Search - The Barton Workshop :: James Drew: Animating Degree Zero

Nicolas Slonimsky has described James Mulcro Drew (b. 1929) as an "authentic member of the American Experimental tradition." Reflecting on what Slonimsky might have meant by his statement, one thinks of another member of that tradition, Harry Partch. Drew, like Partch, has always been a loner not a member of any school or movement, has remained largely outside the U.S. university patronage system and has remained "on the move" a nomad rather than settling in one environment. Like Partch, James Drew has made his own brand of theater as well as being a composer and he has no hesitation to run against the fashion or canon of our time. He is a composer who is fascinated by all kinds of music and, as a result, one whose own musical surfaces can be more highly varied for instance the Street Funeral Music vs. 12 Centers Breathing vs. The Lute in the Attic when compared to other composers of the Experimental tradition.