In honor of Conrad Schnitzler, “Gen” Ken Montgomery will conduct 5.5.85, an 8-channel “Cassette CONcert” composed by Conrad Schnitzler. Cassette CONcert are boxed sets of cassettes that Schnitzler composed with the intent that others could perform and listen to his CONcerts without his presence. This was the first CONcert given to Montgomery by Conrad in 1985. Montgomery traveled extensively conducting this and other octophonic CONcerts by live mixing the cassettes through whatever speaker set-ups he could find on the fly.
Tribute to Conrad Schnitzler
Ken Montgomery
Sat, Mar 17th 2012, 8pm
FREE
Location:
Harvestworks – www.harvestworks.org
596 Broadway, #602 | New York, NY 10012 | Phone: 212-431-1130
Subway: F/M/D/B Broadway/Lafayette, R Prince, 6 Bleeker
In honor of Conrad Schnitzler, “Gen” Ken Montgomery will conduct 5.5.85, an 8-channel “Cassette CONcert” composed by Conrad Schnitzler. Cassette CONcert are boxed sets of cassettes that Schnitzler composed with the intent that others could perform and listen to his CONcerts without his presence. This was the first CONcert given to Montgomery by Conrad in 1985. Montgomery traveled extensively conducting this and other octophonic CONcerts by live mixing the cassettes through whatever speaker set-ups he could find on the fly.
Gen Ken will also share some stories and cassettes from Conrad. We welcome your own stories as well, as we remember one of the great composer/performers of the 20th century.
Conrad Schnitzler made numerous contributions to electronic music and sound art. He studied sculpture with Joseph Beuys, before leaving Düsseldorf Kunstakademie (and leaving all of his sculptures in a grassy field!) to focusing on experiments with synthesizer and tape. In 1968, Schnitzler established the Zodiak Free Arts Lab in Kreuzberg, Berlin. He soon began working with Krautrock pioneers Tangerine Dream and Kluster.
In 1971, he began his solo musical career. His early recordings, Schwarz, Rot, and Blau were first published by Rene Block Gallery as multiples with handmade covers. In 1978, he released the album Con on the Egg Records label, and consequently released many albums of both synthesizer and tape-loop music. In 1986, Schnitzler founded the Generations Unlimited label and was involved in the founding of Ken Montgomery’s seminal Generator Sound Art Gallery on New York’s Lower East Side in 1989. Once a week he mailed a new 8-channel “Musik in the Dark” CONcert to New York, for Montgomery to perform.
After moving to Dallgow, a small village outside of Berlin. Schnitzler “discovered the 88-keys” and began producing works for keyboard and player piano. Schnitzler continued composing and recording until his untimely death in August 2011.
Ken Montgomery is a New York-based visual artist and “sound/composer” whose involvement in the cassette-culture and mail-art movements of the late seventies led to the creation, in 1989, of the first and arguably still the most important sound art gallery in New York City: Generator. Located first in the East Village and later in Chelsea, Generator’s wide scope and novel approach toward audio art made it a vector-point for some of the most interesting and important artists from around the world. Ken was also the founder of A.T.M.O.T.W.— Art is Throwing Money Out The Window — and Generator Sound Art Inc., and he co-founded the seminal experimental labels Generations Unlimited and Pogus Productions. As a composer in the early eighties Ken was creating multi-channel sound works often performed in total darkness. More recently Ken has been focusing on visual art, collage, bookmaking, and international correspondence art. As The Minister of Lamination (a.k.a. Egnekn) he is the world’s foremost practitioner of sonic Lamination Art. Montgomery has collaborated with a wide variety of artists including Conrad Schnitzler, Andrea Beeman, David Lee Myers (Arcane Device), Zoe Beloff, Michael Zodorozny, and Ishtvan Kantor (a.k.a. Monty Cantsin).
As a sound artist Ken Montgomery finds novel ways to work with sound. He has created an audio-only CD-ROM (Inner Eye / Outer Ear), a record label for experimental music (Generations Unlimited), the first sound art gallery in NYC (Generator), and a Ministry devoted to conducting one-on-one listening rituals (The Ministry of Lamination). Since 1985 he has been performing multi-channel sound concerts in intimate settings, often in total darkness. Montgomery began creating soundtracks for non-existent films in 1979 and distributed them on cassettes through what became known as the International Cassette Network. In composition and performance Montgomery has employed an ice crusher, an aquarium, a refrigerator, a hand massager and a laminator, to name a few.