A |
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| ACKAMOOR,
IDRIS ADAMS, JOHN LUTHER ALBERTS, ARMENO ALBERTANO, LINDA ALBURGER, SCOTT ALLEN, BUKKA ALLEN, JO HARVEY ALLEN, TERRY ALLISON, JAY ALLS, JAMES ALLYN, JERRI AMIRKHANIAN, CHARLES APPLE, JACKI ARCOS, BETTO ARS ACUSTICA ASCHAK AUINGER, SAM |
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| ACKAMOOR, IDRIS | |
| See Jones, Rhodessa, "Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women." top | |
| ADAMS, JOHN LUTHER | |
| Earth
and the Great Weather (1990)
A work about the sonic geography of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
in northeastern Alaska, and about the voices of the elements. From the
texture of wind, rain and melting ice, flowing water, animal cries and
birdsong, emerges the sound of drums playing the pulsing 5/8 and 7/8 beats
of Inupiaq Eskimo drumming. At other times, the deep whooshing of bullroarers
and the ethereal voices of aeolian harps grow out of the sounds and recede
again. And within this sonic space, the voices of a woman and two men
talking and reciting in English, Latin, and Inupiaq—leading us toward
the Eskimo shaman's song from which the piece derives its title. Commissioned
by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]
JOHN LUTHER ADAMS has made his home in the boreal forest near Fairbanks, Alaska for the past 20 years. From there he has created a unique musical world grounded in the elemental landscapes and indigenous cultures of the North. Adam's music embraces a wide range of media (including works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, radio, film and television) and is recorded on the Cold Blue, New World and New Albion labels. Three new recordings are scheduled for release in 2002-03 on Cold Blue, New World and Mode. Adams has worked with many prominent performers and venues, including Bang On A Can, Almeida Opera, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, FLUX Quartet, the California E.A.R. Unit, the Sundance Institute and Arena Stage. He has received awards and fellowships from Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, Lila Wallace Arts Partners, the Rockefeller Foundation, Opera America, and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts. He has served as composer in residence with the Anchorage Symphony, Fairbanks Symphony, Arctic Chamber Orchestra, Anchorage Opera, and the Alaska Public Radio Network. He has taught at the University of Alaska, Bennington College and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and has served as president of the American Music Center. Articles about John Luther Adams and his music appear in The New Grove Dictionary of Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Music and Musicians, American Music in the 20th Century (G. Schirmer), Music in the United States (Prentice Hall) and The Avant Music Guide (Japan). 12/02 top |
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| ALBERTS, ARMENO | |
| Reminiscence
de la Musique Concrète (1990)
An homage to some of the masters of musique concrète. Composed
of processed excerpts from such works as Etudes des bruits by Henry Schaeffer,
Diamorphoses II by Yannis Xenakis and Exit Music II by Kenneth Gaburo,
the piece is shaped into a surreal voyage through the early days of electronic
music. It features two "story lines" that interact and complement one
another: a machine sound line—evolving literally from machine sounds
into more instrument-like elements; and a human voice line—evolving
from nonlinguistic sounds to a "conversation." Commissioned by Dutch National
Radio (NOS).
ARMENO ALBERTS (Hilversum, Holland) studied piano at the Conservatory in Arnhem and electronic composition at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht. An editor for contemporary music at Dutch radio VPRO's Channel 4, Alberts also composes music for traditional instruments, and creates electronic tape compositions and radio pieces. Currently, his main interest is in the relationship between music and visual arts. He is the artistic director of VPRO's International Audio Art Project. top |
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| ALBERTANO, LINDA | |
| See Apple, Jacki, "Redefining Democracy in America, Parts 1, 2, and 3: Episodes in Black and White." top | |
| ALBURGER, SCOTT | |
| A
Sound Education (1990)
(20:00) With visual artist Ward Tietz. The work contains humorous and
informative lessons on speaking and writing English; on whistling as a
forgotten form of communication; on the past, present, and future tenses.
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
SCOTT ALBURGER (Philadelphia, PA) is a video and performance artist. He studied independently with composer Pauline Oliveros, performance artist Carolee Schneemann and sound artist Jackson Mac Low. For years he has made the human whistle an integral part of all his performances and video work. WARD TIETZ (Philadelphia, PA) is a visual artist who developed his concept of "word sculpture"—i.e., the objectification of words as sculpture which lexically addresses its environment—while an undergraduate in the creative writing department at Carnegie-Mellon University. He has received two commissions from the City of Providence, Rhode Island, to create temporary word sculpture installations in a large public park. The first of these was selected for a major retrospective exhibition on installation art in New England. top |
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| ALLEN, BUKKA | |
| See Allen, Jo Harvey, "Every Three Minutes." | |
| ALLEN, JO HARVEY | |
| Every
Three Minutes (1989)
With Bukka Allen. Every three minutes in the U.S., a child is abused;
each day three children die from abuse. This is the story told by the
Allens, mother and son, making use of many hours of authentic material:
interviews with abused teenagers, statements by their abusers, stories
of neglected children recorded by themselves. The materials are combined
with statistics and original music by the two artists to shape a powerful
plea for humane treatment of children. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
JO HARVEY ALLEN (Santa Fe, NM) came to national attention as a playwright/performer while touring her critically acclaimed plays Counter Angel, Hally Lou, and her one-woman show As It Is in Texas; and as actress and co-writer in her co-starring role as "The Lying Woman" in David Byrne's film True Stories. Her other film credits include Cold Sassy Tree, Fried Green Tomatoes, and The Client. Her most recent plays include collaborations with her husband, multimedia artist Terry Allen, in the opera Pioneer and in the avant-garde country and western musical Chippy, presented at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia and at Lincoln Center in New York City. BUKKA ALLEN, a musician and songwriter, collaborated with Jo Harvey, Terry and Bale Allen in the critically acclaimed family play, Do You Know Where Your Children Are Tonight? He is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and is currently the keyboard player for the highly acclaimed rock and roll group, The Ian Moore Band. top |
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| ALLEN, TERRY | |
| Bleeder
(1990) A fictional audiobiography of
an enigmatic Texas gambler, religious fanatic, possible gangster, magician,
and hemophiliac. With a riveting voice performance by actress Jo Harvey
