Dick Higgins (March 15, 1938 – October 25, 1998) was an American composer, poet, publisher, painter, philosopher and Fluxus artist. After studying music with Henry Cowell, Higgins studied experimental composition with John Cage at the New School for Social Research in New York in which a core group formed in 1958 that would eventually become Fluxus. He married fellow Fluxus artist Alison Knowles in 1960. Both took part in the benchmark Fluxus festivals beginning in 1962 and remained active with it. In 1965 Higgins coined the term intermedia to describe creative work that falls between media, such as shaped poems (which lie between image and text), graphic scores (which lie between music and image like this piece does) and performance events (which lie between life and dance, theater or music). In addition to founding and running the Something Else Press from 1963-1974, Higgins wrote and edited forty-seven books and hundreds of poems, plays, musical compositions and theoretical tracts. Higgins died of a heart attack in Quebec, Canada during a festival of intermedia. He was sixty years old.
On behalf of the estate, we extend our deepest thanks to Fulcrum Point New Music who assembled this remarkable array of musicians that includes some of Chicago’s very best trumpet players: Josh Berman, Stephen Burns, Marquis Hill, Russ Johnson and Corey Wilkes are each giants in the fields of bebop, classical, jazz and new music. We are also very grateful to the sound engineer, Karson Glass, whose light touch entwined the trumpets with the simultaneous sounds of the city: ambulance, birdsong, helicopter, car horn and wind all comingle in these remarkable performances. Final thanks go to Jason Pickelman of JNL Design for designing this beautiful jacket.
This project would not have been possible without the thirty-six Gofundme contributors to the recording and especially the Trumpets and Trees Huggers: Jim and Wendy Abrams, Sue Atkins, Jackie Goldenberg, Ilene Jones, Sam and Roberta Kramer, Lisa Lee, Jack Polsky, Laurie Reinstein, Rebecca Schanberg, Maggie and Eric Scheyer, Eben Shapiro, Mary Shea and Christian Sheppard.
This is a limited edition recording and is not available for sale or commercial distribution. For questions or information, please contact the estate at higgins.hannah.b@gmail.com and someone will try to get back to you as quickly as possible.