Music From Other Minds

Toward a Definition of Radio Art – Heidi Grundman

1. Radio art is the use of radio as a medium for art
.

2. Radio happens in the place it is heard and not in the production studio.

3. Sound quality is secondary to conceptual originality.

4. Radio is almost always heard combined with other sounds – domestic, traffic, tv, phone calls, playing children etc.

5. Radio art is not sound art – nor is it music. Radio art is radio.

6. Sound art and music are not radio art just because they are broadcast on the radio.

7. Radio space is all the places where radio is heard.

8. Radio art is composed of sound objects experienced in radio space.

9. The radio of every listener determines the sound quality of a radio work.

10. Each listener hears their own final version of a work for radio combined with the ambient sound of their own space.

11. The radio artist knows that there is no way to control the experience of a radio work.

12. Radio art is not a combination of radio and art. Radio art is radio by artists.

On this Music From Other Minds, Andrew Weathers presents: Radio Art.

In honor of her 90th birthday this year, the program will feature the work Partial Perceptions by the American sound artist and writer Helen Thorington. She is the founder of the non-profit New Radio and Performing Arts, which is an organization that commissions and archives new and experimental radio art, sound art, net art, and mixed reality works. For the past 35 years, Thorington’s work has been aired on terrestrial and internet radio internationally. All of the works on the program are from her compilation “Radius – Transmissions from Broadcast Artists”.

The program also shines a light on a Bay Area local composer, and Other Minds festival veteran, Donald Swearingen. Swearingen is a composer, performer, multimedia artist and designer of interactive performance systems and installations. He frequently collaborates with Pamela Z and Laetitia Sonami.

Last on the program is the Canadian composer, radio artist, teacher, and sound ecologist, Hildegard Westerkamp. She worked closely with R. Murray Schafer at the World Soundscape Project from 1973-1980. Westerkamp is one of North America’s leading ambient sound composers.

Composer: Helen Thorington
Title: Partial Perceptions
Performers: Helen Thorington
Recording Title: Radius – Transmissions from Broadcast Artists Vol. 1
Record Label: Nonsequitur Records
Catalog Number: WN0013

Composer: Donald Swearingen
Title: Salvation at 1 AM
Performers: Donald Swearingen
Recording Title: Radius – Transmissions from Broadcast Artists Vol. 2
Record Label: Nonsequitur Records
Catalog Number: WN0013

Composer: Hildegard Westerkamp
Title: Türen Der Wahrnehmungen
Performers: Hildegard Westerkamp
Recording Title: Radius – Transmissions from Broadcast Artists Vol. 4
Record Label: Nonsequitur Records
Catalog Number: WN0013

On this Music from Other Minds, Mark Abramson presents: Terry Riley’s Music for the Gift and other Classical/Jazz crossover works.

In 1963, Terry Riley recorded the Chet Baker Quartet in a Paris studio with the intention of using the raw recordings to create an electro-acoustic work. He created a tape looping process he called the “time lag accumulator” and used it to create the five movement work, Music for the Gift. The fruits of Terry’s labor was an approximately 25 minute musical mosaic that shifts back and forth between straight ahead recordings of the quartet and psychedelic abstractions of the music. Chet Baker was quite happy with the results and is quoted as having said, “Man… That’s some crazy s***,” after hearing the finished product.

Also on the program, some new works by saxophonist Lea Bertucci and the flugelhorn/trumpet player Yazz Ahmed as well as some old works by Miles Davis and Chet Baker.

Composer: Lea Bertucci
Title: Patterns for Alto
Performers: Lea Bertucci
Recording Title: Metal Aether
Record Label: NNA Tapes
Catalog Number: NNA Tapes 108

Composer: Yazz Ahmed
Title: The Space Between the Fish and the Moon
Performers: Yazz Ahmed and Ensemble
Recording Title: La Saboteuse
Record Label: Naim Audio
Catalog Number: NAIMCD 340

Composer: Miles Davis
Title: Concierto de Aranjuez: Adagio
Performers: Miles Davis and Ensemble
Recording Title: Sketches of Spain
Record Label: Columbia/Legacy
Catalog Number: 889858414312

Composer: Terry Riley
Title: Music for the Gift
Performers: Terry Riley and The Chet Baker Quartet
Recording Title: Terry Riley: Music for the Gift; Bird of Paradise; Mescalin Mix
Record Label: Elision Fields
Catalog Number: EF-10

Composer: Chet Baker
Title: Alone Together
Performers: The Chet Baker Quartet
Recording Title: Chet
Record Label: Polydor/Riverside
Catalog Number: 12299

On this Music From Other Minds, Randall Wong features works for women’s vocal ensembles written by women composers.

The program highlights works by the composers Gilda Lyon, Laura Steenberge, Cara Haxo from Quince Ensemble’s 2018 album, Mother Land. Also on the docket, Maverick composer, singer, choreographer, and director: Meredith Monk. She has been the recipient of innumerable awards including the MacArthur Genius Grant, Carnegie Hall’s Composer of the Year, and the National Medal of Arts. We will hear her 1992 work, Three Heavens and Hells for four female voices.

