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31. radiOM.org - Radiofest: New American Music Whatever Happened to the Avant-Garde ? [7.274% Popularity: 0.00000]

Radiofest: New American Music: Whatever Happened to the Avant-Garde ? Listen Item Type: Sound Recording Duration: 30 min Event Type: Documentary This is the second, mostly self-contained, half of a program produced by the American Society of University Composers in conjunction with Radiofest: New American Music, in which the state of avant-garde music in the late 1970s is explored. The program begins with a look back at a typical avant-garde performance from the heady days of the 1960s, for which an audience gathered to witness the ignition of a single jet engine. After several failed attempts to get the engine lit using a match, during which some in the audience got closer to the jet than suggested, combustion was finally achieved leading to an immediate and uncontrolled exit from the area during which fences were trampled and one person broke their leg. In contrast, the two featured composers in this program, Donald Erb, and David Cope, talk about how the avant-garde of the late 1970s is in a state of refle...

32. radiOM.org - Concerts by Composers No. 05: Works by Arnold Dreyblatt, Dary John Mizelle, & Alison Knowles [5.064% Popularity: 0.00000]

Concerts by Composers: No. 05: Works by Arnold Dreyblatt, Dary John Mizelle, & Alison Knowles Listen Item Type: Sound Recording Duration: 57 min Event Type: Music Program Origin: KPFA In the late 1970s and early 1980s the Experimental Intermedia Foundation held a series of exciting concerts of avant-garde and electro-acoustic music at Phil Niblock’s loft in the SoHo district of New York City. These concerts were then packaged into a series of hour-long radio programs entitled “Concerts by Composers” and distributed to interested radio stations around the United States. This fifth program in the series features music by Arnold Dreyblatt, Dary John Mizelle, & Alison Knowles. The first pieces of music heard are two excerpts from Arnold Dreyblatt’s “Nodal Excitation” as performed by his Orchestra of Excited Strings. It is one in a series of compositions that Dreyblatt has composed for a variety of similar, mostly string, ensembles. This particular work calls for two altered double basses, hurdy gurdy, and modifie...

33. radiOM.org - Other Minds Presents Post-Screening Q & A with Frank Scheffer and Chou Wen-Chung [1.242% Popularity: 0.00000]

Other Minds Presents: Post-Screening Q & A with Frank Scheffer and Chou Wen-Chung View Item Type: Video Duration: 25 min Event Type: Lecture / Panel Discussion Program Origin: Other Minds Following the Other Minds sponsored, U. S. premiere of the film “Edgard Varèse: The One All Alone,” held in San Francisco on April 19, 2010, Charles Amirkhanian talks with the film’s director, Frank Scheffer, and Varèse’s student and protégé, the Chinese composer Chou Wen-Chung. Dutch director Scheffer makes it clear that his film is not an attempt to visually interpret Varèse’s music, something that he would consider impossible and ill-advised. However he does talk of the possible transformative nature of film, while also explaining his technique for using images in conjunction with music and interviews, in order to give some sense of the famous composer’s life and work. Chou Wen-Chung provides additional insights into Varèse, including his occasional use of salty language and the various ups and downs in his early career a...

34. radiOM.org - Other Minds Festival OM 17: Panel Discussion & Concert 1 [5.026% Popularity: 0.00000]

Other Minds Festival: OM 17: Panel Discussion & Concert 1 Listen Item Type: Sound Recording Duration: 90 min Event Type: Lecture / Panel Discussion Program Origin: Other Minds Additional Media Files (click to view) The 17th Other Minds Festival of New Music (OM 17) began with a panel discussion with some of the composers and performers featured in the first night’s concert, held on March 1, 2012. Joining moderator Charles Amirkhanian on stage were composers Øyvind Torvund and Simon Steen-Andersen, along with Anders Førisdal, guitarist with the night’s featured ensemble, asamisimasa. The Danish composer Steen-Andersen tells the audience about his childhood fascination with all types of sounds before pursuing a classical musical education, and his subsequent compositional career that mixes both traditional musical structures and techniques with unusual instrumentation, multimedia, and even popular music studio devices. Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund discusses his utilization of a wide variety of sound-making...

35. radiOM.org - An Interview with Virgil Thomson [5.088% Popularity: 0.00000]

An Interview with Virgil Thomson Listen Item Type: Sound Recording Duration: 28 min Event Type: Interview Program Origin: KPFA Additional Media Files (click to view) Charles Amirkhanian interviews composer and music critic Virgil Thomson in a recording most likely made in the early or mid-1970s. Amirkhanian questions the elderly Thomson about his time in Paris studying with Nadia Boulanger, and about his friendships with such composers as George Antheil, Henry Brant, and Henry Cowell. The two also discuss how Virgil first met Gertrude Stein when Antheil asked him to join him for a dinner with the poet, and how she never really took a liking to the brash American pianist, but did strike up a lasting friendship and musical collaboration with Thomson. Also touched upon during this fascinating look back by one of the United States foremost music critics, is Thomson’s less then glowing opinions about the music of John Cage. Genres: 20th Century Classical ; Avant-Garde Subject: Thomson, Virgil, 1896-1989 ; Boulange...