Allen and original music by Terry Allen. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN
RADIO. [Listen]
Dug-Out (1993) The fictionalized history of two people: a man born in the late 1800s who runs away from home to play baseball, and a woman born in the early 1900s in a half-dugout (a small house partially built into the side of a slope or hill), who grows up to be a piano player and a beautician. Told by Terry Allen, Jo Harvey Allen, and Katie Koontz, with music by Terry Allen. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] Reunion (A Return to Juarez) (1992) Written as a movie screenplay, this work entails a series of simultaneous events — described from a variety of vantage points. Its four main characters: a Texas sailor, a Mexican prostitute, a Mexican-born pachuco (gangster) and his girl friend, an enigmatic "witch." Moving in violent motion through the modern-day American West, they are as much atmospheric conditions hurtling through space as they are human beings of flesh and bone. Told in a sonic environment of raw musics and sound effects, Reunion is a desperate journey across the borderlands of the American psyche, the dreams of surviving it and passing through the wilderness to the promised land . . . that hopeless rapture. Told by Jo Harvey Allen with music by Terry Allen. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] Torso Hell (1987) Written as a movie screenplay, Torso Hell's darkly surrealistic plot centers around the fate of four soldiers blown to pieces in Vietnam and brought back to life by "some weird miracle." The hero is literally a torso. A radio horror movie, Torso Hell is also a commentary on Hollywood Vietnam films. With voice performance by Terry Allen and Jacki Apple and original music by Allen. Created for Soundings, KPFK-FM, Los Angeles (host: Jacki Apple), and High Performance. [Listen] TERRY ALLEN (Santa Fe, NM) was born in Wichita, Kansas; raised in Lubbock, Texas. He studied at Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles and received a B.F.A. in 1966. He has been an independent artist since 1966 pursuing a wide variety of artistic interests, including musical and theatrical performance, sculpture, painting, drawing, video, radio works and installations that incorporate any and all of these media. From 1983-86 he worked almost exclusively on a body of work called Youth in Asia-pieces on the collective trauma we know as the war in Vietnam. His solo exhibits include: Big Witness (living in wishes) at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1989; A Simple Story (Juarez) at the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts, Columbus, OH; Publik Works at the Laumeier Sculpture Galley, St Louis, MO (1998); and Study Drawings by Terry Allen, Gallery 68, Austin TX (2001). His performance, Warboy (Dugout, Part 3 work-in-progress) was presented at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX in 2002 and will be shown concurrently at L.A. Louver Gallery, Santa Monica Museum of Art & LACMA Institute of Art & Culture, Los Angeles, CA in 2004. Dugout (Part 1), an installation, was exhibited at Pillsbury/Peter Fine Art, Dallas, TX (2002). In addition to his numerous one-man and group exhibitions, stage performances and music recordings, Allen produced four major works for NEW AMERICAN RADIO. He is the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1970, 1978, 1985; Awards in Visual Arts (AVA), 1982; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1986; Bessie Award, New York, 1986 and numerous others; and was inducted into The Buddy Holly "Walk of Fame" Lubbock, Texas in 1997. (12/02) top |
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| ALLISON, JAY | |
| Hide
and Seek (1989)
(3:04) With Christina Egloff. A dreamlike encounter with a chimpanzee
who communicates in sign language.
Killer Whales (1989) (1:26) With Christina Egloff. Killer whales and what they sound like. Noah's Ark (1989) With Christina Egloff. And the question is: do animals suffer when they die in the slaughterhouse or don't they? And who's to say? JAY ALLISON (Woods Hole, MA) is one of the country's leading independent radio producers. Over the last eighteen years, often with his partner Christina Egloff, he has created hundreds of radio documentaries, dramas, special series, and audio art pieces for national and international broadcast, most often for National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Allison has won most of the major awards in the industry, including two Peabody's and the duPont-Columbia. He teaches radio production around the United States, helped create the Association of Independents in Radio, and is the founder and host of the Radio Producers Forum on the WELL computer conferencing system. He is also president of Cape and Islands Community Public Radio, an organization he founded to build a new community public radio station in his hometown on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Allison's essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine and he is a special producer/reporter/ cameraman for ABC News Nightline. CHRISTINA EGLOFF (Woods Hole, MA) is a longtime producer for public radio. Often working in partnership with Jay Allison, she has created dozens of documentaries and special series for National Public Radio and other venues. She also works as a consultant and editor for other public radio producers. Her collaborations and productions have won numerous broadcasting awards, including the Clarion, CPB, AIR, and Ohio State. Egloff also writes, produces, and consults in film and television. top |
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| ALLS, JAMES | |
| Oppidan
Skew (1992-93)
(20:00) A sound exploration of a uniquely Philadelphia phenomenon: "From
Alexis de Tocqueville to W. C. Fields to David Lynch, people have come
away (from Philadelphia) with such strongly negative impressions that
it hardly seems reasonable to blame it on the city alone. Yet they do—even
the people who live here. New Yorkers may hate the fast-paced enormity
and danger of their city, but they take pride in the fact that they endure
it. In Philadelphia you see intense loyalty to the neighborhoods that
make up the city, but a distinct loathing for the city as a whole." (Alls)
An eerie and humorous sound composition. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN
RADIO.
JAMES ALLS received his B.A. in communications from Temple University in 1990. Since then he has collaborated with a number of independent media producers in various aspects of sound production, and produced music for various community-based organizations in the city. He is currently employed as technical coordinator at the Neighborhood Film/Video Project, a media arts center in West Philadelphia. Opidan Skew is his first work for radio. top |
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| ALLYN, JERRI | |
| American
Dining: A Working Woman's Moment (1989)
Drawing from her own experience as a waitress, Allyn creates song-narratives
that offer fascinating insights into a world usually unnoticed by customers—the
bizarre and very human world of the over-worked waitress. It's a world
of men showing off their improvisational genius for sexual word play;
of ambiguous relationships to the union; a world where an old and forgotten
lady, who once introduced American radio audiences to broccoli is rediscovered.