Composer: Gilda Lyons
Title: Bone Needles
Performers: Quince Ensemble: Carrie Henneman Shaw, Liz Pearce; sopranos and Kayleigh Butcher; mezzo-soprano
Recording Title: Motherland
Record Label: New Focus Recordings
Catalog Number: fcr203

Composer: Laura Steenberge
Title: The Four Winds
Performers: Quince Ensemble: Carrie Henneman Shaw, Liz Pearce; sopranos and Kayleigh Butcher; mezzo-soprano
Recording Title: Motherland
Record Label: New Focus Recordings
Catalog Number: fcr203

Composer: Cara Haxo
Title: Three Erasures
Performers: Quince Ensemble: Carrie Henneman Shaw, Liz Pearce; sopranos and Kayleigh Butcher; mezzo-soprano
Recording Title: Motherland
Record Label: New Focus Recordings
Catalog Number: fcr203

Composer: Meredith Monk
Title: 3 Heavens and Hells
Performers: Meredith Monk Ensemble: Dina E, Allison E, Kate G and Meredith Monk
Recording Title: Volcano Songs
Record Label: ECM
Catalog Number: ECM 1589

On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb presents: The Intergalactic Sounds of Sun Ra and his Arkestra.

Sun Ra, AKA Herman Poole Sonny Blount, was born in Birmingham, Alabama on May 22, 1914. He was a composer, bandleader, poet, philosopher, lecturer and a self proclaimed extraterrestrial from Saturn. He is considered to be one of the most prolific recording artists of the twentieth century having put out over one hundred full length albums and dozens of singles. He is perhaps best know for his cult classic film, Space is the Place, which was produced by Other Minds co-founder Jim Newman. He died on May 30, 1993, while visiting his sister back home in Birmingham.

This program features Sun Ra’s enigmatic classic, Space is the Place, as well as a few selections from the live album, Nothing Is. The show continues with a few tracks from Sun Ra’s early, self-produced album, Supersonic Jazz, and concludes with a reading of Sun Ra’s classic poem, The Far off Place.

Composer: Sun Ra
Title: Space is the Place
Performers: Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra
Recording Title: Space is the Place
Record Label: Grp Records
Catalog Number: B0000065KI

Composer: Sun Ra
Title: Sun Ra and His Band From Outer Space
Performers: Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra
Recording Title: Nothing Is
Record Label: ESP Disk
Catalog Number: ESP 1045

Composer: Sun Ra
Title: The Shadow World
Performers: Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra
Recording Title: Nothing Is
Record Label: ESP Disk
Catalog Number: ESP 1045

Composer: Sun Ra
Title: Theme of the Stargazers
Performers: Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra
Recording Title: Nothing Is
Record Label: ESP Disk
Catalog Number: ESP 1045

Composer: Sun Ra
Title: India
Performers: Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra
Recording Title: Super-Sonic Jazz
Record Label: Enterplanetary Koncepts
Catalog Number: N/A

Composer: Sun Ra
Title: Sunology no 1
Performers: Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra
Recording Title: Super-Sonic Jazz
Record Label: Enterplanetary Koncepts
Catalog Number: N/A

Composer: Sun Ra
Title: Advice to Medics
Performers: Sun Ra’s Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra
Recording Title: Super-Sonic Jazz
Record Label: Enterplanetary Koncepts
Catalog Number: N/A

On this Music from Other Minds, Mark Abramson presents Terry Riley’s masterwork, A Rainbow in Curved Air, and other selections of experimental electronic music from the 1960’s and 70’s.

Terry Riley is one of the founders the American minimalist movement. His work is often based on improvisatory processes on modal musical figures. He was deeply influenced by Eastern music and Jazz as well as western classical music. In the 1960’s he was involved with the San Francisco Tape Music Center and worked closely with Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Sender. His work, A Rainbow in Curved Air, has inspired countless composers in the classical, electronic, rock, and jazz world and was an early example of a completely overdubbed instrumental work.

There is one correction to make from the program: Six Fantasies on a Poem by Thomas Campion by Paul Lansky was originally published in 1979. It was re-released in 2007.

Playlist:

Composer: Simon Jeffes
Title: A Pythagorean Roll
Performers: Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Recording Title: Miniatures 2
Record Label: Cherry Red Records
Catalog Number: MXCY-80002

Composer: Laurie Spiegel
Title: Appilliachian Grove 1
Performers: Laurie Spiegel
Recording Title: The Expanding Universe
Record Label: Unseen Worlds
Catalog Number: UW09

Composers: Hannah Mackay and Paul Lanksy
Title: Six Fantasies on a Poem by Thomas Campion/Her Song
Performers: Hannah Mackay and Paul Lansky
Recording Title: Lansky: Fantasies and Tableaux
Record Label: Composers/CRI
Catalog Number: N/A

Composer: Charles Amirkhanian
Title: Bajanoom
Performers: Charles Amirkhanian – gong, musical saw, coffee grinder, guitar and strings
Recording Title: Walking Tune
Record Label: Starkland
Catalog Number: ST 206

Composer: Todd Dockstader
Title: Quatermass No. 1, Song and Lament
Performers: Todd Dockstader – tape
Recording Title: Quatermass
Record Label: Starkland
Catalog Number: ST 201

Composer: Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius
Title: Broken Head
Performers: Brian Eno, Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius
Recording Title: After The Heat
Record Label: Bureau B
Catalog Number: BB30

Composer: Terry Riley
Title: A Rainbow in Curved Air
Performers: Terry Riley – electric organ, electric harpsichord, rocksichord, dhumbec, tambourine
Recording Title: A Rainbow in Curved Air
Record Label: CBS
Catalog Number: MK 7315

Composer: Pete Townshend
Title: Baba O’Riley
Performers: Pete Townshend – guitar, organ, synthesizer, piano, vocals; Roger Daltry – vocals;
John Entwistle – bass; Keith Moon – drums
Recording Title: Who’s Next
Record Label: Decca
Catalog Number: DL 79182

On this Music from Other Minds, Randall Wong presents two highly contrasting works for voice and orchestra.

