EXTRADITION PLAYS GOLDSTEIN will present four concerts between October 2024 and February 2025 dedicated to the work of American-Canadian composer, violinist, and improvisor Malcolm Goldstein (b. 1936, Brooklyn, NY).

> OCTOBER 19, 2024 A Summoning of Focus (1977)•The Fragility of Line / Points Extending (1982)•Elegía (1987)•Yosha’s Morning Song (1972)•Scuttling a Space of Time, Slowly (2014)

> NOVEMBER 9, 2024 Wandering Still (2017)•By Way of Definition (1996)•Process, or Time Between (2020)•. . . Out of Changes: Keeping Still; Mountain (1994)•Breath Within Cycles Becoming (1983)

> JANUARY 25, 2025 On and On and Always Slowly Nowhere (1983)•Bridging the Gap (1987)•Broken Canons (for Charles Ives) (2011)•The Rich and Complex Vocabulary of a Percussionist’s Body/Gesture (1982)•The Violence of Small Sounds (1984)

> FEBRUARY 15, 2025 Jade Mountain Soundings  (1983)•That Is Poetry As (1993)•Marin’s Song, Illuminated (1979)•The Seasons: Vermont (Winter) (1983)•Configurations in Darkness (1995)

All concerts at LEAVEN COMMUNITY, 5431 NE 20th Ave @ Killingsworth, PDX

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This page provides background on Goldstein’s career, his compositions, and other relevant themes.

Malcolm Goldstein: A Short Biography

Malcolm Goldstein (b. 1936, Brooklyn, NY) is an American-Canadian composer, violinist, and improviser who has been active in the presentation of new music and dance internationally for more than six decades. In 1960 he received an M.A. in music composition from Columbia University, where he studied with Otto Luening. Soon after, he co-founded the Tone Roads Ensemble with fellow composer/performers Philip Corner and James Tenney, and was a participant in the Judson Dance Theater, the New York Festival of the Avant-Garde, and the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. As a solo performer, Goldstein’s “soundings” improvisations have reinvented the sonic and expressive possibilities of the violin, and as a composer he has consistently integrated new performance techniques and aspects of structured improvisation into a variety of instrumental and vocal frameworks.

His work has been performed by ensembles such as Essential Music, Relâche, L’Art pour l’art, Quatuor Bozzini, Musical Elements, The New Performance Group/Cornish Institute, and Klangforum Wien, as well as the Ensemble for New Music / Hessischer Rundfunk, Frankfurt, for which he served as director in the 1990s. His music has also been performed at several New Music America festivals, Meet the Moderns / Brooklyn Philharmonic, Pro Musica Nova Bremen, Acustica International / WDR Cologne, Invention ’89 Berlin, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, De Ijsbreker Amsterdam, Maerz Musik Berlin, Köln Triennale, Sound Culture ’93 Tokyo, Neue Horizonte and TonArt (Bern), and in France at Musique Action and Festival Densités.

He has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts/Inter-Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, and the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as numerous commissions from Studio Akustische Kunst / WDR Cologne. In 1994 he received the Prix International award for his acoustic art/radio work between (two) spaces. He has written extensively on improvisation, as in his book Sounding the Full Circle, and edited the critical edition of Charles Ives’s Second String Quartet, which was commissioned by The Charles Ives Society and published by Peermusic Classical.

Goldstein is currently a full-time Canadian, residing in Montréal.

Quotes By & About Malcolm Goldstein

“[Breath of wind] blowing on the ten thousand things in a different way, so that each can be itself — all take what they want for themselves, but who does the sounding?" — Chuang-Tzu

“The sound of crickets is endless; each life pulsing its own music . . . And the trees flowing in the wind: the total mass bending to an unseen weight; each branch, each tree having its own rhythm and, in its own way, responding.” — Malcolm Goldstein, “Blueberry Picking” (1968), from Sounding the Full Circle

“I start from where I am (which is not the same as starting from nothing); there is a lot in all / around us all the time. (Nothing prearranged or anticipated.) It is just a matter of letting whatever is necessary come forth, to be heard (which is not the same as repetition of habits).

as one sound unfolds, I follow it with my bow

bent thick or thin upon the line;

gut and metal enfolding, stretched taut

full length the black wood

a pathway of no stepping stones

while fingertips find footholds and swaying,

sing a resonance of lush green.”