Combining perceptive writing with a skillful delivery, a folksy sound
score by Bob Davis of Earwax Productions, and a delightful sense of down-home
humor, this work will change your image of American diners and their waitresses
forever. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]
American Dining: A Working Woman's Moment (Part 2) (1991) Jerri Allyn returns to bring us more stories about waitressing. Perceptive and skillful, with a delightful sense of humor. Angels Have Been Sent To Me (1991) With soundscore by Helen Thorington. Poignant and humorous stories about Allyn's ninety-year old immigrant grandmother, Maria Alvarez, and her cronies in a critical care home. Interwoven with music and hospital sounds: wheelchairs, medical equipment, alarms, and the voices of patients and staff. Allyn's insightful writing and skillful delivery, and Thorington's imaginative sound score are reminders that there are human beings behind the health care budget. And that they are as alive and passionate about their existence as any one of us. [Listen] Religious Obscenity (1991) (5:17) A selection from Allyn's series of performance commentaries on censorship. Allyn reflects on the contradictory relations between Christian worship, art censorship, and bilingual education. With sound by Helen Thorington. JERRI ALLYN (New York, NY) creates interactive installations and performance art events that become a part of public life and build connections with various audiences and the art world. An artist and educator with 20 years of experience introducing contemporary art to new publics, the artist develops structures that allow for participation and a spectrum of opinions to be voiced. Raised in the North East and trained on the West Coast, Allyn has been influenced by the Art / Life Performance School of Thought that seeks to blur the lines between high art and real life. Allyn has additionally embraced the objectives of the Feminist Art Movement, which strives to raise issues, invite dialogue and ultimately transform culture. Grant funded and commissioned for 20 years, most of Allyn's work is in a narrative or storytelling form and deals with communication theory. The artist strives for aesthetic innovations, incorporating historical facts, contemporary insights, community views and a satiric wit. The adage "the personal is political" continues to fuel her work - the synthesis of "lived experience" resonating with timely social concerns. In allegiance to no particular medium, Allyn uses the most appropriate form, depending on the ideas and intentions of a piece, working extensively in site specific public performance and installation art; audio, video, electric signs, and billboards; artists books, graphic multiples and page art. Allyn has also been a part of many collaborative groups and partnerships, and notes that one plus one never simply equals two. In collaborations, with other artists, organizations, or specific communities, one plus one always equals something greater than two individuals can accomplish on their own. Allyn's training in cognitive and aesthetic development focused on how we learn as human beings and she provides audiences with multiple opportunities to access issues raised in a work of art. Brought up a Quaker, the artist continues to be an activist, most recently advocating for national policies on culture and art education. Allyn received a Masters of Art in Art and Community from Goddard College, Vermont, through an independent study at the Los Angeles, California campus. Two years were spent on studio art, research about new forms, and 20th century art and community art movements through The Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman's Building: A Public Center for Women's Culture. The program included a cross-disciplinary, multi-cultural pedagogy in Women's Studies. In her third year, Allyn participated in an innovative Teacher Training Program that introduced progressive methodologies and strategies to have students realize their creative potential by: drawing out the individual voice and rich variety of multi-cultural experiences among students through experiential exercises. Collaborators: BOB DAVIS, music for American Dining, Part 1. (see Earwax Productions) HELEN THORINGTON, sound design and composition, Angels Have Been Sent To Me and Religious Obscenity. (see Thorington, Helen) top |
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| AMIRKHANIAN, CHARLES | |
| Mental
Radio (1994)
Classic radiophonic proto-rap with America's lost practitioner of text-sound
composition. The work includes a 100th birthday salute to musicologist Nicolas
Slonimsky, who achieved the century mark on 27 April 1994 in Los Angeles.
Mental Radio is a retrospective of Amirkhanian's classic analog speech tapes
along with some recent Synclavier digital updates: Radii (1971), Chu Lu
Lu (1991), Just (1972), Heavy Aspirations (1973), Vers Les Anges (1990),
Dot Bunch (1981), and Mugic (1974). Produced especially for NEW AMERICAN
RADIO. [Listen] Miatsoom (Reunion) (1997) Miatsoom explores the composer's ancestral roots and American heritage through the eyes of his 77 year old father, Benjamin Vresh Amirkhanian, who visited the ancestral home with his son for the first time in 1995.Incorporating many sounds recorded in Armenia, and manipulated on a Synclavier digital synthesizer, Miatsoom is a sound-music composition akin to an oriental carpet of textures and images from this ancient culture. [Listen] Pas de Voix (Portrait of Samuel Beckett, 1987) (1986-87) "An impressionistic, cyclical, narrative sound portrait, touching on various aspects of Samuel Beckett's life." (Amirkhanian) Created from ambient recordings of the lobby of Beckett's apartment building, the open-air Metro stop across the street, the bells of Notre Dame, a sound sculpture, plus some extended-technique electric guitar sounds and a selection of sonic bodily functions. Commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, Germany. Politics as Usual (1989) A series of audio explorations incorporating both abstract (instrumental) and representational (ambient) sounds, processed in the synclavier studio of Henry Kaiser. Featured are the gong collections of Lou Harrison and Toni Marcus and an assortment of talking parrots. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] Walking Tune (A Room-Music for Percy Grainger) (1986-87) An homage to Australian-American composer Percy Grainger. Grainger's Walking Tune for solo piano was conceived in 1900 during a tramp through the Scottish Highlands. In this work, Amirkhanian uses the Synclavier digital synthesizer—a tool Grainger would have embraced eagerly—to combine sounds recorded out-of-doors (tramping in Utah; the shriek of geese; a swarm of humming birds)with musical sound. And he shapes a sensual and powerful sound-music piece that is true to Grainger's own song of praise to the natural world. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] CHARLES AMIRKHANIAN (El Cerrito, CA) was born January 19, 1945, in Fresno, California, composer, percussionist, sound poet and radio producer Charles Amirkhanian is a leading practitioner of electroacoustic music and text-sound composition. He is widely known for his live and taped works utilizing speech (or sound poetry) elements in rhythmic patterns resembling percussion music. His Ka Himena Hehena (The Raving Mad Hymn, 1997) for tape and four voices speaking in classical Hawaiian was premiered by the Ensemble Intercontemporain at Cité de la Musique in Paris on December 19, 1998. In his recent works, produced with the Synclavier and Kurzweil digital synthesizers, Amirkhanian incorporates sampled acoustic environmental sounds (which he calls "representational sounds") and traditional musical pitched sounds ("abstract sounds") to develop dreamscapes which act as disjunctive narratives, evoking a world of memory-triggers which induce a trance-like listening state. Sounds are chosen both for purposes of reference to a subject and for their sculptural and gestural beauty. His Walking Tune (A Room-Music for Percy Grainger), is perhaps the most important example of this genre, combining natural sounds recorded in Grainger's native Australia with haunting violin melodies and fragments of a J.C. Bach aria. The piece was commissioned by New American Radio in 1987 and released