The first work, Frankenstein!, is by the neo-tonal, neo-expressionistic composer H.K. Gruber. The work melds components of cartoon music, jazz, and contemporary classical music into an action packed, and highly absurd, song cycle. Gruber employs a full sized symphony orchestra with many musicians doubling on children’s toys. Slide and wolf whistles, music boxes, taxi horns and kazoos are utilized to create an interactive and highly entertaining sound world.

Next we will hear the work, Dans Le Sable, from the Other Minds archive by the Bay Area native composer, Loren Rush. It is scored for the unorthodox ensemble of soprano, four altos, speaker; vibraphone, harp, celesta, and piano; alto flute, english horn, trumpet, trombone, bassoon and string quartet. The recording is an unreleased KPFA tape of a live performance that occurred on March 20, 1972 at the old DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. Randall was in the audience as a young student for this performance and cites it as being a very memorable experience.

Composer: Heinz Karl “Mali” Gruber
Title: Frankenstein!!
Performers: Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor/Camerata Academica Salzburg, Orchestra and Heinz Karl Gruber, voice
Recording Title: Gruber: Frankenstein
Record Label: EMI
Catalog Number: B000002RYW

Composer: Loren Rush
Title: Dans Le Sable
Performers: Loren Rush, Conductor/ San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble/Anna Carol Dudley, Soprano/Martin Bresnick, Speaker
Recording Title: NA
Record Label: KPFA live recording, March 20, 1972
Catalog Number: N/A

On the this Music from Other Minds, Mark Abramson presents traditional works for gamelan and Western classical works inspired by the music of Indonesia.

Gamelan is the traditional ensemble music of Bali and Java in Indonesia. It has a rich cultural history within Indonesia that dates back almost two thousand years. It gained recognition in the Western world during the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris and since has inspired countless composers of Western classical music.

Gonténg (Djawa) Pengawak Solo was recorded in 1928 and is from the first and only commercially-released recordings of Balinese music made prior to World War Two. The aforementioned set of recordings were pivotal in the musical development of the Canadian composer, Colin McPhee, who later traveled to Bali to write his book, Music in Bali. We will hear McPhee’s orchestral work from 1935 Tabuh Tabuhan which was influenced heavily by his experiences in Bali.

Another Westerner who was drawn to the sounds of the Gamelan was California’s own Lou Harrison. In his Suite for Violin and American Gamelan he utilizes his own Gamelan system that he and his partner William Colvig built together in the late 1960’s. The ensemble is modeled on Javanese Gamelan, but tuned to just intonation on the note D. The version of Suite for Violin and American Gamelan, heard here on Music from Other Minds, is an exclusive unreleased recording made at the Other Minds Festival 22.

The program concludes with a short work for traditional gamelan titled, Bubaran Hudan Mas, which is an ending piece played at the close of a function as the audience departs.

Composer: I Wayan Lotring
Title: Gonténg (Djawa) Pengawak Solo
Performers: Pelégongan of Kuta
Recording Title: The Roots of Gamelan
Record Label: World Arbiter
Catalog Number: 2001

Composer: Colin McPhee
Title: Tabuh Tabuhan
Performers: Peter Basquin & Christopher Oldfather, pianos; American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell
Davies conductor
Recording Title: McPhee/Ung/Harrison
Record Label: Argo
Catalog Number: 444 560-2

Composer: Lou Harrison, Richard Dee
Title: Suite for Violin and American Gamelan
Performers: Shalini Vijayan, violin; William Winant
Percussion Group; Nicole Paiement, conductor
Recording Title: Unreleased live recording from Other Minds Festival 22
Record Label: n/a
Catalog Number: n/a

Composer: Traditional
Title: Bubaran Hudan Mas (Golden Rain)
Performers: Pura Paku Alaman
Recording Title: Javanese Court Gamelan
Record Label: Elektra Nonesuch
Catalog Number: 7559-72044-2

On this Music from Other Minds, Michael Jones presents: Tongue of the Invisible, an eight-movement work for baritone, improvising pianist, and chamber orchestra by the Australian composer Liza Lim.

Liza Lim was educated in Australia and is based in Melbourne. Her works borrow from many sources including East Asian, Australian Indigenous and Western idioms. She is currently the professor of composition at Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the University of Huddersfield. Tongue of the Invisible takes its inspiration and libretto from 14th century Persian Sufi poet Hāfez, whose poetry explores love in both ecstatic celebration and cool observation.

Alex Ross of the New Yorker writes: “Lim exemplifies a younger generation of composers who have revivified modernism by kicking away its technocratic façade and heightening its visceral power.”

Piece Title: Tongue of the Invisible
Composer: Liza Lim
Performers: Omar Ebrahim, Uri Caine, Andre de Ridder, and musikFabrik
Recording: Liza Lim: Tongue of the Invisible
Label: Wergo
Catalog Number: WE 68592

On this Music From Other Minds, Randall Wong explores two works for soprano and orchestra by Hans Werner Henze and Hans Abrahamsen.

Being Beauteous by Hans Werner Henze (born Gütersloh, Germany, 1926-2012) dates from 1963. Henze’s compositional roots lay with the post war serialist generation but as he matured as composer, so did additional styles and idioms become incorporated in his work. Being Beauteous, is composed to a prose poem by Arthur Rimbaud from his collection Les Illuminations (1886). We will hear Edda Moser accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra with Henze conducting.

