We’re all composers now

I went to The Stone on Avenue C to hear a rather renowned new-music-scene musician. He’s a friend of a friend of mine. Somehow we’d never met before. I’d never heard him before. In this show, he played his music. A lot of material from the laptop. Recorded sounds that were processed and manipulated. Some pieces made use of a MIDI controller/trumpet. Some interesting sounds. One piece was based, it seemed to me, on a famous recording by Vladimir Horowitz of Alexander Scriabin’s piano piece Vers la flamme. The recording had been slightly fuzzed up, distorted a bit. Along with that, there were sporadic trumpet notes. Long tones — daaaaaaa, daaaaaaa.

Greeting this friend-of-my-friend, after the performance, I mentioned the Horowitz recording. “Oh, you recognized it?”, he asked me. A bit later, as we figured out some of our mutual acquaintances, and after he told me about a forthcoming, very prestigious artistic residency, this avant-garde scion asked me, “Are you a composer too?” Although I think I answered that question with a “no,” after what I heard, I realize — we’re all composers now!