LEAVE YOUR LEGACY

I am fascinated by what happens when people decide to create something without any preconceived rules. Similarly, I admire an artist’s approach to unusual or difficult work. With music, whatever the merits of the listener, there is a commitment to the process that amazes me. Personally, I am pretty forgiving when someone really goes for it by delivering something off the beaten path.

Other Minds fosters this approach. It provides commissions and supports experimental and adventurous music, especially for marginalized voices. OM is a safe space for exciting and experimental work you will not hear anywhere else, for better or for worse. OM is a community of inspiring practitioners.

I want to make sure there is always room for people to have the freedom and support to create without impediment, to pass along a framework for those who need an outlet and support. They will not be squashed by financial considerations or limits of opportunity.

For these reasons I’ve included OM in my will. I don’t have kids so am not preserving wealth for my offspring. My wife and I feel committed to making sure that the things that enriched our lives continue to exist and thrive. OM is among them.

I was raised in Fresno where I was exposed at a very early age to classical music by my Armenian family. Piano lessons started at age 5 and percussion at age 10. My first compositions were drum cadences for my high school marching band, and then I discovered the wonderful percussion ensemble music of Henry Cowell, John Cage and Lou Harrison, founders of the American Experimental Tradition.

At Fresno State I had access to a vast library of modern music LPs and was inspired to compose as well as to organize concerts of contemporary music when I realized that so little was being played there. Then a graduate of our college won music’s Pulitzer Prize in 1966, and I arranged for Leslie Bassett to return home from his teaching position in Ann Arbor to hear a concert of his music performed by our faculty and students.

In the process, I discovered a life’s calling of communicating enthusiasm for living composers.

Moving to San Francisco in 1967, I gave concerts at Anna Halprin’s legendary Dancers Workshop on Divisadero Street and worked at the Sea of Records with its enormous selection of new and used discs. Customers included Robert Hughes, a founder of the Cabrillo Festival, and John Rockwell, future NY Times music critic, both of whom recommended I apply for the opening in Berkeley as Music Director of KPFA Radio.

I started there in 1969 and, for 23 years, interviewed composers and introduced their music on the air. In 1993 I left, directed the Djerassi Resident Artists Program that hosted artists of all types on a large ranch near Stanford University, and started the Other Minds Festival with arts patron Jim Newman. Having met so many musicians during my radio years gave me a vast array of guests to invite. Our Other Minds concerts were preceded by private sessions on the remote and beautiful ranch property where the participants shared their ideas and music.

Other Minds brings together the world’s most original composers, focusing on the American Experimental tendencies of re-evaluating all the parameters—the building blocks—of music. We bring together each year a mixture of styles, ages, and ethnicities, knowing that many participants will forge new contacts that last a lifetime and that our audiences will relish the variety of new sounds.

I want Other Minds to continue preserving, commissioning, collecting, and disseminating music that leads the field forward. Having such an independent organization on the West Coast is part of our profile, in homage to Cowell (Menlo Park, CA), Cage (Los Angeles), and Harrison (Portland, OR), as well as a later generation that made history here: Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick, and so many others.

That is why my wife, Carol Law, and I have decided to include Other Minds in our wills with a legacy bequest. We’ll pass on knowing that OM will continue to serve as a home for alternative music.

My interest in music began in early childhood, encouraged by my parents and an uncle. He worked for a time at Oakland’s Stairway to Music. In the late 1950’s or early 60’s I remember my uncle taking me to a concert not part of my parent’s war horse repertoire: a modern music performance by Ralph Kirkpatrick on harpsichord with pieces by Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, among others.

Another early influence was the Oakland Public Library. It had a listening room, a relic from many decades ago. At first my parents brought me there since I was underage for admission on my own. As a frequent visitor, still not old enough which they politely ignored, I was soon allowed solo admission. The kind and understanding librarians let me take records home as well.

I studied piano for ten years, and violin as well, through the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I was fortunate to play under professionals. I later came to know OM founder Charles Amirkhanian at KPFA Radio where he served as music director, and where I had a weekly program of concert music. Charles and I shared a strong interest in new music, continuing into the founding of OM.

OM not only encourages younger up-and-coming composers and artists in various genres. It presents a mixture of those more established along with younger people. Together they exchange ideas, share their admiration for composers who have come before, and help generate a sense of continuity. As time goes on, who knows whether their compositions will be performed. It’s like John Adams at KPFA in his early days. Who knew what the outcome would be? Not all those emerging through OM will become giants.

I attend concerts less now, since I no longer live in the Bay Area, but enjoy listening to what OM presents online. While I don’t like everything, I appreciate the possibility they create through their archival for me to change my mind through repeated listening.

Ideally, in another life I would have been a composer. However, my professional background as an acoustical consultant has allowed me to give to causes I care about, an opportunity to give back. Other Minds is one organization that will benefit from a legacy gift in my estate.