Next we will hear, let me tell you by Hans Abrahamsen. Abrhamsen was born in Copenhagen in 1952 and composed let me tell you on commission from the Berlin Philharmonic. It was premiered on December 20, 2013 by the Berlin Philharmonic with Barbara Hannigan as the soloist. It is based off of the novella let me tell you by the British novelist Paul Griffiths and follows the story of tragic story of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. We will hear the 2016 recording of Barbara Hannigan with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons conducting.

Composer: Hans Werner Henze
Title: Being Beauteous
Recording Title: Hans Werner Henze: The complete Deutsche Grammophon Recordings
Performers: Edda Moser with Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra
Record Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Catalog Number: 4791522

Composer: Hans Abrahamsen
Title: let me tell you
Recording: Abrahamsen: Let Me Tell You
Performers: Barbara Hannigan with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons conducting
Record Label: Winter and Winter
Catalog Number: 910 232-2

Join us on Music from Other Minds as Randall Wong shares two under appreciated piano concertos by Gian Carlo Menotti and George Antheil.

Gian Carlo Menotti was born in Cadegliano-Viconago, Italy in 1911 and made his way to the United States in 1928. A multiple Pulitzer Prize winner for his operas The Consul and The Saint of Bleecker Street, Menotti was almost universally scorned by “progressive” musicians and critics, and derided as derivative and overly sentimentalized. That being said, his works Amahl and the Night Visitors and The Medium hold a place as two of the most frequently performed 20th century operas to date. His Piano Concerto (1945) has sadly not had the same success as some of his operas. We will be listening to a 1961 recording of Earl Wild playing with Jorge Mester and The Symphony of the Air.

George Antheil was born in 1900 in Trenton NJ, the self-styled “bad boy of music,” his legacy rests chiefly on his most notorious work of the 20s- Ballet Mecanique (for an ensemble including for 16 synchronized player pianos, 3 differently pitched airplane propellers, electric doorbells, 2 regular pianos, xylophones, and a siren) and which caused riots in the audience to break out. And recently come to light his work with Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr to develop a radio frequency hopping torpedo guidance system, a basis of modern cell phone. Antheil’s Piano Concerto No. 1 was composed in 1922 while he was living in Berlin and it is very reminiscent of the works of Stravinsky’s Russian Period. The recording we will hear will feature Markus Becker on piano with the North German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Eije Oue conductor.

Playlist:

Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti
Title: Piano Concerto
Recording Title: Earl Wild plays the Aaron Copland Piano Concerto, conducted by Aaron Copland and the Gian Carlo Menotti Piano Concerto, conducted by Jorge Mester
Performers: Earl Wild with Jorge Mester and the Symphony of the Air
Record Label: Vanguard Classic
Catalog Number: OVC4029

Composer: George Antheil
Title: Piano Concerto No. 1
Performers: Markus Becker with the North German Radio Philharmonic
Recording Title: George Antheil: Piano Concertos No. 1 and 2, A Jazz Symphony and Jazz Sonata
Record Label: CPO
Catalog Number: N/A

Michael Jones shines a spotlight on French Spectralism, a movement begun in the latter-half of the 20th century that, in many ways, has revolutionized the way composers deal with timbre. Join us as we listen to Tristan Murail’s Tellur for solo guitar, performed by the Swedish guitarist Stefan Östersjö. We also will get to hear the first two movements from Gérard Grisey’s masterwork, Les Espaces Acoustiques. The first movement, Prologue, will be performed by Garth Knox on viola, and the Asko Ensemble will perform the second movement, Périodes. Lastly, we will hear from Philippe Hurel with his Tombeau in Memoriam Gérard Grisey for Piano and Percussion, performed by Jean Geoffroy and Jean-Marie Cottet.

Playlist:

Composer: Tristan Murail
Title: Tellur for solo guitar
Performers: Stefan Östersjö
Recording Title: Stefan Östersjö
Record Label: dB Productions
Catalog Number: 31

Composer: Gérard Grisey
Title: Les Espaces Acoustiques
Performers: Garth Knox and The Asko Ensemble
Recording Title: : Gérard Grisey: Les Espaces Acoustiques
Record Label: Kairos Records
Catalog Number: 0012422KAI

Composer: Philippe Hurel
Title: Tombeau in Memoriam Gérard Grisey
Performers: Jean Geoffroy, Piano and Jean-Marie Cottet, Percussion
Recording Title: Hurel: Flashback
Record Label: Aeon
Catalog Number: AECD0105

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 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.

Playlist:

Composer: Michael Pisaro
Title: Fields Have Ears (6)
Performer(s): Michael Pisaro
Recording title: Fields Have Ears (6)
Record label: Gravity Wave
Catalog number: GW 007

This program, hosted by Other Minds Administrative Director and vocal artist Randall Wong, presented two very different interpretations of the sound of the Arctic.

First is John Luther Adams’s 2007 composition for string quartet The Wind in High Places. The piece uses only natural harmonics and open strings. It adapts the principles underlying the Aeolian harp, which is played by the wind; it treats the ensemble, in this case New York’s versatile JACK Quartet, as a single 16-string instrument. Throughout its nearly 20 minutes, the players never touch their fingerboards, instead rendering its austere, melancholy melodies with open strings and ghostly harmonics.

The rest of the program was devoted to excerpts from Eskimo, a work released in 1979 by the Bay Area experimental music collective The Residents. This group has done groundbreaking work in the areas of trance, world fusion, electronica, punk, industrial and lounge music. The group has also been credited with being among the originators of performance art and music video. Eskimo tells a story, without relying upon words, of the assimilation of a ritualistic society into consumer culture. This story unfolds as Eskimo fables, a lived experience, set to the grinding of sound effects and music. It is a mind movie rich with detail. Eskimo is, quite literally, a unique experience.

