European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 26, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday september 26, 1977 the stars and stripes Page 19 she styrofoam symphony by Mary Campbell associated press f people think she s a nut Doris Hays can take it in stride. As someone wrote in a Book review i read the extraordinary or unusual has become breakfast Cereal. We eat it  if people think her sen events with Light bulb encrusted Orange styrofoam figures and Avant Garde music is funny she s delighted. I m quite Happy if people laugh at it. I certainly had fun making  Doris Hays is an artist a composer of classical music working in the most modern styles but with an artist s ancient problem of More work than income. But she did t create sen events As an oddity to bring notoriety which might somehow Lead to Money. She created sen events because modern music like she writes is unfamiliar to listeners ears and she reasoned it might be easier to listen to if something pleasurable visually also is going on. She asked friends for Money gleaning $400. She bought Orange Marine Styro foam used to make things float and sculpted six humanoid figures three strings players a Horn player an oboist and a flautist. Each has Light bulbs sticking out for arms and head and each has a pedal. Step on a pedal and the Light bulbs Light. Two of the figures Hays Calls them sets also move. In a performance when the flautist lights up he plays when the lights go out he stops. He ignores what is going on with the other five players. Hays wrote an hour Long 12-part suite so the musicians play the notes she told them to. But it s the audience stepping on pedals which decides the timing. Sen events was a popular offering of this year s Lincoln Center out of doors in new Yorkman Exxon sponsored arts Festi Val. Some 3,000 persons showed up at an Atlanta shopping Center when it was done there last year. Children sat Down on the pedals so the lights stayed on and the musicians never rested. The Way i set up the music each per Avant Garde composer Doris Hays i got so tired of piano recitals former is a soloist. Because of the Loose Ness of Structure it is going to be possible not to have things precise and still have them work out. You need not be an absolutist. You re in a framework. You try not to Hurt other people. Within that you re Al Lowed to work As you can and will. You have the Opportunity to do a thing and not be regimented from the outside about How you do it. When it All comes together it will never be the same from performance to performance. I be written some melodic fragments. Some of them will be heard As highly romantic. I m glad composers have swung away from avoiding tonal Melody because it s part of the past to the idea of using Melody or any other Means at our dispose  the first thing that turned Hays to Avant Garde music was its Freedom. Counterpoint has rules Avant Garde does t. You can use a synthesizer in Stead of a violin if you want or you can use them together. She also is excited by the fact that modern music is created in the same time Span in which the listener is alive. I got so tired of piano recitals ones i gave and ones i listened to. The people listening and what was coming to their ears were so far removed in time. So much piano literature is museum conservation the pianist is a conservationist of past Cul Tural heritage. I love Rachmaninoff and Chopin and play them from time to time with great enjoyment. But i Don t feel As if i m linked by live blood to people around me when i m playing those things. They re removed and Remote socially. The social context of the times has changed. As Odd As it is i think sen events has More connection with listeners today than a Chopin prelude does. And it s not because the materials used the styrofoam and Light bulbs Are familiar. It s because of where i the com Poser am going within  Hays of course knew the work of Chopin before she knew Avant Garde. She grew up in Rossville ga., took piano lessons and was told by teach ers that the profession appropriate for a woman musician is teaching. She took her first piano Pupil when she was 13. She became a paid accompanist for a boys choir and then studied for three years in Germany made possible by Sav Ings fellowships and the fact that she could live on $80 a month. Back in the United states in 1966, she went to the University of  i for a masters degree. There she met and tvs for Avant Garde music. Since moving to new York in i she has Tau tit part time clerked worked for a watch maker and checked i sics for a business Magazine. In 1975 she was an artist in residence in Albany a. For the Georgia Council on the arts. Last summer she got an idea for a Ballet about a Unicorn music by string quartet flute and tape which she presented to the Atlanta Ballet. They liked it so she applied for a composing Grant to the National Council on the ails. She got it nearly $4,000, and Shell live on that until february. After that i Don t know where the Money will come from. It s precarious always  the past year she says has been wonderfully Lucky financially so she can resist at least for a while the need to teach. And if she could afford it she d quit per forming and concentrate on composing and building More visually interesting sets to accompany her music hit current idea is an outdoor presentation involving a water Fountain