by Starkland Records on Amirkhanian's first solo CD in 1998, along with four other selections. Other works have been commissioned by the West German Radio (Cologne), the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio VPRO (Netherlands), New American Radio, Swedish Radio/Fylkingen, the 1984 Summer Olympics, Radio Luxembourg, the Arch Ensemble, and choreographers Anna Halprin, Bill T. Jones, Margaret Fisher, Nancy Karp, and Richard Alston of Ballet Rambert (London). His music has been recorded on Starkland Records, Centaur, 1750 Arch Records, CRI, Perspectives of New Music, Giorno Poetry Systems, Fylkingen Records (Sweden), S Press and Wergo (Germany), OU Records (England), Ars Electronica (Austria), Baobab and "Music for Swimming across the Pacific" (Italy) and Empreintes Digital (Canada). Aside from his composing, Amirkhanian has been instrumental in the dissemination of contemporary music through his work as Music Director of KPFA/Berkeley from 1969 to 1992. He also directed the Speaking of Music series at the Exploratorium in San Francisco (1983-1992) and was the founding Co-Director, with John Lifton, of the Composer-to-Composer Festival in Telluride, Colorado that took place for four years (1988-91), sponsored by the Telluride Institute. From 1993-1997 he served as Executive Director of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, California. Currently he is Executive & Artistic Director of Other Minds, Inc. (http://www.otherminds.org) a new music organization in San Francisco. He has curated the annual Other Minds Festival of music since 1993 and in 2002 inaugurated Eyes & Ears, the Other Minds Film Festival, focusing on contemporary composers and innovative soundtracks. In 1984 the American Music Center honored him with its annual Letter of Distinction for service to American composers through his work at KFPA Radio, and in 1989 ASCAP conferred on him its Deems Taylor Award "in recognition of his special contribution to innovative programming and imaginative radio broadcasts." In 1997 he was awarded residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland and the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy. In 1999-2000 he was awarded the first Ella Holbrook Walker Fellowship for a yearlong residency at the Bellagio Center where, with Mark Grey, he installed and composed in a new electroacoustic music studio which will remain for future residents of the center. He resides in El Cerrito, California. 11/02 top |
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| APPLE, JACKI | |
| The
Amazon (1985)
(13:08) From The Amazon, The Mekong, The Missouri, and The Nile, a four-part
work exploring language and colonization. This collaboration between audio/performance
artist Jacki Apple and composer Bruce Fowler is a rich mix of "animal"
vocalizations, human incantations, Brazilian instrumentation, and Fowler's
haunting trombone. A powerful evocation of the destruction of nature and
culture. (#15,90 with Moss and Whitehead)
Fluctuations of the Field (1989) (10:20) Drawing upon texts by leading theoretical physicists, this piece is a hypnotic incantation that transforms scientific theory into a poetic cosmic narrative, a fluctuating field of sonic waves and textual particles in which form and content, matter and mind are interchangeable. With music by Ruben Garcia, and Harold Lott's Spirits of the Drum. Frenzy in the Night (1990) With writer, performer Keith Antar Mason. Frenzy in the Night is about growing up black and male in America, finding your own voice and becoming an artist, the pain of racism, and the dream of freedom. It is a spiritual quest for cultural and personal affirmation. A poetic suite in three parts, it traverses the American landscape from the "banks of the muddy Mississippi" of Mason's St. Louis boyhood, through a mythical "free state of Illinois," to his artistic coming of age in the "boom box of L.A." Mason's provocative, emotionally charged text is set in Apple's lush cinematic sonic landscape of West African tribal drums and wailing jazz saxophones, riverboats, police sirens, street rappers, birds, all caught in the ebb and flow of the river that is replaced by the freeway, as it travels from a bittersweet blues in the night to an urban frenzy. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] One Word at a Time (1993) The Traveler "clicks" through twenty three "stories" set in sonic spaces that shape a virtual journey exploring consciousness, life, art, language, the universe, and the whole ball of wax. . . Composed of discrete yet linked vignettes, geographies, inhabitants, information, instructions, conversations, and cross referencing wordplays, situated in real and imaginary time, real and virtual space, that can be traveled through along any number of paths as we explore how thought materializes in the world, how we perceive, understand, and communicate the nature of our existence and what we define as "reality." This solo piece evolved from the narrative work, Going Between, by Helen Thorington which became Going Between\One Word at a Time\Docs**, a collaborative performance duet with Helen Thorington at the 1993 On The Air Festival, Transit Art/ORF, Austria. Palisade: A Cliffhanger in Five Acts (1987) Set in the precarious emotional terrain between the thought (the disembodied voice) and the act (the vocal body), a fractured "narrative" traverses male-female relationships on the edge of a cliff. Accounts assemble and reassemble as remembered, as imagined, as desired, as perceived, as experienced. In riveting vocal and musical performances Jacki Apple, Jeff McMahon, and David Moss create a quick-cutting montage of cinematic images counterpointing evocative interior texts set in a dissonant soundscape. Produced and directed by Jacki Apple as a site specific performance spectacle commissioned by the Santa Monica Arts Commission for the 1987 SMARTS Performance Festival, Santa Monica, California. Redefining Democracy in America, (1991-92) A six-part series confronting the deep schisms and contradictions in an America in crisis: includes, Parts 1, 2, & 3: Episodes in Black and White (1991) With collaborating writer/performers Linda Albertano, Keith Antar Mason, and Akilah Nayo Oliver. Raises questions about who speaks, who is listened to, who is heard, who is silenced, and how that has shaped our present social reality. In various poetic and narrative forms underscored by sound and music, the two black and two white Los Angeles artists explore issues of race, sex, money, power, drugs, family, children, violence, language and censorship. Interior voices of hope, rage, despair, tenderness, indignation, pain, pride, fear, desire, angels, and madmen are juxtaposed against the exterior voices of "the witness," "the reporter," and "the judge." The social and creative process of making art together played an important part in the development of this powerful and uncompromisingly honest multicultural piece. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. Parts 4 & 5: The Voices of America 1992 (1992) With KPFK-FM, Los Angeles. Posed the questions "What would you say to your fellow citizens if you were running for president? What should we aspire to and how should we get there?" In the fourth and fifth parts of this series, Americans across the political and cultural spectrum speak out on education, the environment, racism, greed, government, the power elite, spiritual values, and more, as they struggle to articulate a vision for our future. Their voices, compiled from two months of on-air listener call-ins at KPFK (before and after the L.A. "uprisings") with additional contributions from KPFT, Houston, orchestrated into a multilayered montage of hopes, dreams, frustrations, angers, and fears, spanning the distance from utopian ideals to cynical pessimism. Part 6: A Leap of Faith (1992) With writer, performer Keith Antar Mason. A (white) Euro-American woman and a (black) African-American man born in America in the middle of the twentieth century on opposite sides of the dividing line, take us on an imaginary journey through time as they wait for the ghost train in the place where our dreams are born and die. They traverse a landscape that reveals the schisms between official history, memory, and experience, as we eavesdrop on their private conversations in post-rebellion