Collectable

I wanted music that made sense

We revisit his interview and scores for MACBA

Tom Johnson (1939 – 2024), a North-American composer renowned for his experimental music, passed away on 31 December last. He was the partner and a close collaborator of Esther Ferrer, one of the artists in the MACBA Collection. The MACBA Archive owns a significant selection of his scores, some from the 1980s and others from the 2000s, all of which were recently on display in the exhibition of the Collection. A student of Morton Feldman and a follower of John Cage, his music is based on numerical systems and logical sequences, but also words, which he incorporates into his scores without any kind of narrative intention, but as a meta-text that allows us to understand the formal structures of sound and the listening process.

Unlike other Minimalist composers of his generation, Johnson moved away from arbitrary evolutions and gradual repetitions. With numbers and logic applied to sound, he found a path of his own. ‘I wanted music that made sense. Music that I could follow, where each note had to be what it had to be, not just arbitrary choices that come from dreams and desires and emotions, and all these other things that composers were interested in.’ In 2012, the artist was interviewed by Radio Web MACBA about his composition methods and his referents. You can listen to the interview here.

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MACBA Archive

The archive preserves documentation of special historical value generated by the MACBA and other individuals and organizations related to contemporary art practices as well as an extensive collection of artists’ books.

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