Playlist:

Composer: John Luther Adams
Title: The Wind in High Places
Performer(s): JACK Quartet
Recording title: John Luther Adams: The Wind in High Places
Record label: Cold Blue Music
Catalog number: CB0041

Composer: The Residents
Titles: Eskimo
Performer(s): The Residents
Recording title: Eskimo
Record label: Ralph Records
Catalog number: n/a

It was Michael Nyman who first used the term minimalist in the late 60s to describe the music of Cornelius Cardew. He later described the term to include “any music that works with limited or minimal materials… that maybe uses only a few notes … or that slows the tempo down to two or three notes per minute.”

Piano Preludes have been with us for a very long time, perhaps starting with Bach and his 24, each based on a unique key. But Bach’s Preludes were preludes to fugues. Recently, composers have turned to writing just Preludes… preludes to nothing. Maybe they’re more like Etudes … I don’t know. The neat thing is that Preludes have sequential numbers, avoiding the need for flighty titles that don’t mean much. So that’s good.

We begin with Jeroen van Veen’s 24 Minimal Preludes. Like Bach’s, each is in a different key. Van Veen is renowned in Europe as a pianist specializing in minimalist and avant-garde music, with many recordings, especially of Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and Simeon ten Holt. And, clearly, his own Preludes have been heavily influenced by the music he champions so often.

We start the program with his Prelude #8, followed by four more from the 24 Minimal Preludes for Piano performed by the composer, Jeroen van Veen.

The young Colombian composer living in Brooklyn, Julian de la Chica, presents a very different approach to minimalism with his 14 Preludes Opus 8. These contrast greatly from what we just heard, and lean dangerously towards being new-agey, were not for the compelling performance by incomparable Lisa Moore in this new release. Here are five of the 14 preludes of Julian de la Chica, performed by Lisa Moore with the composer assisting on synthesizer, and also providing a second pair of hands on piano in one of them.

This is on a just released CD from Irreverence Group Music. We hope to hear more from this young composer.

Playlist:

Composer: Jeroen van Veen
Titles: Prélude Nr. 8 In F# Minor; Prélude Nr. 14 In E Flat Minor; Prélude Nr. 16 In B Flat Minor; Prélude Nr. 17 In A Flat; Prélude Nr. 18 In F Minor
Performer(s): Jeroen van Veen, piano
Recording title: Minimal Piano Collection, Volumes I-IX
Record label: Brilliiant Classics
Catalog number: 8551

Composer: Julian de la Chica
Titles: Preludes, Op. 8: No. 6, 7, 10, 12, 13
Performer(s): Lisa Moore, piano
Recording title: Lisa Moore – de la Chica, Preludes Opus 8
Record label: Irreverence Group Music
Catalog number: IGM-018

There was a time when the name Karlheinz Stockhausen on a concert program would raise fear and loathing among audiences and performers alike. Stockhausen, along with Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, and others led the European avant garde in the 1950s and 60s.

By 1962, Stockhausen had already established himself as a major force in music, including the new field of electronic music. His works for large orchestras and smaller ensembles, percussion, electronic tape, and the ten Klavierstücke, are masterpieces of that era. Stockhausen’s compositional techniques were unique, utilizing formal metamusical schemas that dictated the score and the performance, and many of his works extended musical notation.

Tonight, we’ll hear one of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s truly gigantic works – Momente, in the version from 1965, recently remastered and rereleased on a Wergo CD. Stockhausen developed the formal scheme for Momente in 1961 on a commission from the West German Radio. There are three groups of Moments, that concentrate on Melody, Sound, and Duration, along with indeterminate moments that tend to cancel out these three groups, or at least that’s what is intended.

The structure of the work is complex, and the inspiration for many graduate theses and papers. Suffice it to say that each moment is interchangeable and organized beforehand for a particular performance by the conductor.

But you don’t need to know much about these compositional details to experience the work. When the 1965 performance was released on Wergo and Nonesuch in 1967, nothing like it had been heard before. And for Nonesuch records, known mostly for music by Baroque composers like Vivaldi and Handel, it was quite a sensational act.

When I first heard the recording back then I thought I had been dropped into some strange cult ritual that is probably still going on. Considering the times, this was a remarkable and ground-breaking work.

The 1965 version of Momente, which is for soprano, four choirs, and 13 instruments, featured the then 29 year old opera soprano Martina Arroyo, Aloys and Alfons Kontarsky playing Hammond and Lowrey organs, the Cologne Radio choir, and instrumentalists from the Cologne radio symphony orchestra, all under the direction of the composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Links:

A detailed analysis of Momente can be found here, and continues here.

Luc Ferrari’s documentary about Stockhausen and Momente, including footage from rehearsals (mostly in French) can be viewed on YouTube. There is an English transcript of the film here.

Playlist:

Composer: Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007)
Title: Momente (version 1965) for soprano, 4 choirs, 13 instruments
Performer(s): Marina Arroyo, Soprano; Aloys Kontarsky, Hammond Organ; Alfons Kontarsky, Lowrey Organ; Cologne Radio Choir; Members of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra; Karlheinz Stockhausen, conductor.
Recording title: Momente
Record label: Wergo
Catalog number: WER 67742

This week’s program features the radio debut of Michael Jones, the Development Assistant here at Other Minds, and soon to be a graduate student in music performance at the University of California at San Diego. Jones will be presenting compositions written by American composers of Chinese ancestry, including Vivian Fung, Lei Liang, and David Macbride (whose mother is Chinese). The work presented here shows a desire to combine elements of both Western and Asian musical heritage into their expressive new compositions.