Los Angeles. . .This piece is, in part, a personal response to the conditions, events, and rhetoric surrounding the L.A. "uprisings" of 1992, and an attempt to place such events in both a broader historical and intimate personal context. [Listen] Soundings (1993) A portrait of Apple's long-running (1986-95) weekly one-hour live radio show, featuring performance and audio art at KPFK-FM, Pacifica Radio, Los Angeles. With commentary by Apple and the voices of Anna Hommler, David Moss, Meredith Monk, and others. Swan Lake (1989) A satiric, ironic film noire "ballet" for radio, the original Swan Lake narrative is recast and resituated amidst the glittering surfaces and dark underside of late eighties Los Angeles where dreams are manufactured in medialand, art and entertainment tongue kiss, the third world coexists in a parallel realm, and the weather is unnatural. Using radio as a cinematic medium, Apple's remake employs various pop genres including Raymond Chandler's detective novels, TV fashion commercials, and a sensational murder trial. This filmic version is about seduction, voyeurism, and the consumption of images, with the Swan playing the part of Art. The lush romanticism of Tchaikovsky's original ballet music is juxtaposed against a percussive, techno-eclectic, edgy filmscore by L.A. composers Joseph Berardi and Kira Vollman. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] The Culture of Disappearance (1991) A radio "opera" about extinction, and the conditions of loss and denial endemic to industrial and post-industrial society. It is a dirge for the exterminated species of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a grieving. It raises questions about the terms of human survival in a social order that defines us as "separate," and reveals how those values are manifested in our socio-economic and political relations -- i.e., conquest vs. cohabitation, consumption without regeneration. We eradicate cultural memory just as we eliminate species. The sung "mass" of names of the dead from insects to languages is sometimes obliterated by the relentless pounding of machinery. Embedded in the litany are anecdotes of annihilation. The Garden Planet Revisited (1982/1992) Past and present history resonate through ruins of the future as American astronaut Captain Charlie, a paragon of late twentieth century technological man, hurtles through time and space. Stranded on a station, abandoned and alone, he is on a mission without end. Simultaneously, the Inhabitants of an unnamed place search amongst the architectural remains, gather stories, rumors, myths from Messengers and Witnesses, as they try to reconstruct what happened in the time before "the cities shifted and the Earth turned." Is it a memory, a dream, a hallucination, a prophecy? Originally presented as a thirteen scene, hour-long multimedia performance written, with music by trombonist Bruce Fowler, the audio was edited and remastered by Apple as a twenty-eight minute work for radio in 1992. [Listen] Voices in the Dark (1991) A radio work for outer and inner space, in four sections. The cosmos is an audio archive of information broadcast to the stars, a repository of human (and perhaps other) histories in which time melts and language dissolves into signals. All those "voices" traversing the universe looking for a pick-up! Imagine gridlock in the big data bank in outer space. Voices in the Dark is about interstellar conversations, radio waves, and sonic archaeology. Is there anyone listening and how do they interpret what they hear? How do we/they distinguish between real events and people, and media-generated fictions? Are we the "they"? We say we want to make contact with the Other, when in fact what we search for is a mirror of ourselves. This composition combines a narrative text with various musical, vocal, and sound components snatched from the airwaves, overdubbed, sampled, remixed, and electronically orchestrated. [Listen] You Don't Need A Weatherman (1997) was inspired by the great floods of the past four years, particularly those in the heartland of the midwestern United States; by images of Grand Forks, North Dakota, and by Mississippi blues. "You don't need a weatherman, when the ram's a comin down, and the street is like a river, runnin through the town ... " The physical forces of nature slam headlong into human will and the constructs of our imagination from Noah to the Red River to Europa, from lost Atlantis to the southwest desert. Along the way, the artifacts of lives and cultures float to the surface like pieces of a picture puzzle. Read the signs, listen to the wind, and watch the skies. JACKI APPLE (Los Angeles, CA) Spanning more than three decades, the 70s in New York and the 80s and 90s in Los Angeles, visual, performance and media artist, audio composer, writer, director, and producer Jacki Apple's diverse artistic career has encompassed a wide range of media and forms—interdisciplinary performance, multimedia installations, audio, radio, video, film, photography, artist books, drawings, conceptual works, and commissioned public art works. Her works have been performed, exhibited, and broadcast in art spaces, galleries, museums, theaters, festivals, on radio and cable TV throughout the United States and Canada, and in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition to creating her own pieces, Apple has also produced other artists works. From 1982-95, she was the independent producer/ host of Soundings, a weekly one hour radio show featuring performance and audio art, new music and interviews, at KPFK-FM, Pacifica Radio, Los Angeles. In 2000 she conceived and produced EARJAM Music Festival, which has since become an annual festival. Collaborators: LINDA ALBERTANO (Los Angeles, CA) Collaborated on Redefining Democracy in America, Parts 1, 2, & 3: Episodes in Black and White. Albertino is an iconoclastic, neo-feminist performance poet/artist with a satiric political bent whose work has been seen at numerous Los Angeles venues since the early eighties. Her work is on several New Alliance spoken word anthology CDs. BRUCE FOWLER (Los Angeles, CA) Collaborated on The Amazon. Fowler is a composer/musician is renowned for his exploration of the numerous sound possibilities of the trombone. His musical repertoire encompasses everything from experimental new music to jazz to rock to film scores. Since the early seventies he has played with everyone from Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart to Toshiko Akiyoshi and Barbara Streisand (for her opening night in Las Vegas), as well as with his own performance band The Enormous Bones, and the Fowler brothers' band Airpocket. He appeared in Robert Altman's film Short Cuts, and his recent CDs include Ants Can Count, Terra Nova Records, 1990, and Bruce Fowler Entropy, Fossil Records, 1993. KEITH ANTAR MASON (Los Angeles, CA) Collaborated on Frenzy in the Night; Redefining Democracy in America, Parts 1, 2, & 3: Episodes in Black and White, and Part 6: A Leap of Faith. Mason is a poet, playwright, performance artist, and founding director of Hittite Productions, a black male performance/ theater collective. His controversial and often inflammatory works about being black and male in America have earned him international notoriety and have been presented at major venues throughout the U.S. Atlantic Crossing: The People's Journey, a spoken word epic written and performed by Mason and Blackmadrid, is on a CD from New Alliance Records. AKILAH NAYO OLIVER (Boulder, CO) Collaborated on Redefining Democracy in America, Parts 1, 2, & 3: Episodes in Black and White. Oliver is a poet/performance artist who brings a powerful feminist and spiritual perspective to the African-American experience. She is a member of the Sacred Naked Nature Girls collaborative performance group. top |
|
| ARCOS, BETTO | |
| See Gomez-Pena, Guillermo, "I Don't Speak English Only, Vato!"; "Menage-a Trade"; and "Temple of Confessions." top | |
| ARS ACUSTICA | |
