The Theatre of Eternal Music (later sometimes called The Dream Syndicate) was an

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

musical group formed by

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

in New York City in 1962. The first group (1962–1964) of performers consisted of La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Angus MacLise, and

Billy Name William George Linich (February 22, 1940 – July 18, 2016), known professionally as Billy Name, was an American photographer, filmmaker, and lighting designer. He was the archivist of The Factory from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subseq ...

. From 1964 to 1966, it consisted of La Monte Young (voice, saxophone), Marian Zazeela (voice, lighting),

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, dr ...

(viola), and

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both ...

(violin), with sometimes also

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist music, minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notab ...

(voice). Since 1966, Theatre of Eternal Music has seen many permutations and has included Garrett List, Jon Gibson,

Jon Hassell Jon Hassell (March 22, 1937 – June 26, 2021) was an American trumpet player and composer. He was best known for developing the concept of "Fourth World" music, which describes a "unified primitive/futurist sound" combining elements of various w ...

Rhys Chatham Rhys Chatham (born September 19, 1952) is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist (flutes in C, alto and bass, keyboard), primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orche ...

, Alex Dea, Terry Jennings, and many others, including some members of the various 1960s groups. The group's self-described "dream music" explored drones and pure harmonic intervals, employing sustained tones and electric amplification in lengthy, all-night performances. Archival recordings of the group's influential mid-1960s performances remain in La Monte Young's archive. None have ever seen official release following a dispute over compositional credit between Young and the pair of Conrad and Cale. Nonetheless, a 1965

bootleg recording A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. Making and distributing such recordings is known as ''bootlegging''. Recordings may be copied and traded ...

removed from the archive by Young's first archivist, Arnold Dreyblatt, was controversially released in 2000 by Table of the Elements in CD as '' Day of Niagara''. The original

master tape Master recordings, or simply masters, are the original recordings—including Mastering (audio), post-recording mixes and Record production, production edits—of audio performances, from which all analog and digital copies of the audio are derived ...

of the ''Day of Niagara'' recording was illicitly copied several decades before it found its way to this bootleg release and La Monte Young threatened legal action against the label. But as there had been no written agreement on who owned the rights to the music, no legal action was taken. Other bootlegs of Theatre of Eternal Music have appeared online via

file-sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include re ...

sites.

Musical approach

The Theatre of Eternal Music performed music consisting of long sustained tones and unconventional

harmonic In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'' of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the ''1st har ...

combinations, which were explored via

improvisation Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

restricted by "laws" laid out by

regarding allowable sequences and simultaneities. Combined with Young's interest in sustained tones and

Hindustani classical music Hindustani classical music is the Indian classical music, classical music of the Indian subcontinent's northern regions. It may also be called North Indian classical music or ''Uttar Bhartiya shastriya sangeet''. The term ''shastriya sangeet'' ...

was

's knowledge of

just intonation In music, just intonation or pure intonation is a musical tuning, tuning system in which the space between notes' frequency, frequencies (called interval (music), intervals) is a natural number, whole number ratio, ratio. Intervals spaced in thi ...

and the mathematics of non-Western tuning, along with his introduction of electronic amplification. Occasionally, Young also made use of

sine wave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or sinusoid (symbol: ∿) is a periodic function, periodic wave whose waveform (shape) is the trigonometric function, trigonometric sine, sine function. In mechanics, as a linear motion over time, this is ''simple ...

generators and other electronic sound sources, such as the

utility frequency The utility frequency, (power) line frequency (American English) or mains frequency (British English) is the nominal frequency of the oscillations of alternating current (AC) in a wide area synchronous grid transmitted from a power station to t ...

of 60 Hz motor of his turtle's aquarium tank. Most of the pieces performed by the Theatre of Eternal Music have no beginning and no end, existing before and after a particular performance.

History

By February 1965, the group had begun referring to itself as the Theatre of Eternal Music. Many of the group's performances and practice sessions took place in Young and Zazeela's New York loft at 275 Church Street in

TriBeCa Tribeca ( ), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Str ...

