Music From Other Minds

Music from Other Minds listeners are well aware of the rich history of musical experimentation from Northern California. This program celebrates that diverse and creative tradition with a mixtape, featuring music by Lou Harrison, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Henry Kaiser, Theresa Wong, Chris Brown, ROVA, Harry Partch, Cheryl Leonard, Maggi Payne, Tom Djll, Ron Heglin, Bart Hopkin, Sarah Cahill, Ellen Fullman, Samuel Adams, Giacomo Fiore, William Winant, and more!

This program features music by composers who are being featured at this year’s 29th Other Minds Festival, October 16th–19th at the Brava Theater in San Francisco’s Mission District. Get excited for the festival with Devin King as he plays music from James Tenney, Peter Garland, Ingram Marshall, and Samuel Adams.

On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb plays works by three OM 29 composers, Putu Septa, Kristine Tjøgersen, and Pamela Z. Tune in for a special broadcast which includes a soon to be released record version of Z‘s Simultaneous, which will be featured in three forms on the festival.

For more information and tickets CLICK HERE.

On this Music from Other Minds, Joseph Bohigian shares a sampling of his interviews on the Other Minds Podcast with the artists visiting San Francisco for Other Minds Festival 29, October 16–19, 2025, at the Brava Theater. The program includes excerpts of interviews with Pamela Z, Samuel Adams, Zeena Parkins, Kristine Tjøgersen, Putu Septa, and Nancy Karp. The full interviews can be found at this link or on any podcasting app.

Happy Birthday Joseph Jarman! This program features music by and for Joseph Jarman, the great multi-instrumentalist, composer, and poet. He would have been 88 on September 14th, 2025, the date that this program airs. Jarman is most well known as one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, as well as one of the original members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. This program features work from different eras of Jarman’s career, as well as a piece dedicated to him by musicians working in his lineage: Joseph Jarman, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Equal Interest, and Artifacts.

This program presents soprano Dory Hayley’s new recording of Morton Feldman’s Three Voices. Feldman composed Three Voices in 1982 for Joan LaBarbara. Although sometimes performed by three singers, it’s more often done by one singer recording all three parts. Currently on the faculty at Vancouver Community College, Dory Hayley is a leading vocalist in Canada’s contemporary and experimental music scene. The show opens with a duet with vocalist Sheila Jordan and bassist Cameron Brown, in a tribute to the late jazz singer. Jordan was revered among musicians, especially for her scat singing and improvisational flair in live performances. Born in 1928, she overcame an abusive childhood, and after hearing Charlie Parker in high school, devoted her life to singing jazz.

This program features the ensemble and choral music of the late 20th and 21st century from a global perspective. Featuring Zosha di Castri’s We live opposite daring with Ekmeles, Sydney Guillaume’s Kalinda based on the Caribbean martial art practice, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Five Kurpian Songs, Op. 75 based on folk songs and texts, and other pieces by Arnold Schoenberg, Caroline Shaw, Bik Kam Lee, Kåre Kolberg, Toru Takemitsu, David Fennessey, and André Laporte. These pieces range from a Classical arrangement of choral voices to extended vocal techniques and sound poetry.

On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb presents a conversation with the late “Blue” Gene Tyranny, who passed away at the age of 75 on Saturday, December 12, 2020. Compiled for an oral history of Tyranny in 2019, the interview topics span the composer’s life from early childhood, his work with the ONCE Group, his collaborations with composer Robert Ashley, his recordings, and his struggles with Charles Bonnet Syndrome.

This is a rebroadcast from December 18, 2020. 

This week on Music from Other Minds: Strings, Drums, and Electrons. Highlights of this program include Bay Area native Scot Gresham-Lancaster’s electronic treatment of Martian Time Slip by Philip K. Dick; Myths of Origin, a conduction-style piece for improvising string orchestra and drum set by Jason Kao Hwang; String Quartet No. 8 by Gloria Coates; and Sandbox Percussion performing Bloom by Michael Torke.

There’s no cure like travel! This late-summer vacation edition of Music from Other Minds features field recordings, songs, and poems related to cars, trains, and trams. Three long form pieces center the program: Amber Meulenijzer’s SAAB Fanfare has the sound artist driving her SAAB 900 through Pelt, a town in East Belgium, while a local brass band marches and plays along with a drone emanating from speaker-horns installed on the SAAB’s roof. Artist Sandra Cross MMs Bar Recordings find her traveling weekly from Leicester to London and recording the buffet car announcements. And Other Minds founder and Executive and Artistic Director’s Charles Amirkhanian’s Seatbelt Seatbelt is a modern classic of sound poetry. Poems from Robert Creeley, Lyn Hejinian, and Julie Patton are also featured, as well as field recordings of the San Francisco cable car barn and Disney Land tram car announcer. Rounding everything out is Hiroshi “Hiro” Kawaguchi’s soundtrack to the 1986 arcade game Out Run.