Background:
1687,Inc. was founded in 1994 to produce concerts and recordings of music and text by Lenore Von Stein with groups of musicians she organized. Each concert had a name that reflected a general theme or area of study and used work by several composers, including Lenore Von Stein. The music and text were improvised and composed. In the late 1990's electronic music, chance elements, film and visual art were added to this mix; in 2001 scholars were added. Lenore began to call the concerts collages and "living paintings." Each concert's theme was more specifically defined and more carefully explored. The focus from 2003 to, as of this writing, mid-2005 is on developing this collage form with a core group of musicians. For instance, craft issues like seamless transitions between improvised and composed work, and more purely artistic ones like the interaction of idea, sensation and emotion to simultaneously inhabit distinct perspectives.

Log Entry: April 23, 2005

Logger: Lenore Von Stein
Spring Studio Series I and II 2004 through 2005
We presented new concerts almost monthly for a year.
This was very helpful in terms of developing material, ways of working, and relationships between band members and technical crew. It also sharpened our profile in the arts community.
It was not helpful in terms of building substantial new audiences or raising money.
Only some of the themes we worked with appealed to the audience at Spring Studio and the music was quite different from music familiar to many of the painters that frequented the studio

Log Entry: November 7, 2005 Philadelphia Proposals and NYSCA

Logger: Lenore Von Stein
Amount of staff time devoted to this project: Negotiations have gone on for two months and proposals took a good deal of time and thought but a time log wasn't kept.
1. Through a composer/presenter in New York I was connected to a manager/producer in Philadelphia - who, in turn, connected me with four presenters of new music, one of traditional music (in this case jazz) and one of world music.
2. I proposed a menu of four concerts (by theme) using the current core ensemble and methods of working. One concert was proposed using a local Philadelphia ensemble with the addition of another soprano and myself.
3. The traditional music and world music presenters were not interested in the concerts I proposed.
4. Two of the presenters asked for more information and to hear music. One asked for fundraising information and one for biographical information.
5. The Ensemble decided it was not interested and said the work did not fit with what they were doing in the next couple of years. I would like more detail and will endeavor to get it.
6. New York State Council on the Arts: rejected our proposal for the second year in a row. It was the most likely outcome. I would like more detail and will endeavor to get it.
7. The next round of proposals will be to funders who have expressed an interest in artwork that is difficult to fund because of its perspective, subject matter or innovative form.

Log Entry: November 19, 2005 Notes on the Left Forum's Conference on Classical Music and the Left

Logger: Lenore Von Stein
Held at the City University of New York Graduate Center, NYC November 12,2005
Two people from 1687.inc. sat on panels: Lenore Von Stein
The panels were made up of artists (composers and players) critics and academics, e.g. a musicologist, and a sociologist (Stanley Aronowitz)
Central conference theme was the lack of a seemingly natural audience for new music: the left.
The left leaning audience isn't interested, and some portion of the small group of leftists who do have a taste for complicated music want it to be used for propaganda and/or tow some stylistic line.
The issues for me:
1. I make art for art sake and will not, knowingly anyway, create propaganda. This did not sit so well with some of the people there but others were sympathetic.
For example, I don't make anti-war music but I may make a piece that explores war and I'm not too afraid of what I'll find out. But I am afraid of regurgitating what I thought at the beginning of making the art work by the end of the work.
2. Style versus Content: I'm much more interested in content e.g. I think Ludwig van Beethoven and Thelonius Monk were both particularly interested in (among many other issues and sensations, etc.) dynamic interactions between emotions compressed by social pressures and more socially acceptable "feelings."
There was a strong pull to a sophisticated left-wing authoritarianism, e.g. lots of academic commentary on problems in adhering to a particular style of music which I find stultifying and which I spoke out against. For music makers I'm partial to independent minds driven to be their fuller selves and so likely to be sincere and inventive; and a broad classically trained palette of techniques for articulate musical conversations.
3. I hit a brick wall discussing the situation of the female (can be seen as the opposite of macho) e.g. the situation of women in jazz (one group of people lording over another: power corrupting) as contributing to the stagnation of jazz.

January 19, 2009

Two days ago, January 17th, we videoed the first TV show for Manhattan Neighborhood Network with an all volunteer band and crew.  We, the band and crew, were aiming at getting two 28-minute shows shot.  I’d then edit them and they’d be broadcast  - we only managed to get one done which actually may be a good thing because it makes filming the second show a more leisurely affair including giving me time to think about how to address the technical pitfalls we experienced this time out. 

The technical crew is the major problem – we don’t have a crew that’s large enough or skilled enough.  We needed at least two people during the taping in the small studio we used with two robotic cameras: Sound engineer, and director/camera person.  The cameraperson, who had attended the mandatory MNN trainings, pulled out of the project a week before the taping – in part because of scheduling.  So we were left with no camera person/director and no time to replace this person given the rules of the TV station, MNN, e.g. training requirements, as well as having no money to pay someone to do this work.

We had a four-hour booking at the studio.  It took us 2 ½ hours to complete our stumbling technical set up: pre set shots, pre-prepared titles working, and sound check.  The crew was our lone trainer from MNN and a completely inexperienced but earnest person on sound.  This lack of technical crew may also push back the start of our series because the station, MNN, may pull the in-kind support for the project until they’re sure we can put on a show all on our own without one of their people serving on the crew.

I became sick at the beginning of the taping of the second show and so we had to stop.  We are scheduled to back into the studio to shoot the second show on February 23rd.

Must write a one page project description for the two technical people that may come on board as well as for the advertisement for the third person we need, If all goes according to my plan we will be in the bigger, much more user friendly studio by sometime in March, 2009 shooting the first episode of a two section show, our first TV series!

January 25, 2009
Finding out how long things take: I just completed and mailed an outline of our TV crew needs when we move into the bigger three camera studio with the good sound system and the room we need.  I learned as I put this description together – e.g. thinking about what we need and about the order in which other people need me to put the material, and what material to detail and which not to detail right now.  I have this sinking feeling that this initial mailing will not get me the volunteer crew I need rather get me from my receivers - apathy, and confusion masked as hostility and/or earnest generalities– simultaneously I feel competent to push through this roadblock - confident I’ll find my crew albeit it’ll take longer perhaps much longer than I want it to.  In the meantime I will run the video switcher and perform in the small TV studio we are currently using – make a sitting dance out of it, commentary on our TV resources, the medium, our work.