Playlist:

Composer: Vivian Fung
Title: Glimpses for Solo Prepared Piano
Performer(s): Conor Hanick
Recording title: Dreamscapes
Record label: Naxos Canadian Classics
Catalog number: 8.573009

Composer: Lei Liang
Title: Luminous
Performer(s): Mark Dresser w/the Palimpsest Ensemble conducted by Steven Schick
Recording title: Lei Liang – Luminous
Record label: New World Records
Catalog number: 80784

Composer: David Macbride
Title: Bells of Remembrance
Performer(s): David Macbride and Benjamin Toth
Recording title: A Special Light
Record label: Innova Records
Catalog number: 886

Composer: David Macbride
Title: Klung
Performer(s): Gene Koshinski, Tim Broscious, and Bill Solomon
Recording title: Gene Koshinski – Klung
Record label: Equilibrium Records
Catalog number: EQ91

Composer: David Macbride
Title: For Watson Morris
Performer(s): David Macbride
Recording title: In Passing
Record label: Albany Records
Catalog number: TROY677

This program was devoted to the beautiful 1976 composition by Steve Reich, who then was turning 40 years old: Music For 18 Musicians. As Reich is now double that age, we thought it was time to take a look back at a turning point in his career that widened his audience and set a new standard for minimalist expression.

This 56 minute work, played by the composer’s own ensemble, is based on eleven chords, heard at the beginning and the end of the piece. Reich, a percussionist, previously had dealt primarily in rhythmic structures but paid less attention to harmony. But now in this work, a new generosity of spirit is evident. The first five minutes of the piece has more harmonic movement than any other work of his to that date.

Playlist:

Composer: Steve Reich
Title: Music For 18 Musicians
Performer(s): Steve Reich Ensemble
Recording title: Music For 18 Musicians
Record label: ECM Records
Catalog number: ECM 1129

Sound poetry, dating back over 100 years, is the focus of Other Minds Music Festival 23, titled “Sound Poetry: The Wages of Syntax.” Participants include such charismatic poets and composers as Anne Waldman, Aram Saroyan, Clark Coolidge with composer Alvin Curran from Rome, virtuoso performer Jaap Blonk from the Netherlands, Enzo Minarelli from Italy, and Beat poet Michael McClure—just a few of the many voices to be heard over a 6-day extravaganza, Monday April 9th through Saturday April 14th, at ODC Theater in San Francisco.

In program 510, Charles Amirkhanian introduces some rare gems such as the 1958 takeoff on Elvis Presley’s Don’t Be Cruel, transformed into abstract language by Maurice Lemaitre into Lettre Rock. Anne Waldman holds forth with her striking, shamanistic Synoptic Microcosmos, and Clark Coolidge, performs his syntax attack, The Very Idea. Brion Gysin, Ernst Toch, and Gertrude Stein/Virgil Thomson are highlighted, and Italian sound poet Enzo Minarelli pays homage to the Pope in Cultpppoem.

Playlist:

Composer: Ernst Toch
Title: Geographical Fugue, from Spoken Word Suite (1930, English language version)
Performer(s): Smoke & Mirror Percussion Ensemble
Recording title: Vanish
Record label: Yarlung Records
Catalog number: 15195

Composer: Virgil Thomson
Title: Capital Capitals (1927, text by Gertrude Stein from 1917)
Performer(s): Joseph Crawford, Clyde S. Turner, tenors; Joseph James, baritone; William C. Smith, bass; Virgil Thomson, piano
Recording title: Composer-Critics of the New York Herald Tribune
Record label: Other Minds Records
Catalog number: OM1024-2

Composer: Clark Coolidge
Title: The Very Idea (2015)
Performer(s): Coolidge, reader; Devin Brahja Waldman, alto sax; Thurston Moore, guitar
Recording title: Tiny People Having a Meeting
Record label: Fast Speaking Music
Catalog number:

Composer: Anne Waldman
Title: Synoptic Microcosmos (2015)
Performer(s): Anne Waldman, reader; Thurston Moore, guitar
Recording title: Tiny People Having a Meeting
Record label: Fast Speaking Music
Catalog number:

Composer: Brion Gysin
Title: No Poets Don’t Own Words; I Am This Painter
Performer(s): Brion Gysin, reader
Recording title: Recordings 1960-1981
Record label: Perdition Plastics
Catalog number: PER 004

Composer: Enzo Minarelli
Title: Cultpppoem
Performer(s): Enzo Minarelli, voice
Recording title: Coralmente me stesso
Record label:
Catalog number:

Composer: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Title: Bombardimento di Adrianopoli
Performer(s): Marinetti, voice (recorded 1935)
Recording title: historical recording

Composer: Jackson Mac Low
Title: Free Gatha 1 And Free Gatha 2
Performer(s): Jackson Mac Low & Ann Tardos – voices
Recording title: Open Secrets
Record label: Experimental Intermedia
Catalog number: XI 110

Composer: Maurice Lemaitre
Title: Lettre Rock
Performer(s): Maurice Lemaitre, voice
Recording title: Le Lettrisme
Record label: Columbia (France)
Catalog number: ESRF 1171

Composer: Jaap Blonk
Title: Yapping at the Moon
Performer(s): Jaap Blonk, voice
Recording title: Songs of Little Sleep
Record label: Bandcamp Release
Catalog number:

Sound poetry, dating back over 100 years, is the focus of Other Minds Music Festival 23, titled “Sound Poetry: The Wages of Syntax.” Participants include such charismatic poets and composers as Anne Waldman, Aram Saroyan, Clark Coolidge with composer Alvin Curran from Rome, virtuoso performer Jaap Blonk from the Netherlands, Enzo Minarelli from Italy, and Beat poet Michael McClure—just a few of the many voices to be heard over a 6-day extravaganza, Monday April 9th through Saturday April 14th, at ODC Theater in San Francisco.

