The aim of Concentration Camp is to be a site where people who are interested in 20th and 21st century “classical” music (a problematic term I’ll discuss later) can read, hear and share things that might be interesting and perhaps even moving to them…
Along with the Mixcloud site of the same name, the hope is to expose as many people as possible to music they might not otherwise get to hear, since most “classical” radio stations rarely play anything beyond a very finite set of modern pieces – “Appalachian Spring,” for example, or Gorecki’s third symphony, much like “classic rock” stations do. Most orchestras and chamber groups, likewise, shy away from 20th century and 21st century music for their concert programs; typically, modern pieces, if they are played at all, are given the short opening slot on a three-piece bill. As in, “Whew, that’s over, now let’s get to the Mozart.” It’s understandable – most people (or, consumers) have finite storage for music and a finite capacity for dealing with confrontational ideas.
This site is an outgrowth of a radio show I started doing a couple years ago in my town of Asheville, NC. I was offered a two-hour slot and I picked classical as a challenge to myself, since I knew very little about it. I’ve learned a lot in two years, thanks to a lot of reading and listening, but I will remain a novice until the end, I’m afraid. But I have come to love composers like Shostakovich, Schnittke, Saariaho, Ligeti, Ustvolskaya and Ives and believe they should be heard, so I’m going to play them…
For the record, the name “Concentration Camp” is more double entendre than pun. While the historical term lines up neatly with time frame of music that’ll be presented and discussed – the British coined the term in 1901 to describe a tactic employed in the Boer War, where they rounded up and held the families of tenacious insurgents – and while the music I’ll play largely reflects the fact that the 20th C. was a nightmare, the show is as much about listening closely to – concentrating on – music that pays infinite dividends to close listeners. I used to be able to concentrate, but now I have to go to camp to work on it…
Which is too bad. I would suggest that by giving such short shrift to the groundbreaking and extremely fun-to-listen-to music of the 20th and 21st centuries, the classical music establishment writes its own death sentence. Classical music’s audience in the U.S., at least outside of major cities, is wrinkled of skin and silver of hair – a demographic that skews conservative and “safe”. If younger (and “younger” is relative here…) people heard the music from the modern and post-modern eras, I think, that audience might actually grow… Instead, discovering music from the last 120 years requires some work. It’s fun work. I’ll do it.
All anyone needs to know about me or my motivation here is that I was a history and literature teacher for 21 years (and so like the narratives involved in the music) and listening to music has always been the thing I loved best aside from spending time my family and my dogs. And I am a “lay person.” I didn’t start listening to classical music until my mid-50s (I’m 58 now) when I came into possession of two large classical CD collections from people who knew their shit. I sold a lot of the 19th century and prior stuff on Amazon – because, I will admit, it does little for me – but hung on to the modern stuff out of curiosity. And then I started hearing music that BLEW ME AWAY. Psychedelic (for lack of a better word) beyond what I knew possible, music where weird, sometimes subtle and sometimes sweeping melodies are free to take flight and where bludgeoning force and fragile wisps of sound might coexist in the same piece. I think it is the best music ever made by white people.
I think I say out loud at least once a day how lucky I am to have found this music. To consider that I almost passed through life without hearing Arnold Schnittke or Galina Ustvolskaya or Ben Johnston or Einojuhani Rautavaara is staggering to me. These and many other composers have given me a lot to think about at a time – not just in my own old age but within this hyper frantic consumer culture we’re all of us living in – when we need to make sure we keep thinking. The name “Concentration Camp” is a double entendre if that’s not obvious. While the historical term lines up neatly with time frame of music I’ll present – the British coined the term in 1901 to describe a tactic employed in the Boer War, where they rounded up and held the families of tenacious insurgents – the show is about listening closely to – concentrating on – music that pays infinite dividends to close listeners.
While I’m a novice and will undoubtedly make errors, I am trying to make myself an expert – or at least get to the point I can hang in conversations with people whose minds function far more forcefully than mine in these matters – and I will share some incredibly helpful book titles and websites in future posts. And I hope people might write in to, or for, this blog site, so that I might learn from them. I have had inestimable guidance in discovering new music from friends I’ve made via a radio show I do for WSFM 103.3 in Asheville, North Carolina, called “Orchestral Maneuvers” (I needed a name fast), which I also put on Mixcloud. The Concentration Camp mixtapes I’ll put on Mixcloud will be like those shows, only without ads and PSAs and, hopefully, as many mistakes…
A caveat for people who, like I did, approach classical music while rooted in various forms of pop or hook-and-beat driven music: sometimes it takes four or five or six listens to really appreciate or get a piece. It takes a lot more patience than we’re used to. But concentrating pays off. At least for me; hopefully, it will for you as well. hopefully for you, too.
If you want to write for the blog – record and performance reviews would be great! – feel free to contact me at deafmix3@hotmail. Yeah, I’m old.
Don Howland; Asheville, NC; Jan. 1, 2017
Concentration Camp 