Stephen Montague, Christina McMaster, Chris Brannick

The idea of 'minimalism' in art and music has been around for centuries in various cultures.

What we now call minimalist music - 'making a little bit go a long way' – sprouted in America on both coasts in the mid-1960s. It took root in fertile soil well outside the joyless post-Webern aesthetic pervading much of American academia at the time. Drugs, Sex and Rock 'n' Roll had arrived and a blue haze of creativity wafted through the downtown galleries of New York and San Francisco.

La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass were young, disgruntled 12-tone composers who found a new way forward and took their minimalism from Downtown to Uptown and on to international concert halls worldwide. How did this happen, and why?

Were the early Minimalists real originals or just potheads swinging from a lower branch of the musical family tree? Tonality was cool again, and repetition played nice tricks with your head. So what’s new? This study day will not only contextualise Minimalism by tracing its antecedents through Eastern, Western and African cultures, but will also include demos, historic recordings, live performance, and audience participation in a process piece.