Event

S.E.M. Ensemble: Many Many Women by Petr Kotik

Kamala Sankaram & Sadie Dawkins Rosales (soprano), Patrick Fennig (countertenor), Daniel Neer (tenor), Kelvin Chan (baritone), Steven Hrycelak (bass), Petr Kotik & Martha Cargo (flutes), Thomas Verchot (trumpet), William Lang & James Rogers (trombones)

Many Many Women (1975-78) marks the culmination of a series of extended-duration works, composed by Kotik from 1971-'83, which have no distinct beginning or ending, and which may be performed in whole or in part without compromising the integrity of the composition. Many of these pieces included parts for voices, at first with texts by Gertrude Stein and later by R. Buckminster Fuller.

Depending on the tempo, the piece takes five to six hours of uninterrupted performance. The entire text of Gertrude Stein's 86-page novella of the same name is used. There is no general score, and the 173 sections are distributed among the musicians who shape the piece, deciding individually on each section's entry.

The composer and musicologist Kyle Gann wrote in 2001 about Many Many Women:

"a durable classic, in fact, from an era whose most spectacular productions often proved ephemeral. It is a musical monument, vast in scale, rich in polyphony, resonant in cultural associations. And yet, unbelievably, few people have heard of it. It is one of those wonderful artistic productions that somehow slipped through the cracks, a disaster that our cultural cognoscenti assure us never happens."

Like other artists at that time among them Robert Wilson, Philip Glass, La Monte Young, John Cage, and later Morton Feldman Kotik created works that required many hours of uninterrupted performance. Despite Kotik's contributions throughout the 1970s, his music remains largely unknown to wide audiences.

Kotik's inspiration to start writing for voice was his close collaboration (1971-1975) with the composer and singer Julius Eastman. It was during the long working sessions with Eastman that Kotik conceived the idea of using parallel perfect intervals (octaves, fifths, and fourths) a trace that became characteristic of Kotik's music during that time.