Max Neuhaus and the musical avant-garde
Megan Murph · 2013
Max Neuhaus (1939–2009) was a pioneer in the creation of site-specific auditory works entailing social interaction, and today he is recognized as one of the first artists to extend sound as a medium into the world of contemporary art. The pieces he produced between 1966 and his recent death have been dubbed “sound art,” a term that covers a wide variety of work related to sound and aural perception, but one associated more closely with the realm of visual and performance art than with music. Yet Neuhaus, whose self-professed mission was to encourage listeners to “think about [sounds] in new and unexpected ways,” entered the world of contemporary art only after passing through the musical avant-garde of the 1960s, where he served as a leading interpreter of works for percussion. This thesis chronicles Neuhaus’s early career as a performing musician, arguing that his experiences within the musical avant-garde set the stage for his later work as a sound artist. Special attention is paid to the 1968 recording Electronics & Percussion: Five Realizations by Max Neuhaus, an LP that reveals Neuhaus as an artist exploring the boundaries separating the roles of performer, collaborator, and creator.