Kenneth Goldsmith

Kenneth Goldsmith (b. 1961), also known as Kenny G, is an American poet, essayist, music critic, and radio host from Freeport, New York. Goldsmith is the founding editor of UbuWeb and currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where he's also a senior editor of PennSound. He graduated with a BFA degree in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design in 1984. From 1995 till 2010, Kenny G hosted a weekly show at WFMU independent radio station in New Jersey. One of his on-air performances with People Like Us (a prominent British sound collagist and fellow WFMU host) got released on Nothing Special CD in 2003 (distributed by Soleilmoon Recordings). In 2006, after ten years on-air under the 'Kenny G' alias, Goldsmith published a selection of unedited misaddressed fan emails for the "other" Kenny G, smooth-jazz superstar Kenny Gorelick. Goldsmith was also an NPR radio commentator in '99-2004. Throughout his career, Goldsmith published over ten poetry books and appeared in numerous anthologies, almanacs, and compilations: such as a 1997 CD/Book on Jackson Mac Low's 75th jubilee or Leonardo Music Journal's 2005 annual CD. In 1994, Goldsmith published a series of poems dedicated to John Cage. In addition to the book and set of lithographs, he released an audio version, 73 Poems CD on Lovely Music, Ltd., with music by American vocalist and composer Joan La Barbara. Besides poetry, Kenny Goldsmith was a prolific music critic. He professionally reviewed classical music for New York Press in '98-2001 and published "A Popular Guide to Unpopular Music" in 2000, a collection of musicology essays based on in-depth interviews with Joan La Barbara, David Behrman, David Soldier, Stephen Vitiello, and Morton Subotnick—well-established sound artists who've been combining music with ongoing careers in the record industry, science, education, etc. It first appeared in NewMusicBox, a web-magazine from the American Music Center (AMC later became New Music USA). Goldsmith also contributed liner notes for a few artists: Alan Licht, Tom Johnson with Frederic Rzewski. Kenneth curated one of two parts of the Music Overheard 2xCD compilation—Damon Krukowski's (of Galaxie 500) "audio response" to the Super Vision, inaugural 2006 exhibition at ICA's new building in Boston. Other Goldsmith's exhibition appearances include 2001 Between Sound And Vision at UIC's College of Architecture and the Arts in Chicago, and Krikri 2005 Polypoetry festival in Ghent, Belgium. As a vocalist, Kenny Goldsmith collaborated with an American conceptual artist Jarrod Fowler—in 2006, he sang a few philosophical texts by Theodor W. Adorno, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, and Jacques Derrida under the accompaniment of Erik Satie, Anton Webern, John Coltrane, etc. These recitals got released on PennSound, as well as a limited-edition CD-R on Fowler's DIY label. In 2016, Kenneth Goldsmith appeared as a narrator on This Is You CD/LP—an Australian composer Chris Cobilis' new music hommage to the American television program "Funniest Home Videos," performed by Spektral Quartet from Chicago, and released on Room40.