The Golden Bruce Award

The First Letter

Identifications removed with XXXXXX.

XXXXXX XXXXXX
XXXXXX Music
XXXXXX Road
XXXXXX, XXXXXX

September 17, 1998

Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
Malted/Media
176 Cox Brook Road
Northfield, VT 05663

Dear Dennis,

I'm sorry to have been so vague over the phone about a possible interview on your WGDR show, Kalvos etc.. What I meant to say and what I now realize I should have said was: sample some of the music -- see if you like it and have some emotional response to it. If you don't enjoy the music and find no experssive resonance with it please don't play it on your show. I certainly don't wish to be interviewed by someone who's unsympathetic to my style of composition. I assumed you would have the minimum sense of fairness to tell me that you didn't like my music before putting it on the air and undermining its reception.

I was angry and disappointed to find that I had been set up for several put downs on the XXXXXX show: "XXXXXX". I hope this last comment does not refer to what I said over the phone. In any case there has been a serious misunderstanding. A simple way into my XXXXXX would be to take the trouble to read the CD booklet notes or the review from the XXXXXX by XXXXXX which I included with my press kit: "XXXXXX". Why does my piece get an insult after it while other far inferior works do not? I don't expect praise just simple fairness will do.

I understand you have your quid pro quo agenda for the show as reported in the XXXXXX issue of XXXXXX. This agenda differs very little from that of XXXXXX of XXXXXX except that she is really making music, whereas you are just a disc jockey -- a kind of modern classical Imus.

Your fellow US composers (numbering 50-100) who have recorded with XXXXXX using their academic institutions' funds or their own money to make recordings would probably agree about this similarity of agendas. What sort of quid pro quo do you expect to get from these colleagues and their institutions (including 20 or more modern music ensembles) by belittling their musical endeavors? Suddenly you seem to be siding with the counselors of impotence: don't try to make music that isn't sanctioned by big brother, just give up and wait for the okay from the higher authorities.

In the spirit of collegial good will I'm asking you to return my CDs to me and not play my music on your show, Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar. I also want this communication kept confidential between us so that things don't have to be escalated, wasting our time and money.

Sincerely,

XXXXXX XXXXXX