| ARS ACUSTICA SPECIAL #1 is comprised of two sound works that deal with the theme of 'water': Water Memories (16:30) by Nicola Sani was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's "Pensieri", a painting that expressed an idea of the rapport between the life of man and the passing of time, symbolized by the continuous flow of water. The acoustic material of this radiophonic composition consists of electronically altered water sounds, and other natural and electronic instrumental sounds that are reminiscent of the sound qualities of water and its particular timbre. A metaphorical story emerges. It is as if on its endless journey through history, the flowing water collected sounds - that were transformed into poetic vision by the composer - and can now be relived by his listeners. My Whale Is Still Alive (9:30) is created from the sounds of water, whales, wind and musical instruments. "My life, food and medicine: my whale. As long as my whale is well and alive so am I. My whale is still alive." NICOLA SANI was born in Ferrara, Italy, in 1961. His compositions include instrumental and electronic works as well as operas and multimedia projects on which he has collaborated with many of today's leading directors and visual artists, such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Nam June Paik and Mario Sasso. From 1986-88, Sani organized the music section of the Electronic Arts Festival in Cameriono, Italy, and since 1993 he's directed the electronic arts program of the Roma Europa Festival in Rome. He presently hosts a series of classical music programs for RAJ Radio. MIKKO LAAKSO (Helsinki, Finland) has been a sound engineer in television for 20 years and a sound designer and creator of special effects for Yleisradio's Special Productions Department since 1981. Laakso has also realized several performances with the sonic arts group, ProTon, in Finland and abroad, and participated in the European Broadcasting Union's Ars Acustica Program Exchange. ARS ACUSTICA SPECIAL #2 is comprised of the following two works: Working Day (5:50) by Igor Lesnik is a musicalized sound-picture of a day in a musician's life: from waking and morning rush hour to the evening concert and cleaning-up sounds late at night. A commission of HRT, Radio Croatia. Shifted Spirits (21:00) by Ragnar Grippe is a composition that uses words and phrases spoken by people who escaped persecution in their own countries and came to Sweden in order to survive. They had no knowledge of their new homeland's language, and it had no inherent meaning or semantic value for them. In Shifted Spirits, the composer alludes to this experience by exposing the listeners of his work to languages they do not understand. In the process, the words take on a musical quality which only the lack of understanding can give them. IGOR LESNIK (Zagreb, Croatia) was born in 1956. The founder and leader of the "Supercussion" and "Jazzbina" ensembles, he is also an orchestral musician, solo performer, producer and composer. Lesnik teaches percussion at the Zagreb Academy of Music, and is a member of the Croatian Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra. RAGNAR GRIPPE (Stockholm, Sweden) was born in 1951. He studied cello and music history in Stockholm and composition in Paris and Montreal. His compositions range from electroacoustic music in conjunction with ballet and feature films, to chamber music and symphonies. ARS ACUSTICA SPECIAL #3 is comprised of two works that deal with water-related themes: Gefion (11:10) (1997) by Morten Carlson was first performed as a sound installation at the Gefion Fountain in the center of Copenhagen, Denmark. It illustrates an old Nordic legend: After the god Odin had settled on a Danish island, he desired more land. He sent his young daughter Gefion north to search for it. When Gefion came to the court of the Swedish king Gylfe, the king promised her as much land as she could plough in one day and one night. The goddess transformed her four sons into oxen, who ploughed out a patch of king Gylfe's land. This the goddess cast into the sea, where it became known as "Sealand" or Denmark. Composed of the sounds made by the Gefion Fountain, the radio version presented here, includes brief texts about the Gefion myth, performed in Old Norse and in Danish. Gefion is beautifully recorded and produced, and resonates with the spirit of the medieval myth. Ponte Del Molino (10:50) (1997) is a collaboration between Goetz Naleppa, Germany, and Inge Faarborg, Denmark. It tells of the destruction of a bridge near Naleppa's house in Italy during a flood and its subsequent reconstruction. The work is also a reflection on bridges build between people and on their destruction. With brief texts in German, English and Danish, and with the sounds of the river Prino in Liguria, Italy. Preceded by a brief interview (in English) with Naleppa. MORTEN CARLSON: bio not available at this time. GOETZ NALEPPA (Berlin, Germany) has been a freelance radio playwright and director as well as a staff editor at the radio drama department of DeutschlandRadio Berlin (formerly RIAS Berlin) for many years. INGE FAARBORG (Copenhagen, Denmark) is a staff editor at the radio drama department at Danish Radio. She is a member of the group overseeing the recently established radio art series at her station. Horizontal Radio #1 and #2 presents some of the most exciting samples from more than one hundred hours of radio programs produced and distributed world-wide in 1995. "Horizontal Radio" was a media art event organized by the Ars Acustica Group of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and developed in cooperation with TRANSIT (Austria), the radio art series "Kunstradio/ Radiokunst" (Art Radio/Radio Art) at Austrian Radio, and with many other international radio centers. The aim of this telematic simultaneous event was to clear the EBU broadcasting radius for a period of 24 hours in order to allow artists from all over the world to communicate through all currently available electronic means: satellite, internet, short wave radio, telephone etc. The underlying theme of the event: "Migration". More than 200 artists from Australia, Europe, and North America participated. "Horizontal Radio can neither be reconstructed nor documented. It is fleeting and unrepeatable. What remains is the memory in the minds of the participants/ users." (Heidi Grundmann, Austrian Radio). And yet, there is an imprint of acoustic memory in the samples presented here: Hearing them two years after the original event, they still convey a vivid sense of artistic possibility, playfulness and connection. |
|
| ASCHAK | |
| Theme—Repairing
the Elements of Rust (1993)
With poet Mbali Umchlaba Umoja and pannist Collin Mauge. Blends chants
and wails, rap music and the rhythm of steel drums, and poetry to celebrate
music and words as tools for cultural survival and healing. Commissioned
by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. (#6,93 with Levin, Postcards)
ASCHAK (Philadelphia, PA) is a painter, poet, and performer originally from Trinidad/Tobago. He has appeared as a performer throughout the United States, in South Korea, Germany, and Russia. He is co-founder of several artist organizations that promote art as a tool for affecting positive change. Collaborators: Trinidad born COLLIN MAUGE (Philadelphia, PA) is a pannist, who for the last twenty-seven years has developed both the art and concept of steel drum music. In Trinidad, he performed with such bands as The Silvertones, Motown, and most notably, The Steel Kings. Mauge has also toured the United States and Canada. More recently he has been involved in experimental work fusing steel pan with other musical instruments and voices. MBALI UMCHLABA UMOJA (Philadelphia, PA) is a poet whose work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary magazines. She is also an art therapist. Mbali's stage performances include Tomorrow the Whirlwind, directed by Amira Baraka in New York City. She is the former host of The Spoken Word radio program on WXPN in Philadelphia, and she has been heard nationally on Pacifica Radio and on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. top |
|
| AUINGER, SAM | |
| Resonance
(1995) With composer, musician Bruce
Odland. A fascinating series of short sonic compositions that make the
hidden hearable. Works include: (1) Rome: Traffic Mantra—"In an installation
in the Trajan Forum, three Roman amphorae were used as resonators to transform
the sounds of passing cars, busses, trucks, and motorcycles into melodic
pools of harmonics. A microphone inside sent the real-time sound to a
solar powered planet speaker placed in the archway over an old Roman road."
