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Against a backdrop of financial crisis and disinvestment in New York City, New Music was born. Writer Richard King explores the conditions for musical creativity in New York in the 1970s.

The phrase New Music is today used to describe musical composition that is contemporary and respectfully challenging. But it's a phrase with a distinct history – and a clear beginning, which we can root in a specific time and place.

The place is The Kitchen, a performance space in downtown Manhattan. The time: the mid-1970s, when New York City was coming apart at the seams.

At The Kitchen, composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Julius Eastman, Rhys Chatham and their contemporaries debuted their works-in-progress to an audience keen to hear new ideas and forms. Before these artists found international acclaim, they were participants in a street-level avant-garde, the epicentre of which was the Kitchen, where New Music was cooked up.

Featuring:

Julia Amsterdam – archivist at the Kitchen
Eric Bogosian, writer and actor – director of dance at the Kitchen in the late 1970s
Rhys Chatham, composer – musical director at the Kitchen in 1971-1973 & 1977-1980
Robyn Farrell – senior curator at the Kitchen
George E. Lewis, composer and academic – musical director at the Kitchen 1980-1982
Thurston Moore, musician, founder of Sonic Youth – occasional attendee at the Kitchen
Steve Reich, composer – performer and attendee at the Kitchen
Sharon Zukin, writer and urban sociologist – author of the book ‘Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change’

Contains an extract from SoHo in Flux: Art, Real Estate and the Housing Crisis, a film by Alice Arnold and Sharon Zukin (made possible by the Graham Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts)

Thanks to Laura Pellicer for recording assistance.