Gavin Bryars - ACE193.2

Ensemble playing on revolving stage. Curtain call for Gavin Bryars’s first opera at its premiere in France, 1984. Commentary describes Bryars’s university years, playing a lot of music though studying philosophy. Photograph of Bryars with double bass. Bryars talking about the early free jazz improvisation group he played with, Derek Bailey on guitar and Tony Oxley on drums. Bryars VO himself and members of his Ensemble, talking about providing accompaniments at a Working Men’s Club where people like David Whitfield, Kathy Kirby, and Freddie and the Dreamers performed. Piano and xylophone piece continues; Bryars on his composition My First Homage. Caption: "My First Homage (1978), 1st performed at ‘The Kitchen’, N.Y. Played here by members of the Gavin Bryars Ensemble." Music continues. Photographs of Bryars. Commentary talks about his work on experimental music. Bryars on his composition Marvellous Aphorisms Are Scattered Richly Throughout These Pages (1969), which required him to secrete musical instruments in the pockets of a long coat. Photographs of Cornelius Cardew and John Cage. Bryars on his interest in tonality. Photographs of Percy Grainger and Erik Satie, both influences on experimental and avant garde music. Bryars talking about Satie and Grainger. Photograph of Lord Berners. Bryars on Berners’s early music. Bryars Out of Zaleski’s Gazebo (1977) which he says quotes from Berners, Grainger, and Siegfried Karg-Elert. Out of Zaleski’s Gazebo played by eight hands on two pianos. Caption: "Out of Zaleski’s Gazebo 1977. Played by members of Gavin Bryars Ensemble." Music continues.