Risks for Unrehearsed Performers

Pianist Lukas Foss, soprano vocalist Emily Derr, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and Indian veera-player David Reck together presented Tom Johnson’s composition “Risks for Unrehearsed Performers” at The Kitchen on the evening of November 26th, 1977. Unsure of what their performances would entail before the program began, the musicians appeared onstage to find four white boxes set out for each of them, containing instructions on how to proceed. Stoltzman and Foss’s  instructions both came in the form of projector slides, Reck’s were recorded on an audiotape, and Derr’s were listed on a set of fifteen cards. Their directions, or "Risks," which ranged from imitating pre-recorded tracks to repeating various musical phrases with increasing intensity, tested the limits of each performer’s musical capabilities, growing more difficult as they progressed.