From 1981 to 1994, music patron and art collector Betty Freeman (1921‒2009) hosted a series of monthly musicales, or salons, in Los Angeles. Most of these salons were held in a room off the den of Freeman’s Beverly Hills home—a space she dubbed “the music room.” Freeman saw these salons as an important space to foster the development of contemporary composition among leading and upcoming composers in both America and Europe. Over the span of thirteen seasons, 144 composers, performers, and dignitaries in the contemporary music world spoke and performed and shared their music before a gathering of elite arts administrators, scholars, critics, patrons, and composers from the greater Los Angeles area. Freeman and her co-organizer, music critic Alan Rich (1924‒2010), ensured that young, local composers were frequently featured alongside established ones with international reputations, constructing a network of mentors and mentees within contemporary music.
The Music Room is a collection of transcriptions of tape recordings made at the salons and photographs Freeman took of these events that gives an unprecedented look inside one of the most significant musical gatherings of the last century. Among those famous today who appeared in the salons were John Cage, Libby Larsen, Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, John Adams, György Ligeti, and Philip Glass. Featuring 18 composers whose work and relationship with Freeman showcase the wide influence of her salon series, The Music Room is at once a record of these specific composers as well as a documented history of salon culture in America.
“Whenever a musical scene coalesces into greatness, you often find a crucial figure amid and behind the scenes, offering support, offering criticism, offering taste. Such a force was Betty Freeman in late-twentieth-century Los Angeles: she elevated the art around her with the passion of her attention. Jake Johnson’s collection of interviews from her salon is an apt tribute to Freeman’s achievement, and also honors another listener of vital intelligence, the longtime critic Alan Rich. An indispensable volume.”