In program 509 Music From Other Minds, Charles Amirkhanian presents examples of sound poetry and text-sound composition by outsider figures—poets, composers—artists from all disciplines—experimenting with the intermedium between literature and music.

Playlist:

Composer: Silvia Matheus
Title: Phoneme (2006)
Performer(s): Silvia Matheus, synthesizer
Recording title: Private Recording

Composer: Mark Applebaum
Title: Three Unlikely Corporate Sponsorships – Nestlé (2016)
Performer(s): Mark Applebaum, voice
Recording title: Speed Dating
Record label: Innova
Catalog number: 996

Composer: Henri Chopin
Title: Définition des Lettres Suivantes (1975)
Performer(s): Henri Chopin, voice
Recording title: Text-Sound Compositions: A Stockholm Festival
Record label: Fylkingen
Catalog number: 1024

Composer: Lily Greenham
Title: Friction (1973)
Performer(s): Lily Greenham, voice and electronics
Recording title: Lingual Music
Record label: Paradigm Discs
Catalog number: PD 22

Composer: Beth Anderson
Title: Torero Piece (1973)
Performer(s): Beth Anderson, voice
Recording title: 10+2: 12 American Text Sound Pieces
Record label: Other Minds Records
Catalog number: OM 1006-2

Composer: Charles Amirkhanian
Title: Dog of Stravinsky (1982)
Performer(s): Charles Amirkhanian, tape
Recording title: Mental Radio
Record label: New World Records
Catalog number: NWCRL523

Composer: Susan Stone
Title: Ruby
Performer(s): Susan Stone, voice
Recording title: House With A View (private recording)

Composer: Sheila Davies
Title: What is the Matter in Amy Glennon? (1988)
Performer(s): Barney Jones, Gregory Whitehead, Pierce MacKenzie, Fran Smith, Amy X Neuburg, Shiela Davies – voices
Recording title: Transmissions From Broadcast Artists
Record label: ¿What Next? Recordings
Catalog number: WN0013

Many composers were if not directly influenced at least intrigued by the pattern music of Philip Glass and Steve Reich coming out of New York City in the 70s. One was the late Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, who created a Dutch version of minimalism.

ten Holt was interested mainly in the process, especially with his pieces for multiple performers … two, four, six, even 8 pianos. But processes that the listener need not be aware of to appreciate. It’s odd to recall that at the time, this music was denounced as insipid cult music. And yet the audience for it continues to grow. You can find performances of ten Holt’s music performed in odd places such as train stations and airports in Europe on youtube.

This music is best appreciated if you take the time to listen carefully, very carefully. If you make the effort to hear the shifting elements in the fore- and background and the very sudden appearance of new patterns, you will experience something quite unique and rewarding. If you can muster the concentration to listen intensely you will be rewarded in unexpected ways. To appreciate this music fully requires the greatest concentration from the listener as well as performer.

Most of Simeon ten Holt’s works can go on for indeterminate length. Some are two or three or more hours long, so it was hard to find characteristic pieces that will fit in our hour. Tonight we’ll hear two of the four published Solodowveldanses, Solo Devil Dances, numbers 3 and 4, composed in 1990 and 96. And they are really devilish.

Playlist:

Composer: Simeon ten Holt
Title: Soloduiveldans III (1990)
Performer(s): Kees Wieringa, piano
Recording title: Simeon ten Holt: Highlights
Record label: Composers Voice
Catalog number: CVCD 137

Composer: Simeon ten Holt
Title: Soloduiveldans IV (1998)
Performer(s): Jeroen van Veen, piano
Recording title: Simeon ten Holt: Highlights
Record label: Composers Voice
Catalog number: CVCD 137

On this program, Richard Friedman presents two composers that were personal discoveries resulting from doing these programs over the past 10+ years: Hans Otte and Ann Southam.

Playlist:

Composer: Hans Otte
Title: Das Buch der Klänge (1979-82), #10, #2, #5
Performer(s): Hans Otte, piano
Recording title: Das Buch der Klänge
Record label: Celestial Harmonies
Catalog number: 12069

Composer: Ann Southam
Title: Glass Houses (1981): # 1, 9
Performer(s): Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano
Recording title: Glass Houses Revisited
Record label: Centredisques
Catalog number: CMCCD 16511

Composer: Ann Southam
Title: Fiddle Creek; Fidget Creek; Noisy River
Performer(s): Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano
Recording title: Pond Life
Record label: Centredisques
Catalog number: CMCCD 14109

Playlist:

Composer: Morton Feldman
Title: The Viola in My Life (1971)
Performer(s): Cikada Ensemble, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Christian Eggen, cond.
Recording title: The Viola in My Life
Record label: ECM Records
Catalog number: ECM 1798

Composer: Morton Feldman
Title: I Met Heine on Rue Fürstenberg (1971)
Performer(s): Ensemble Récherche
Recording title: Morton Feldman: Routine Investigations…
Record label: Disques Montaigne (now Naive Records)
Catalog number: None available

