Music From Other Minds

On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb plays works by Terry Riley, Michael Harrison, C.C. Hennix, Kyle Gann, and La Monte Young for just intonation keyboard instruments.

Tune in Sunday at 8pm to KALW 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area to hear it live.

Microphones are often viewed as neutral, passive tools for solely reproducing acoustic sounds rather than as active devices that are instruments in their own right. The expansion of technology into our everyday lives has made microphones ubiquitous and, according to composer and sound artist Cathy van Eck, these devices are designed to be invisible to the listener, “‘inaudible’ in the final sound result.” Despite this hidden nature of the contemporary, omnipresent microphone, composers and singers use microphones in compositional and structural ways that have had a decisive effect on the writing and performance of music. On this program, we’ll listen to music that centers the microphone as an instrument by Steve Reich, Takehisa Kosugi, Pierre Henry, Diamanda Galás, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Robert Ashley.

This program presents the music of the late French composer Henri Dutilleux. His music spans the entire post-war period from the 1950s into the first years of the 21st century. Born in 1916, he died in 2013 at the age of 96. As you will hear, his style is unique, especially for the period, rejecting the dogma of the more radical elements in the European avant-garde at that time. His works include two symphonies and other works for orchestra, a violin and a cello concerto, as well as chamber and solo music.

This program features minimalist music from Europe. Minimalist music began as a distinctly American style of composition in the 1960s concentrated in California and downtown New York. As its stature grew, this new style, which Michael Nyman describes as “anti-European,” began to have a profound effect on European composers. European composers who adopted minimalist techniques often did so in ways that supported their preexisting aesthetic or political views, resulting in a variety of interpretations. This program includes English composer Michael Nyman’s String Quartet No. 2, Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s De Staat, Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts’ Litanie V, and Polish composer Hanna Kulenty’s A Fourth Circle.

On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb plays recordings of virtuoso pianist Marc-André Hamelin ahead of Other Minds’s 30th Anniversary Concert at Littlefield Concert Hall (Mills College at Northeastern University).

Although it is often overshadowed by Los Angeles and San Francisco, California’s Central Valley has a long history of contemporary music. New music in the Valley has mostly been centered around Fresno, the region’s largest city. The program starts with music by Valley natives Charles Amirkhanian and Leslie Bassett, followed by former Fresno State professors David Bates and Arthur C. Berdahl. Also featured are music by composers Jordan De La Sierra, Deborah Kavasch, and Terry Allen, and singers Dorothy Renzi and Helene Joseph-Weil.

For many people, 2022 was a year that can’t end soon enough. Whether you’re glad to leave it behind or just ready a fresh start, there’s nothing like a drone to clear the mind. Assembled from individual parts contributed by musicians across the US, plus France and New Zealand, Drone for the New Year celebrates the new year with all the right notes. Bay Area musicians Lori B Bloustein (voice, guitar), Tom Djll (trumpet, electronics), Andrew Voigt (tenor sax, bass flute, piccolo), and Paul Winstanley (modified electric bass) join 20 other players to create a shimmering, shifting, two hour drone. Produced and mixed by Ed Herrmann.

Tonight is another freeform show – no particular theme. I’m enjoying finding music that fits together based on criteria other than some musical “ism” we’d like to feature, or a particular composer. We’ll play work by Laurie Anderson, Joan La Barbara, Laurie Spiegel and Argentinian Lucrecia Dalt. We’ll hear from Carl Stone, Don Cherry, and Steve Reich. Then we’ll play a portion of Einstein on the Beach, an important work from the 1970s by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson.

The first half of this program features music by members of the Iranian Female Composers Association. IFCA plays an important role of promoting music by Iranian women in Iran and the diaspora to counteract the suppression of women’s voices in their homeland. The program includes music by two of IFCA’s founders, Aida Shirazi and Niloufar Nourbakhsh, as well as members Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi and Martyna Kosecka. Following this, we move to music by other composers from the region including Anoush Moazzeni (Iran), Shumaila Hemani (Pakistan), Zeynep Gedizlioğlu (Turkey), Eren Gümrükçüoğlu (Turkey), and Vache Sharafyan (Armenia).

A stylistically diverse selection of electronic music, starting with works by New York artist David Lee Myers, aka Arcane Device, who uses custom built feedback systems with a variety of electronic instruments. Three Bay Area composer/performers: Chris Brown accompanies percussionist William Winant with computer controlled analog electronics; Tom Djll combines trumpet and Serge modular synthesizer; and Thomas Dimuzio joins David Molina for an improvised performance. Also Stelios Giannoulakis from Athens, Midori Hirano of Berlin, The Canadian Electronic Ensemble, Jill Fraser of Los Angeles, and from France, Philippe Petit. Plus wacky jazz composer and bandleader turned electronic inventor and pioneer, Raymond Scott.