Parma Manifesto

© 1999 Frederic Rzewski LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 9, pp. 77–78, 1999 77 I D E N T I T Y C O M P O S E R ’ S N O T E B O O K Parma Manifesto Frederic Rzewski This text, Parma Manifesto, was written in the afternoon of a performance by Musica Elletronica Viva (MEV)—the Rome-based electronic music and improvisation group that Rzewski had recently co-founded—in March 1968 at the Festival Internazionale del Teatro Universitario in Parma, Italy. The evening performance, directed by Jean-Jacques Lebel, although basically spontaneous, mainly had to do with the necessity of taking theater out into the streets. It was terminated by the authorities, who simply turned off the electricity. The performers and audience carried the performance out of the theater. The next day, the students occupied the University. MEV was involved in a number of similar incidents at that time. Works published as Composer’s Notebook entries in Leonardo Music Journal may include composers’ texts published in raw, unedited form, scores, working notes, schematics, diagrams or other documentation of the artist’s creative process. Frederic Rzewski (musician, composer), 142 Meyerbear, 1180 Brussels, Belgium. E-mail: American-born and -raised composer and musician Frederic Rzewski began his career as a performer of new piano music in Italy during the 1960s. His early associations with the composers Christian Wolff, David Behrman, John Cage and David Tudor strongly influenced his compositional style and performance practice. He formed MEV in the mid-1960s with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum in order to explore possibilities in live electronics and collective improvisation. Over the past three decades his work has been performed across the U.S.A. and Europe, and he has taught composition in the U.S., Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. 78 Rzewski, Parma Manifesto I D E N T I T Y ...