Aten is indicative of a direction I have found myself going in for several years now, which I call "a loosening of the frame." Having pretty much burned out on learning extremely difficult music written by other people, which I get diminishing pleasure from, I have reacted in a number of ways. One is to try and play more of my own music. Another is to try and loosen up the demands of my own works in such a way that players can quickly get past the angst of learning and performing it and get down to the music. I also try to find ways for the players to be a bit more involved in shaping the music to their own needs and interests.

Of course I'm still writing completely worked out, difficult music. I need to. But I'm exploring this other way as well. It is interesting to me to try and find a balance between what I control and what I don't (or can't). This has a parallel in my visual work as well. A few years ago I gave up pens and pencils in favor of working on cloth using shoe polish. You can make decisions about the overall composition, but you can't make the shoe polish do exactly what you want, and what it does on its own can be very pleasantly surprising. I like the discovery.

I was playing jazz and improvised music for a number of years before getting really deeply into composition and "new music." I gave it up for a long time and certainly don't qualify as a "jazz musician" now, but I think what I enjoyed about that music is now becoming important to me again, and informing my current work in interesting new ways. At least they're interesting to me. The Aten accommodates these elements. The piece can be performed like conventional chamber music, but there are numerous other ways to approach it, which include opportunities for solo and group improvisation, and for restructuring the piece in various ways. It is even possible to embed part of The Aten in other works and vice versa. In short, the possibilities are such that there can be no definitive performance of the work. Any choices made for one performance will eliminate numerous other possibilities. -Art Jarvinen