>From todays Guardian newspaper...might be nice for some of the listmembers... 'Stockhausen to play concert in London
Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent Wednesday August 3, 2005 The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk> The eccentric standard-bearer of the European avant-garde, the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, is to make a rare appearance in England this autumn, his first since 2001. Stockhausen, the pioneer of electronic music, will perform solo in the 1,000-capacity old Billingsgate market in London. The venue will be plunged in darkness but for a shaft of "moonlight" illuminating the composer, who will be clad entirely in white as he twiddles the knobs at his mixing desk. The 82-year-old will present Kontakte, a 1960s work originally for piano, percussion and electronics, and Oktophonie, from his monumental, "cosmic" operatic cycle Licht, to which he devoted 25 years of his life from 1977. Licht is divided into sections for the seven days of the week and contains 29 hours of music. Oktophonie comes from Dienstag (Tuesday) and, according to its composer, "is the first composition that exists in which there is vertical movement between four groups of speakers at ceiling level and four at ground level". The concert will be presented on October 22 as part of the Frieze art fair, sponsored by the Guardian. Stockhausen will also deliver a lecture on October 21. Stockhausen's work has not only had a profound effect on classical music, with associates including such figures as Gyorgy Ligeti, Mauricio Kagel and Peter Eotvos, but on musicians including Aphex Twin, Bjork, Miles Davis, Kraftwerk and many of today's DJs. He and the Beatles were mutual fans - he once referred to John Lennon as "the most important mediator between popular and serious music" of the 20th century. The composer is pictured on the cover of the Sergeant Pepper LP, between Carl Jung and Mae West. Matthew Slotover, the co-director of Frieze art fair, said: "If you're open to the experience, his work is not at all inaccessible. It's the same sort of people who are attracted to contemporary art as who will be attracted to a Stockhausen concert - but perhaps they don't know it yet."'