— Malcolm Goldstein, “Improvisation: People Making Music” (1986), from Sounding the Full Circle

“The 1960s surprised people because the roots of radical artistic innovation had been planted so deeply in the 1950s, and in the early sixties along came a generation — not the ‘baby boomers,’ but rather those born in the 1930s (a generation not ravaged by the Second World War) — ready to run with it. For my money, one of the greatest composers of that generation, and one who has held resolutely to that original radicalism (an avant-garde neither corrupted nor vitiated by the social-cultural forces of marketing or academic assimilation) is Malcolm Goldstein.” — Peter Garland, from the liner notes to Malcolm Goldstein: A Sounding of Sources

“[The Judson Dance Theater] was very important. What happened at that time doesn't exist now, and probably won't exist again, because the world is very different now, politically and economically. In a way, that was destroyed when people started to think professionally, but at the beginning it was mainly a collection of kids in their late 20s, getting together to do something. It was a collaboration of people on equal terrain, without hierarchies, people coming from different disciplines — dance, music, theater, poetry — and it was concerned with the world we live in. People draw parallels to Cage, but in a way it was different: Cage in his chance way still organized, whereas the Judson Dance Theater was just the pleasure of [looks around for an example] the crack in the concrete on this wall, the pleasure of what life is like, the pleasure of Yvonne Rainier's piece with twenty or so people just walking round a space. The beauty of every single person in the world, how they walk, how they do anything. It was a real delight in our lives, and a celebration of the uniqueness of every human being.” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic (April 28, 2006)

“We bought the land [in Vermont] in 1964, when I was 28. At first we had a small tent and then by the end of the ’60s we built a small shack. Back to the earth — the whole hippie thing. I was playing with orchestras in New York City, I had to work about five jobs simultaneously just to be able to carry on doing my music for nothing. I was married, my son was born, and I was working for a while in Puerto Rico. When I came back I was offered a college job, and my then wife said, ‘Let's move to Vermont full time.’ I said, wait, I could be a college professor, with job security and tenure . . . but you don't argue. [laughs] So we moved there in about ’71, after we'd built a regular house, a log house. We stayed there about four or five years. It has no electricity, but it's my paradise. . . . Living in the woods opened up my life, opened up my ears to all kinds of nuances of sound — the wind in the trees, textures. . . . It's like the Judson Dance Theater experience again: These are our lives, and we're living in the world of sound and light and smell. It's not high art, it's more the experience of who you are totally, rather than thinking about some idea of perfect. I'm not interested in perfect. It must be very boring. I just want my life to be continually open.” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic (April 28, 2006)

“Malcolm . . . shares the classical Chinese poets’ rapture with the natural world, and how its many moods echo our own; and all his globetrotting travels ultimately lead him back to Vermont. Back in the late sixties Malcolm built his cabin in the woods by hand and from scratch — to this day I still wonder, how did a guy born into a Brooklyn family, who studied classical violin, end up like this? I insist: If you want to know the real Malcolm Goldstein, visit him at that cabin. . . . At night in the darkness . . . and the silence of the woods, when Malcolm brings out his violin and starts to play for you, you gain a deeper understanding of where his music comes from.” — Peter Garland, from the liner notes to Malcolm Goldstein: A Sounding of Sources

“I don’t use the word experimental, [but] it’s a good word, because it’s related to the word experience. . . . For me, [this music is] an enactment, making it into an act, making it into a giving. It has to do with people. It has to do with relationships. It has to do with the moment sounding. . . . I’ll quote one of my favorite writers, Chuang Tzu, who says, ‘jump into the boundless like the unknown and make it your home.’ Well, he’s talking about life. So I say, yeah, the first part of it is wonderful. It’s the best definition of improvisation I could think of. But for living, it’s very hard. So the word experimental, then, comes down to really opening up the boundaries. What are the confinements of what is a through-composed piece? By that I mean, if you think of all the music you know except so-called experimental, it’s a linear piece that goes from somewhere, does something, and ends. And this is even in many cultures too, folk music. But there is an entrance into an experiencing of and either some sort of ending or some sort of resolution. But so-called experimental music, we don’t have to do that. And there are an infinite number of formats, like an open field format, a format which is more spiral, which opens up into other spaces, cyclic fields. There are many, many different formats or structures, whichever word you want to use, which are not linear. And that’s what I have gotten into, because, going back to Chuang Tzu, experimental then relates to my life, not just to writing a piece of music. I’m not against [linear music] . . . it’s still wonderful music, and I still love Bach and Beethoven and others: Messiaen, Ives, Bartok. But that’s another way of thinking. So this experimental then relates more to our living. . . . You know, you walk in, say, a farm field or an open field anywhere, and there’s no path to tell you which way to go and which way to get out. You can walk around it in many, many different ways. And that’s I guess what I would call experimental. You’re experiencing the whole thing while you’re passing through it as a living experience.” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Jennie Gottschalk, Sound Expanse (April 12, 2017)

“The most important thing with my scores, what takes the most time, is to make as clear as possible to the performer what needs to be done. . . . Do you know the word claro in Spanish? Claro means ‘clear.’ Mira: That’s also wonderful, too. But claro, it’s like, ‘to make things clear.’ That to me, is important. Even in Beethoven, he made it clear his way. Machaut made it clear his way. Every composer makes it clear their way. And so with mine, it might seem that, oh, he’s just, you know, drawing some graphic stuff. No, no: That’s, for me, the clearest way.” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Jennie Gottschalk, Sound Expanse (April 12, 2017)

