Program 516: Fields Have Ears
KALW Broadcast Date: May 18, 2018 | Host: Mark Abramson
Michael Pisaro is a composer, guitarist, and member of the Wandelweiser Composer’s Ensemble, an international collective of composers and performers dedicated to exploring John Cage’s legacy of silence and its relationship with sound and music.
This program focused on his piece Fields Have Ears (6). Fields Have Ears (6) was originally composed as a solo for guitar and sine tones and premiered in 2010 in Munich. Each time it has been performed since, a new version has been written to incorporate field recordings from the locations of previous performances as well as other sounds Pisaro associates with the history of the piece including turntables, radios, and records. A once simple piece is, in Pisaro’s words, now a “densely layered object that carries its history on its back like a tortoise shell.”
Michael Pisaro was a participant in our series “The Nature of Music,” on Tuesday, May 22, 2018. On that day, Pisaro presented two works, Transparent Cities and asleep, forest, melody, path, and participated in a discussion with Other Minds Executive and Artistic Director Charles Amirkhanian on his work.
Program Audio
30-Second Spot
Track Info & Links
Title: Fields Have Ears (6)
Composer: Michael Pisaro
Performers: Michael Pisaro
Recording Title: Fields Have Ears (6)
Record Label: Gravity Wave
Catalog Number: GW 007
