Music From Other Minds

This week Ed Herrmann presents a sampling from Other Minds Records, including several new releases. Cheryl Leonard’s Antarctica: Music from the Ice, is the result of five weeks in Antarctica where Leonard made recordings and collected small objects which she made into instruments.

Anthony Braxton’s Composition 429, a saxophone duet with James Fei, was performed live at the Other Minds Festival 25 and has just been released on CD.

Isotropes, by Brian Baumbusch, is a polytempo composition for wind ensemble and is featured on a new CD called Effigy.

The show also includes pianist Sarah Cahill performing music by Terry Riley, a percussion solo by Charles Boone, underwater guitar music by Jim Nollman, and an excerpt from a new Other Minds DVD of collaborations between Carol Law and Charles Amirkhanian.

Liam Herb rebroadcasts Charles Amirkhanian’s June 21, 1981 interview with outlaw country singer, painter, and conceptual artist, Terry Allen. Tune in to hear conversations about Allen’s work as a painter, lyricist, and his growing up in Lubbock, Texas.

Also on the program, selections from Juarez (1975), Lubbock (On Everything) (1979), and Smokin’ the Dummy (1980).

This program of Music from Other Minds features music for strings that relates to ideas of grief and mourning by composers from around the world. Featuring Artur Avanesov’s Quasi Harena Maris, Matthew Barnson’s The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, Betty Olivero’s Neharót Neharót, and Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3.

Host Henry Kaiser escorts listeners on a carefully-curated musical adventure through the many recordings that Wadada Leo Smith has made since 2001. Wadada’s recording career began back in 1971 and he has appeared on more than 200 albums: jazz, blues, world music, new music composition, free improvisation, creative music, electronic music, and more. Kaiser has been a friend and collaborator with Wadada for nearly 50 years, as well as being a close student of his music.

Music for strings, from composers and performers who use what are commonly called “extended techniques” – non-traditional, unorthodox, or quote unquote “improper” ways of invoking sound from these instruments. To illustrate, we’ll play work by Theresa Wong, Ellen Fullman, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Wang Lu, Tyshawn Sorey, and violinist Jennifer Koh.

On this Music from Other Minds, Joseph Bohigian plays symphonies by Avet Terterian. Terterian was one of the foremost composers in Armenia during the late-Soviet period especially highly regarded for his symphonic works, which often incorporate Armenian musical traditions. This program features an interview with musicologist Dr. Oksana Nesterenko on the influence of religion and spirituality on the music of composers in the Soviet Union.

Canada’s best known composer, R. Murray Schafer, wrote music for voice, orchestra, chamber ensembles, and site specific rituals to be performed outdoors. However, in the U.S. Schafer’s ideas are better known than his music. As the founder of acoustic ecology, he spawned the study of our sound environment, and advocated a harmonious relationship between people, sound, and nature. In this program Ed Herrmann presents Schafer’s music, including several of his string quartets and vocal music, as well as interviews with composer Hildegard Westerkamp, a former student of Schafer who assisted in his early soundscape studies; and Eric Leonardson, sound artist and president of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.

On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb plays sections 88 and 89 of Simeon ten Holt‘s Dutch minimalist masterwork Canto Ostinato and John Luther Adam‘s newly composed electroacoustic work Houses of the Wind.

Tonight we’ll focus on Indian classical singer and teacher, Pandit Pran Nath, and two of his American students – Jon Hassell and Terry Riley. We’ll play Terry Riley’s work for electric organ and reel-to-reel tape delay, “Persian Surgery Dervishes.” We’ll listen to a live performance by Pandit Pran Nath of a traditional raga called “Malkauns.” And we’ll hear the title track of the first solo album by Jon Hassell, “Vernal Equinox.”

On this Music from Other Minds, Joseph Bohigian plays music by Raven Chacon. Chacon is a composer, performer, and installation artist living in Albuquerque, New Mexico who is renowned for his chamber music and his work performing as a noise musician. The program includes his 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Voiceless Mass, as well as one side of his upcoming Other Minds Records LP release with Tatsuya Nakatani and Carlos Santistevan Inhale/Exhale.