This book portrays an important and previously unexplored corner of the history of new music in America: the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in the State University of New York at Buffalo. Composers Lukas Foss (founder), Lejaren Hiller, and Morton Feldman were the music directors over the life of the Center, the years 1964–1980. Foss's plan called for the Rockefeller Foundation to provide annual fellowships for young composers and virtuoso instrumentalists to be based in Buffalo for up to two years, thus creating a cadre of like-minded musicians who would spend their time studying, ... More

This book portrays an important and previously unexplored corner of the history of new music in America: the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in the State University of New York at Buffalo. Composers Lukas Foss (founder), Lejaren Hiller, and Morton Feldman were the music directors over the life of the Center, the years 1964–1980. Foss's plan called for the Rockefeller Foundation to provide annual fellowships for young composers and virtuoso instrumentalists to be based in Buffalo for up to two years, thus creating a cadre of like-minded musicians who would spend their time studying, creating, and performing difficult—often controversial—new work. The now legendary group of musicians who participated in the Buffalo group included George Crumb, Terry Riley, Cornelius Cardew, Maryanne Amacher, Frederic Rzewski, Julius Eastman, David Tudor, and many more. The book provides valuable accounts of the Center's influential concert series, Evenings For New Music, its renowned recording of Terry Riley's In C, the political activism of the time, and the intersection between academic, private, and institutional funding for the arts. As Life magazine, reporting in 1965 on the Festival of the Arts Today stated, “Buffalo exploded last month in a two-week avant garde festival that was bigger and hipper than anything ever held in Paris or New York….”