This week on From the Vault we present a musical treat in the form of a concert from December 17, 1972, by the New York Kantorei at St. Michael's Episcopal Church on West 99th and Amsterdam in New York City. The performance was part of the legendary WBAI Free Music Store series, which ran from 1969 to 1972, and was organized by Eric Salzman, former Music Director of WBAI.
The Free Music Store series was a new kind of concert experience for New Yorkers, one that broke the mold of museum and music-hall concerts by boasting, among other things, free admission (although audience donations paid the performers), refreshments and floor seating. The church's excellent acoustics and eclectic schedule of musical acts packed the house, and included folk singers, chamber musicians, electronic composers, country fiddling, Brazilian percussionists, and even spoken word poets.
In this recording, the New York Kantorei performs music by Eric Richards, Johann Sebastian Bach, Hugo Distler, Heinrich Isaac, Guillaume Dufay, and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. The performance was hosted by Candy Cohen and recorded in stereo by Judy Sherman and Steve Rathe for WBAI's Music Department.
This is the first national broadcast of this recording.
From the Vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives Preservation and Access Project, funded in part by an award from the GRAMMY Foundation and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives and Records Administration, and past grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the American Archive funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, along with the generous support of Pacifica Radio Listeners. We also thank our partners and collaborators at the Pop-Up Archive, Amara, Other Minds Archives, George Blood Audio, and the California Audio Visual Preservation Project.
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