Ep. 11: Avant-Garde Composer Conlon Nancarrow
Married to Conlon, Annette entered yet another fascinating world, that of avant-garde music.
Conlon Nancarrow
When the couple was in New York, it was not unusual for them to spend fascinating evenings in John Cage’s bare roof apartment in the East Village, furnished only with a few chairs, a table, a bench, and two grand pianos. Annette was often the only woman in the room as innovative musicians and composers such as Cage, Henry Cowell, Virgil Thompson, Elliott Carter, and Aaron Copland held forth. As she describes it:
They were discussing new innovations in music, changing the timbre of the piano by putting coins in the strings. It was a fascinating evening, they all talked shop. Perhaps we had a few drinks . . . and we stayed until quite late.
It was in New York that Conlon, whose compositions were technically too difficult for two human hands, would devise a method of using player-piano rolls to record his music. His intricately structured music for the player piano would be his most creative accomplishment. He is notable for some fifty studies he composed in which rhythmic complexity is taken to remarkable, memorable extremes.
When the couple returned to Mexico, Annette built Conlon a studio for his music and two mechanical pianos. She had her own studio for painting. Thus they began a warm, happy, and productive life together. Conlon was obsessed with his work, often spending hours discussing technical means of producing his music, or holed up in his studio.
Conlon at work in his studio.
It was during those early years of their marriage that Annette’s artwork would receive its greatest recognition as she held her first one-woman show and created an award-winning mural. Throughout these years of creative productivity, life with Conlon also continued to be rich. Her husband became interested in cooking and the couple grew a huge garden; he began buying up Spanish wine and cheeses. Marijuana was legal and Conlon enjoyed indulging.
Expats from all over the world ended up at their table, including many, such as screenwriter Julian Halevy (also known as Julian Zimet), from the motion picture business who had been blacklisted, and other refugees Conlon had met when serving in Spain in the Lincoln Brigade. Fred Vanderbilt Field of Marshall Field, a fellow traveler in the Communist Party, who would later marry a gorgeous woman who modeled nude for many of Diego Rivera’s famous paintings, also dropped by for political debate. Added to the continuing gaiety of the retinue of artists that arrived for conversation and partying, the Nancarrow home was essentially a salon.
Although ultimately the couple’s extreme personality differences would separate them, their years together were important passages for both Annette and Conlon.
SIDE NOTE: In June 2015 the then new Whitney Museum in New York City hosted a two-week festival in honor of American experimental composer Conlon Nancarrow (1912–1997). There were many events exploring Nancarrow’s career and some aspects of his personal life. His widow and son, Yoko and Mako Nancarrow, also took part, but there was no mention in any of the press coverage about the years he spent with his second wife, Annette, who preceded Yoko. An unfortunate omission since it was during Annette and Conlon’s years together that his greatest creative achievements were developed. For more about Conlon Nancarrow, here’s an interesting article published about him on the 100th anniversary of his birth.