36. radiOM.org - Other Minds Festival OM 8: Djerassi Resident Artists Program Panel Discussions (March 2002) [4.982% Popularity: 0.00000]

Other Minds Festival: OM 8: Djerassi Resident Artists Program Panel Discussions (March 2002) View Item Type: Video Duration: 5hr 12min Event Type: Lecture / Panel Discussion Program Origin: Other Minds Prior to each annual Other Minds Festival the featured composers have traditionally gathered together for a number of days at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside CA., to meet each other and offer presentations about their works. In this program, recorded from March 3-5, 2002, you get the rare and invaluable opportunity of sitting in on these far ranging and interactive discussions, which provide insight into each composer’s early experiences and style of composing. In part one of this program, Charles Amirkhanian provides a brief introduction before Festival photographer John Fago attempts to put all the participants at ease about being on camera by showing some samples of his superb still photographs taken during earlier Festivals. Lou Harrison then talks about his style of composing and his use ...

37. radiOM.org - John Cage in Conversation with Morton Feldman, Radio Happening 1 of 5 [0.360% Popularity: 0.00000]

John Cage in Conversation with Morton Feldman, Radio Happening 1 of 5 Listen Item Type: Sound Recording Duration: 40 min Event Type: Other Finds Program Origin: WBAI John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both men were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed “Variations V” in 1965 and “Variations VI” and “Variations VII” in 1966, and would publish "A Year from Monday" in 1967. Most of Feldman's important work was yet to come. These conversations between two old friends, relaxed, smoking, and throwing out ideas, are full of laughter and long ponderous silences. They form an incredible historical record of their concerns and preoccupation with making music, art, society, and politics of the moment. In 1993 these conversations were transcribed and published as "Radio Happenings I-V" by Edition MusikText...

38. radiOM.org - Two Works by Janice Giteck [0.280% Popularity: 0.00000]

Two Works by Janice Giteck Listen Item Type: Sound Recording Duration: 24 min Event Type: Music Program Origin: KPFA Two pieces by Janice Giteck inspired by her interest in ritual and Native American culture. Ms. Giteck began her career as a Bay Area composer and teacher at the University of California at Berkeley, and later became a member of the faculty at the Cornish Institute of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. The first work heard here, “Thunder like a White Bear Dancing” is a performance ritual based on the Ojibwa Mide Picture Songs and their rituals of initiation for their medicine men. “Callin' Home Coyote” is another theatrical work that draws upon a text by Lewis MacAdams and stories of the Native American trickster god, Coyote, for its inspiration. Performed here by tenor John Duykers, with drumming by Andy Narrell and the additional string bass of Karla Lemon, the work is a fascinating mix of avant-garde vocal techniques and ancient rhythms that is inflected by the humor and wisdom of Native Ameri...

39. radiOM.org - Colin McPhee and the Music of Bali [2.239% Popularity: 0.00000]

Colin McPhee and the Music of Bali Listen Item Type: Sound Recording Duration: 31 min Event Type: Interview and Music Program Origin: C Amirkhanian Henry Cowell presents a program on the music of Indonesia, featuring early recordings of gamelan music, as well as many transcriptions of Balinese music by Colin McPhee. The music of Indonesia first came to the attention of the West when in the 1920s Erich M. von Hornbostel and others collected and commercially released a number of gamelan performances, recorded in the villages of Indonesia. These early 78rpm records later inspired the Canadian composer, Colin McPhee, to travel to the island of Bali, for what was to be a trip of a few months but ended up lasting more than seven years. During that time McPhee made numerous transcriptions of ceremonial gamelan music for two pianos and occasionally for flute and piano. Cowell presents some of those early field recordings as well as many of McPhee’s arrangements, performed by McPhee and fellow composer Benjamin Britte...

40. radiOM.org - Ode To Gravity Sound Poems of Henri Chopin, Jim Rosenberg, Ira Steingroot [0.194% Popularity: 0.00000]

Ode To Gravity: Sound Poems of Henri Chopin, Jim Rosenberg, Ira Steingroot Listen Item Type: Sound Recording Duration: 68 min Event Type: Spoken Word Program Origin: KPFA Charles Amirkhanian introduces a program of text-sound compositions or sound poetry. Works by three different artists are highlighted during this program. Perhaps the best known of the three is Henri Chopin, who was an active member of the French avant-garde from at least 1950 until his death in 2008. Chopin was a pioneer in the field of musique concrète and sound poetry being one of the first to recognize the potential for such creations when the first tape recorders became available to consumers. Chopin also published a magazine called OU from his home in Ingatestone, England. Jim Rosenberg is an American poet, mathematician and computer programer who has been creating “non-linear poetic forms” since 1966 when he was only 19 years old. Also featured in this program are the poems of Ira Steingroot. Musical Selections: Dawn Quartet, Backward...