. In 1964, the group began performing sections of Young's drone-based improvisational work ''The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys'', which features a

raga A raga ( ; , ; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a musical mode, melodic mode. It is central to classical Indian music. Each raga consists of an array of melodic structures with musical motifs; and, fro ...

-like scale made up of the harmonic numbers 21, 189, 3, 49, 7, and 63 over the

fundamental frequency The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the ''fundamental'' (abbreviated as 0 or 1 ), is defined as the lowest frequency of a Periodic signal, periodic waveform. In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch (music), pitch of a n ...

. The Theater of Eternal Music's sustained notes and loud amplification influenced John Cale's subsequent contribution to

The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground were an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in 1964. Its classic lineup consisted of singer and guitarist Lou Reed, Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and percussionis ...

in his use of both discordance and feedback. Zazeela produced early op art light shows to accompany their performances. Young revived the group in the late 1960s, although original member Tony Conrad found these performances less collaborative than the first incarnation and eventually parted ways with the project. A section of ''The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys'' entitled "Map of 49’s Dream: The Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals Ornamental Light-Years Tracery," is the only one of which a fragment can be found on the 1974 LP '' Dream House 78' 17"'' (with

on trumpet, Garrett List on trombone, Zazeela on voice and Young on electronics).

Dispute over credits

Few of the group's recorded performances from the 1960s have ever seen public release, and remain in the possession of Young despite protest from other group members. A dispute based on a misunderstanding of compositional credit developed between Young and members Conrad and Cale. Requests for copies of these recordings were met with Young's insistence that they sign an agreement acknowledging Young as the sole composer of the music, which they refused to do; Conrad maintained that the group was a collaborative enterprise which dissolved the concept of the composer. In 1990, Conrad picketed outside a Young performance with a sign that read "Composer La Monte Young does not understand ‘his’ work.” In 2000, the record label Table of the Elements released a

of a 1965 performance as '' Day of Niagara''; the recording was not authorized by Young. Young responded to the complaints of Conrad and Cale in an essay which reaffirmed his status as sole composer. He also published a press release describing extensive problems with the release, including errors in the audio quality of the copied source tape, an unbalanced mix, and uninspired artwork made without Zazeela's input. Cale and Conrad later released recordings they made during the mid-sixties, such as Cale's ''Inside the Dream Syndicate'' series (The Dream Syndicate being the alternative name given by Cale and Conrad to their collective work with Young).

Discography

* '' Dream House 78' 17"'' (Shandar, 1974) – credited to

/ Marian Zazeela / Theatre of Eternal Music * '' Inside the Dream Syndicate, Volume I: Day of Niagara'' (Table of the Elements, 2000) – credited to

/ Angus MacLise / La Monte Young / Marian Zazeela * '' Trio for Strings'' (1958) recorded live in 2015 at the Dia:Chelsea Dream House, performed by Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble ( Dia Art Foundation, 2022) This vinyl box set (with cover calligraphy by Marian Zazeela) is the first-ever official release of

’s ''Trio for Strings'' (1958). It was recorded in 2015 live at the Dia:Chelsea Dream House sound-and-light installation by Young, Zazeela, and Jung Hee Choi. ''Trio for Strings'' was performed by The Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble led by

Charles Curtis Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was the 31st vice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 under President Herbert Hoover. He was the Senate Majority Leader from 1924 to 1929. An enrolled member of the Kaw Natio ...

; featuring Curtis on

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

; Reynard Rott on cello; Erik Carlson on

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

, and Christopher Otto on viola.

Notes

External links

"La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela at the Dream House"
by Frank J. Oteri, October 1, 2003, '' NewMusicBox'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Theatre of Eternal Music American experimental musical groups American classical music groups Musical groups from New York City Drone music groups Musical groups established in 1962 Musical groups disestablished in 1974