Playlist:

Composer: Iannis Xenakis
Title: Tracées (1987) for large orchestra
Performer(s): Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Arturo Tamayo cond.
Recording title: Iannis Xenakis: Oeuvres Pour Orchestre
Record label: Timpani Records
Catalog number: 5C1177

Composer: Iannis Xenakis
Title: Linaia-Agon (1972) for trombone, horn, tuba
Performer(s): Group 7090
Recording title: Xenakis in Het Orgelpark
Record label: Orgelpark Records
Catalog number: 011

Composer: Iannis Xenakis
Title: Ata (1987) for large orchestra
Performer(s): Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Arturo Tamayo cond.
Recording title: Iannis Xenakis: Oeuvres Pour Orchestre
Record label: Timpani Records
Catalog number: 5C1177

Composer: Iannis Xenakis
Title: Gmeeoorh (1974) for pipe organ
Performer(s): Jan Hage, Verschueren Organ, Orgelpark, Amsterdam
Recording title: Xenakis in Het Orgelpark
Record label: Orgelpark Records
Catalog number: 011

Playlist:

Composer: Alvin Curran
Title: For Cornelius (1982, revised 1990)
Performer(s): Yvar Mikhashoff, piano
Recording title: Yvar Mikhashoff plays Alvin Curran: Piano Works
Record label: Mode Records
Catalog number: mode 49

Composer: Henri Dutilleux
Title: Figures de résonances (1970/76)
Performer(s): Robert Levin & Ya-Fei Chuang, pianos
Recording title: Henri Dutilleux: De l’ombre et de silence
Record label: ECM Records
Catalog number: ECM 2105

Composer: Alvin Curran
Title: From The Last Acts of Julian Beck (1985): 2 – He Meets His Maker on Upper Broadway; 3 – Walks Into “Paradise Now”
Performer(s): Yvar Mikhashoff, piano
Recording title: Yvar Mikhashoff plays Alvin Curran: Piano Works
Record label: Mode Records
Catalog number: mode 49

John Luther Adams’ new string quartet, Everything That Rises was recently released on Cold Blue Music. Commissioned by SFJAZZ and the JACK Quartet, Everything That Rises is an ever-in-motion virtuosic just-intonation work built of a series of 16 ascending musical “clouds.” Its pitches are derived from the harmonics of the piece’s subsonic fundamental tone (C0).

The composer writes: “Everything That Rises, my fourth string quartet, grew out of Sila: The Breath of the World—a concert-length choral/orchestral work I composed on a rising series of 16 harmonic clouds. This music traverses that same territory, but in a much more melodic way. Each musician is a soloist, playing throughout. Time floats and the lines spin out, always rising, in acoustically perfect intervals that grow progressively smaller as they spiral upward…until the music dissolves into the soft noise of the bows, sighing.”

Playlist:

Composer: John Luther Adams
Title: Everything That Rises
Performer(s): JACK Quartet
Recording title: Everything That Rises
Record label: Cold Blue Music
Catalog number: CB0051
Link: Composer web site

Recently we have been exploring the legacy of the last century’s avant-garde – Edgard Varése, Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis and John Cage. Tonight our focus is on French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who passed away two years ago at age 90. Boulez’s influence throughout the last half of the 20th Century was significant. Much of the new music written over the past 60 years has either been influenced by or in reaction to his music.

Paul Griffiths writes that “Pierre Boulez’s music belongs in the energetic state of a trapped bang, where ideas can have implications that run on through great lengths of composed time, through many decades in the composers career, and indeed, through our own lives, after we’ve heard them.”

Playlist:

Composer: Pierre Boulez
Title: Notations 1-4 (1945)
Performer(s): Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Recording title: …explosante-fixe…
Record label: Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Catalog number: 0289 477 5385 8

Composer: Pierre Boulez
Title: Notations 1-4 (1945)
Performer(s): Daniel Barenboim and the Orchestre de Paris
Recording title: Notations 1-4 / Rituel / Messagesquisse
Record label: Erato
Catalog number: 2292-45493-2

Composer: Pierre Boulez
Title: Sur Incises
Performer(s): Jean-Guihen Queyras/Hae-Sun Kang/Ensemble Intercontemporain/Pierre Boulez
Recording title: Boulez: Sur Incises
Record label: Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Catalog number: 0289 463 4752 2

Composer: Pierre Boulez
Title: Notations 8-12
Performer(s): Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Recording title: …explosante-fixe…
Record label: Deutsche Grammophon GmbH
Catalog number: 0289 477 5385 8

Early and rarely heard piano pieces by John Cage, performed by Steffen Schleiermacher, from a compilation set called John Cage, Complete Piano Music.

Playlist:

Composer: John Cage
Title: Experience (1944)
Performer(s): Steffen Schleiermacher
Recording title: John Cage: Complete Piano Music
Record label: Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm
Catalog number: MDG 613 1731-2

Composer: John Cage
Title: A Book of Music for 2 pianos (1944) – Part 1
Performer(s): Steffen Schleiermacher
Recording title: John Cage: Complete Piano Music
Record label: Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm
Catalog number: MDG 613 1731-2

Composer: John Cage
Title: Solo for Piano (1958)
Performer(s): Steffen Schleiermacher
Recording title: John Cage: Complete Piano Music
Record label: Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm
Catalog number: MDG 613 1731-2

Composer: John Cage
Title: Music for Marcel Duchamp (1947)
Performer(s): Steffen Schleiermacher
Recording title: John Cage: Complete Piano Music
Record label: Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm
Catalog number: MDG 613 1731-2