Teasing Chaos. David Tudor

Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria

When the name "David Tudor" is mentioned in exhibitions and publications, it is often in connection with other people for whom he was important. As an artist about whom friends and colleagues indulged in anecdotes and admiration, he is omnipresent and strangely significant, and at the same time marginal.

The exhibition and publication Teasing Chaos. David Tudor is the first comprehensive presentation of David Tudor's pioneering work in the field of live electronics and his interdisciplinary collaborations with visual artists whose significance for contemporary artistic practices has so far gone unnoticed. David Tudor (1926 Philadelphia – 1996 Tomkins Cove) was one of the leading pianists and performers of contemporary music in Europe and the USA in the late 1940s. He achieved international fame in 1950 with his performance of Pierre Boulez' Deuxième, which was premiered with Tudor in the USA. This allowed Tudor to establish himself as one of the most sought-after performers of the most famous composers of contemporary experimental music of the day such as Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Christian Wolff. Tudor's ability to respond to the vagueness of demanding scores and to carry out the at times ambiguous instructions of composers as complex compositions was unique and a source of fascination among his contemporaries.

The exhibition is being developed in close cooperation with Composers Inside Electronics (CIE). It will be accompanied by a publication in German and English with contributions by companions of Tudor's such as Julie Martin, Gordon Mumma, Christian Wolff and Tudor experts like You Nakai and Matt Rogalsky.

Further Information:
museumdermoderne.at