“[I met Philip Corner at the] end of the ’50s. Can't remember the exact date, but he was in graduate school with me in Otto Luening's class [at Columbia]. So we met, and one of us was carrying a score by Varèse, and the other said, ‘Oh you're interested in Varèse.’ We debate today over who was carrying the score, but of course I think I it was me! [laughs] But we became instant friends, and I introduced him to Jim Tenney. We're often mentioned together [note: the three founded the Tone Roads ensemble in 1963], but Philip and Jim and I are three very different people. This is always the problem with what's referred to as ‘schools’ of painters or composers — like the New York School, with Cage, Christian Wolff, Morty Feldman, and Earle Brown. All those people were completely different. There was no school. At least with Philip and Jim no one's called us a ‘school’ yet, so that's all right!” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic (April 28, 2006)

“With Tone Roads, we set out to play what we thought were the classics of twentieth century music: Ives, Varèse, Cage, Cowell, Ruggles, Messiaen — mostly American music, actually. The first concert was at Columbia. It was Jim Tenney and Philip Corner playing piano pieces and accompanying some Ives songs, and I also invited Paul Zufofsky and Gilbert Kalish and they did [Ives'] Fourth Violin and Piano Sonata. . . . From then on we moved downtown to the New School for Social Research, and we just did concerts whenever we felt an impetus to do a concert. The first concerts were what we called the classics, and then we began to incorporate more contemporary material, including our own. It was a very loose kind of organization — we didn't have any money. Essentially people played for nothing. We chose the pieces that interested us, and then I'd go to Juilliard and would find people who wanted to play. They did it purely out of interest. We charged one dollar for entrance, and if you couldn't afford that it was free. After several rehearsals and a concert musicians might make $5 [laughs].” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic (April 28, 2006)

“[In the early ’60s] we didn’t think of ourselves as professional, and we didn’t think about career. Never. We were just a bunch of kids doing music, dance, and theatre. The whole perspective was very different. Now, even people who have done very little are thinking about their careers, about grants. I’m not against these things, but I think it’s the wrong focus. At that time there was no money from the government. We did every single thing, absolutely every single thing, for not one penny. And we did it because of the joy of our work and our need to create this kind of activity. Sometimes I hear people saying ‘I can’t do this activity, because I didn’t get that support.’ Well, if you want to do something, you do it. Out of a need. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be paid. They should. But it’s a question of what your values are to start off with. For me, doing the work is the most important thing.” — Malcolm Goldstein interviewed by Isak Goldschneider, Innovations en Concert (September 11, 2011)

DW: “[Some]thing that usually comes up when you Google ‘Malcolm Goldstein’ is Fluxus.” MG: “Oh no, not Fluxus! Philip Corner was Fluxus. Philip now says everything is Fluxus. I said to him, Philip, I am not Fluxus — he says: ‘Yes you are, everything is Fluxus.’ I said I'll give you a good reason why I am not Fluxus: when I scratch on the violin I don't want people to think I'm making fun of the violin or making a political statement. I'm making music. He said ‘OK you're not Fluxus, but everything else is Fluxus’ [laughs].” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic (April 28, 2006)

“All music is folk music, in the sense that music cannot be transmitted or have meaning without associations between people.” — Malcolm Goldstein, “Improvisation: Towards a Whole Musician in a Fragmented Society” (1983), from Sounding the Full Circle

“Improvisation allows for the logic of our total selves to participate; what comes forth is the coherence of the sounding gesture.” — Malcolm Goldstein, “Improvisation: People Making Music” (1986), from Sounding the Full Circle

“What does improvisation ask of the performer that is so different from printed, through-composed pieces of music? . . . perhaps, ‘Who are you?’ ‘How do you think or feel about this moment / sounding?’” — Malcolm Goldstein, “Improvisation: Towards a Whole Musician in a Fragmented Society” (1983), from Sounding the Full Circle

“[My] compositions are always structured improvisations in which the framework of sound activity is made clear through the notation. Each piece of music has a framework, which will always be its framework. The details of it are worked out by the performers, improvising at that moment, so that the moment is made alive. But the framework is always there.” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Grita Insam, “. . . like a vibrating body / that landscape of sound” (1982), from Sounding the Full Circle

“Anybody can improvise, as long as you spend your life doing it.” — Malcolm Goldstein, interviewed by Jennie Gottschalk, Sound Expanse (April 12, 2017)

Malcolm Goldstein Resources

A free pdf of Sounding the Full Circle, Goldstein’s classic book on improvisation, is available here courtesy of Frog Peak Music.