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Failing
by: Tom Johnson
A former music critic at the Village Voice, Tom Johnson is a conceptual composer with a provocative wit who highlights odd aspects of the music world and uses them to make a piece. "Failing was written in 1975, at a time when composers were writing impossible music to play, so complex and involved," says soloist Robert Black. "I feel Tom is making a comment on that historical moment in new music, parodying that whole impossible music to play."