Department of Music faculty collaborate for minimalist concert

Minimalist music isn't all that easy to listen to, Paul Thompson said.

Nevertheless, the flute and university studies professor at Southeast Missouri State University took charge in organizing an all-faculty concert in the style.

Thompson said the idea sparked when he played as part of a performance put together by Southeast colleague Robert Fruehwald in November recognizing the 50th anniversary of Terry Riley's "In C."

According to Thompson, "In C" is credited as the earliest minimalist piece, first performed in 1964.

He said though abstract, the characteristic choices in minimalist composition are part of what makes the music so intriguing. He likes the music outside of just performing it.

Thompson added the minimalist style, along with bringing together more than half the music department faculty, is unusual for a concert scheduled at the River Campus.

"I just remember standing there thinking, 'Well, this is working very well. This is very delightful. Why not actually have an all-faculty version of it?'" Thompson said, recalling the performance of Riley's "In C" at the Crisp Museum. "We all work together on a daily basis, but [we rarely] actually play together."

Thompson said minimalist music is labeled as an American invention and grew in popularity almost immediately after World War II. The experimental genre became almost cultlike. Composers no longer were recognized within academic circles writing in any other way.

"So for a generation there, particularly following the second World War, if you were a composer, you felt, basically, if you were in academe, that you either had to buy into this really strange, rather forbidding music, or you had to go and write pop tunes or something," Thompson said. "You sort of had no choice."

Riley is acknowledged as having composed the first work under the style, but Thompson said Philip Glass is the true "father" of minimalism.

Essentially, the music is based on a continuous use of repetition and common chords.

"In a way, almost, the materials that the minimalist composers use, often it's like child's play," Thompson said.

"Terry Riley's In C and Other Minimalist Works" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Shuck Music Recital Hall at the River Campus. The concert includes work by Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars and, naturally, Riley.

Thompson said he will be accompanying his wife, Sara Edgerton -- professor of cello and string bass at Southeast and artistic director of the Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra -- for Bryars' "The South Downs."

He said minimalist music's compilation of styles gives the movement a timelessness while also remaining contemporary.

"I think all really good music has universal truths in it, but it's important that the music of any particular era connects with people of that era," Thompson said. "I think minimalism in some sort of sense is the music of our time, of this last 50 years."

People relate to undertones found in minimalist music, regardless of its complexity. Nyman was influenced by minimalism, rock and Baroque compositions, which carried over into his pieces, and Glass' work has been used throughout numerous film scores.

"There's lots of improvisation -- 'In C' in a sense," Thompson said. "There's certainly lots of driving, loud music if you happen to like sort of rock music and lots of really sad, soft, quiet, timeless music, too. There's something for everybody."

It's crucial music students gain experience in stage performance, but it's just as important for faculty to maintain the craft they teach, he said.

"We expect our students to stand up and play," Thompson said. "Well, it's only fair that we should stand up and play for students occasionally, too."

He noted it was its own kind of teaching tool.

"Most of the time, music professors teach in an applied lesson, and it's not really a democracy. Basically, one spends a lot of the time saying, 'Do this, do this, don't do this,' and hopefully, with nurturing, your students get a lot out of applied lessons," Thompson said. "But you also learn a lot from seeing your teacher stand up on stage. What are they going through? You know, 'OK, I see what they're talking about,' and, 'Well, they're not very good at that, either.' It's a facet of education."

It also keeps them honest as still practicing musicians themselves.

"In the very truest sense, we're all colleagues, the students and the faculty," Thompson said. "It just so happens that the faculty generally have just been doing this a little bit longer, just got a little bit more experience. But it's not really a divide of faculty and students. We're all professional musicians, and we're all pursuing the art of music, as rewarding and crazy as that is."

General admission tickets for the "Terry Riley's In C and Other Minimalist Works" concert are $10.

Tickets may be purchased at the River Campus box office between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays, by calling (573) 651-2265 or online at RiverCampusEvents.com.

Pertinent address:

518 S. Fountain St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.