And, (2) Yampa—"On a rafting trip down the Yampa River in Colorado
we collected oar strokes, and many types of wind, through the interface
of a small wind harp." (the artists) Uniquely expressive sound-music,
with commentary by Bruce Odland, edited and produced by Regine Beyer.
King of Time (1992) With composer, musician Bruce Odland. Explores different types of time: car time, metal time, water time, people time, linear and non-linear time. It communicates in the international language of sound. Recordings of the crumbling infrastructure of modern cities become a rhythmic alphabet spelling out the dance of metal time. Reiterative syllables of water strain at the strings of a demon harp interface, singing a song of water and stone time. Time tumbles like a fractal tree, backwards and forwards, through an electro-acoustical alphabet of sound removed from the impact of its function. King of Time is based on Russian futurist Velimir Khlebnikov's sound language of the future. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] SAM AUINGER (Linz, Austria) is a composer, musician, and conceptual artist who has realized many projects under the name of SWAP with Werner Pfeffer. Auinger has also presented several major installations, including, an interactive Sound Cosmology at Linz Castle on the Danube; and a Sonic Drama for the City of Salzburg on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death—both with long-time collaborator, Bruce Odland. [see Odland, Bruce] See also Cloud Chamber with Odland, Bruce, top |
|
| B | |
| BACZEWSKA,
CHRISTINE BARBER, LLORENC BARNES, DAVID BARNETT,BONNIE BASSENGE, ULRICH BELGUM, ERIK BEYER, REGINE BIMSTEIN, PHILLIP KENT BOOK, LYNN BREITSAMETER, SABINE BRUNSON, WILLIAM |
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| BACZEWSKA, CHRISTINE | |
| Radio
Alarm (1987) A "colloquial operetta" commissioned
by David Moss for his OpeRadio project in 1987 (with Thorington and Whitehead).
See How She Sorrows (1998) is "a colloquial operetta, drawing on events from my own life and on my acquisition of a Haitian Loa flag, a piece of religious folk art made of beads and sequins, visually representing a Loa (god/spirit). The Loa of my flag is Erzulie Danthor who, as I understand it, is the goddess of love in her dark incarnation. Though I relate to the flag as a piece of art, I cannot help but be affected by its visual imagery of hearts, knives and blood and by the almost palpable energy that emanates from the object. As well, the piece uses imagery relating to the Catholic female icon, the Virgin Mary, to address the larger issues of the personal nature of religious expression, succor in emotional turmoil and the reclamation of traditional elements in an idiolectic spirituality." - the artist Musically the composition explores the relationship between multiple vocal lines which build upon each other to form a textual audio landscape punctuated by loosely narrative lead voices. A stunning and deeply moving piece of music ritual. [Listen] Yoga (excerpt) (1998) is a choral piece that features the artist and members of her yoga class. It uses stringing pearls as a metaphore for breathing: each breath is a pearl. Optimally, a fine round, even parl, yet none canbe discarded no matter how rough or uneven. Like life... CHRISTINE BACZEWSKA (New York, NY) is a composer and vocal performer who uses the multitrack capabilities of the recording studio as an added compositional tool to produce solo, primarily vocal works. top |
|
| BARBER, LLORENC | |
| Vivos
Voco (1988)
An excerpt from Barber's composition for five bellfries. Commissioned
by the town of Valencia, Spain.
LLORENC BARBER (Spain) Biography unavailable. top |
|
| BARNES, DAVID | |
| Survivors
of Hama (1992)
With writer Martin Hebel. A docu-fiction with an original sound score
about the bombing of the Syrian city of Hama by its president Hafez al-Assad
in 1982. This massacre, which was intended to stop rebellious dissent,
killed thousands of innocent civilians and went almost completely unnoticed
by the Western media. The story is told through four fictitious interviews
with survivors and with Assad himself. The instrumentation for the sound
score includes experimental home-made percussion instruments, Middle Eastern
folk instruments, and electronic instruments. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN
RADIO.
DAVID BARNES (Philadelphia, PA) is a musician and composer who specializes in studio recording. He has written and recorded many scores for modern dance and theater groups, including Philadelphia's ZeroMoving Dance Company and Mum Puppet Theater. Barnes has also released ten albums of his compositions and songs. Many of his recent compositions include experimental percussion instruments which he designed and constructed from industrial materials such as PVC tubing, threaded rods, springs, and conduit piping. MARTIN D. HEBEL (Philadelphia, PA), writer. Hebel attended orthodox Jewish schools until he was seventeen, where he developed a strong interest in the politics and government of the contemporary Middle East. He has since studied art history at Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he completed a master's degree. Hebel spends a great deal of time grappling with issues of cultural identity and morality, and now and then he attempts to address them by writing about Middle Eastern matters. He has traveled and worked in Israel. top |
|
| BARNETT, BONNIE | |
| Goat Cheese (2:07) represents the artist's "foray into the duo format... " (Barnett). Playful and surprising. BONNIE BARNETT (Los Angeles, CA) teaches voice, tours with the Barnett Band and The Zone, and continues to produce such public events as her legendary "Tunnel Hum" . Barnett has toured Europe extensively playing at festivals in Germany, Holland and Switzerland. Her most recent works are duets with musicians Richard Wood and Nels Cline. |
|
| BASSENGE, ULRICH | |
| Euroanthem
(1990) (10:00) With playwright Herbert
Kapfer and students from twenty-nine countries. A composition that uses
as its raw material the names of leading politicians, greetings, currencies,
sayings, tongue twisters, and folk songs spoken in many European languages.
A witty and concrete pan-European vocal composition. Commissioned by Bayerischer
Rundfunk, Munich, Germany.
