the words weren't mine

But what is unusual about the initiative, aside from the humour and imagination, is not the participatory rhetoric but the emphasis on something much more unexpected and unquantifiable: quality. This has often been unfashionable on the left, on the basis that it implies elitist value judgements and unattainable skills – impenetrable art for select initiates. The Commission is alert to this charge: their online statement asserts ‘that for too long certain developments of the past 150 years have been made too expensive, rarefied or fossilised’, and their bringing the politics, collectivity and perversity back into modern music is obviously meant to redress this. But the ‘Notes on Culture-Making’ handed out at Pierrot also recommends: ‘Consider keeping standards as high as possible’. read more

IMAGE: Rita Lino