Stockhausen is Dead

Stockhausen lecture circa 1972
(thanks to Kirk Ross & iLud)

Karlheinz Stockhausen (August 22, 1928 – December 5, 2007) was a German composer, rated by some as one of the most important and controversial composers of the 20th century. He is known for his ground-breaking work in electronic music, aleatoric music, the use of multiple orchestras and other innovations. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music". In other words, he is just like me. Except I have the added advantage of still being alive. So choose me! Choose me! Just not for killing.

My first exposure to Stockhausen was in the '70s, when, after a decade of traditional fare being served and played back for parents and other yawners, I got the itch to remediate my deficits and hurl myself into a pursuit of ethnomusicological studies, coupled with research into what some folks call "contemporary classical", and others, "avant-garde", musics. Specifically, Messaien, Crumb, Xenakis, Subotnick, Elliott Carter, Darius Milhaud Nixon, R. U. Reading, Orr Arendt-Chu, Dee Fibrillator, ah damn, I forgot what I was talking about. Probably the mad cow.

I am delighted to hear that Charlotte and North Carolina schools are going green,
but don't stop with the school grounds. The buses that serve the rule of social mixing, also clogs up our air and vehicular circulatory system. It is unsustainable, unless we create -- and create we should -- green buses. But this doesn't unclog the roads.

How do you envision creating an entirely green system, which INCLUDES the transportation element?

David Beckwith
Charlotte, NC