Ode To Gravity:
Alvin Curran in Italy

Charles Amirkhanian presents an Ode to Gravity program featuring an interview with the composer Alvin Curran from his home in Rome. Selections from this informal talk with Curran are interspersed with musical excerpts, with a special emphasis on the group Curran helped found in the mid-1960s, Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV). The composer discusses other original members of the group, including Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum and Alan Bryant, and describes the synthesis of the group, its working methods, and the situation that led to its disbandment. Curran further describes the group’s second incarnation, MEV2, and briefly discusses his own recent work, “Music for Every Occasion.” The program concludes with selections by David Ahlstrom and Robert Erickson, featuring Jack Logan on trumpet