ULRICH BASSENGE (Germany) Biography unavailable. HERBERT KAPFER (Germany) Biography unavailable. top |
|
| BELGUM, ERIK | |
| Blodder
(1994) An experimental music/theater
piece for radio that exploits the untapped theatrical and musical potential
of a form of solo speech that gives the effect of simultaneous speech.
It presents multiple narrative views and repetitive narration in the description
of a convenience store robbery.
Blabber Mouth (1994-95) Live electronic music based on the counterintuitive notion that intelligible speech emerges from noise by continually increasing the restrictions placed on the sonic raw material of human vocal cords. Beginning with a wash of sound, the raw materials of my speech gradually transform from walls of phonemic screams into random linear combinations, from there into some semblance of words and, finally, into actual English words. Bounced Around (1995) (22:00) Tells the story of a head-on collision between an idealistic law student and a veteran policeman. It is another exploration of what Belgum calls "polyphonic storytelling," a technique that reveals multiple narrative aspects simultaneously. ERIK BELGUM (Minneapolis, MN) is a writer of experiential fiction and an audio artist. His fiction has been published in many literary journals, among them Chicago Review, Black Ice, and Caliban. Belgum's literary/audio/ soundtext works have been played throughout the United States, in concert, on radio, and on the CD audio magazine, Aerial. In 1994, he curated a concert of spoken word performance at the Walker Art Center. His international residencies include STEIM in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and the Banff Center for the Arts in Banff, Alberta, Canada. top |
|
| BEYER, REGINE | |
| Families
We Choose (1992)
Glimpses into the arrangements made by gays and lesbians of all ages and
ethnic backgrounds, who are living in long term relationships. A colorful,
poignant and humorous mosaic of voices, music, and sounds that reflect
on the home environment of its interviewees, the work deals with the myth
that gays and lesbians are "by nature beyond the family." It looks at
the reality of homosexual couples who are redefining kinship and constructing
new parenting models—in the context of the overall changing make-up
of the American family.
The Deaf Way, Parts l & 2 (1990) A look at another culture, another language, another way of life. In these programs, deafness is presented as a variant of the human condition with its own remarkable history, achievements, and resources and not as a pathological problem, or inferior existence. The producer talked with deaf people of all ages and professions. Some chose to use their voices, others preferred to use a sign language interpreter. She visited schools for the deaf, deaf clubs, and churches for the deaf, and she participated in many activities related to deafness, among them the conference and festival, The Deaf Way, held in Washington, D.C. in July 1989. In The Shadow of the Rings, Parts l & 2 (1997) traces the story of women in the Olympic (Summer) Games and in the Olympic Movement. Like snapshots in a personalized photo album -from Olympia, Greece, to Atlanta, Georgia -from one woman to another... Part 1: The Pioneers begins with a visit in the ancient stadium at Olympia, Greece, and a recollection of pioneering women athletes. It moves on to the modern games and stories told by the athletes themselves about training conditions for women in the 1920s; gender issues in the '40s; and life after the Games. Emotionally charged and reflective, informative and entertaining, The Pioneers includes the late U.S. gold medalist Helen Stephens (1936), Great Britain's Dame Mary Glen-Haig (1948), and the Dutch track and field legend, Fanny Blankers-Koen (1948). Part 2: The Next and the Now Generations follows the evolution of women athletes and officials on the Olympic playing fields from the 1950s through the volatile '60s and '70s to the current scene. An inspirational collage of voices from several countries, this program introduces administrators from the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland; and US gold medalists Sheryl Swoopes (basketball) and Dominique Dawes (gymnastics). Tunnel Works, Parts 1 and 2 (1998) is a docu-meditation on three related issues: on New York City's third water tunnel that will eventually replace the existing two; on water as a powerful, but finite resource; and on the nature of work as the construction of the tunnel powerfully reveals the ability of people in our society to work together and to cross lines of race, gender, and class as they accomplish tremendous tasks. With stories written and performed by 1997 Obie Award-winning artist, Marty Pottenger. REGINE BEYER (Berlin, Germany) was born and raised in Germany, where she produced over thirty documentaries for various public radio stations. She lived and worked in the U.S. as Associate Director of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. and Associate Producer of the NEW AMERICAN RADIO series from 1981 to 2002. While she continues to produce cultural documentaries (distributed independently and by National Public Radio), Beyer also gives workshops, curates radio art exhibits, and participates in international radio competitions and conferences. top |
|
| BIMSTEIN, PHILLIP KENT | |
| Garland
Hirschi's Cow (1994)
(11:58) "I awoke one morning to the sounds of cows mooing in the pasture
next to my home. Music to my ears, the moos became the inspiration for
a concerto in three 'moo-vements'. . . . The piece also includes the voice
of the cows' owner as he tells the story of growing up with cows and what
makes them moo." (Bimstein)
PHILLIP KENT BIMSTEIN (Rockville, UT) is a graduate of the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Stimulated by the Talking Heads and Elvis Costello, he formed his own new wave rock group Phil 'n the Blanks, and produced three albums. After further musical studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, Bimstein now lives next to the Zion National Park. Fascinated by language and the ability of music to tell a story, he frequently incorporates text in his music. top |
|
| BOOK, LYNN | |
| Electric Lady (7:35) Performance art-storytelling from a decidedly female perspective that expands into soundscape and song forms. LYNN BOOK (New York, NY) is an interdisciplinary performance artist, vocalist and composer recently transplanted from Chicago to New York City. Her performance work has evolved over the past 15 years from a very physical and visually charged form to include a broad repertoire of vocal activities ranging from textual play and Dada scores to more free-form musical and extended vocal territories. |
|
| BREITSAMETER, SABINE | |
| Sender
Freies Berlin Presents (1995)
An audio essay on Sabine Breitsameter's show International Digital Radio
Art on the multicultural channel of the radio station, Sender Freies Berlin,
Germany. With comments and observations by Breitsameter, edited, mixed,
and intercut with examples from some of her most recent shows. Produced
by Regine Beyer.
SABINE BREITSAMETER (Berlin, Germany) is an independent feature documentary producer, curator of sound art events, critic, and the originator and host of the Sender Freies Berlin show, International Digital Radio Art. She is also one of the most knowledgeable German experts on the national and international radio/audio art scene. top |
|
| BRUNSON, WILLIAM | |
| Inside
Pandora's Box (1991) (16:00) Makes use
of the myth of Pandora, the most beautiful woman in the world, who opens
a box placed in her trust releasing all the plagues and suffering in the
world. The box in this composition is the television set. The script for
Inside Pandora's Box may be viewed as a collection of shards excavated
from the TV medium, including real and fake commercials, jokes, excerpts
from series, and commentaries. Musically speaking, the work straddles
the fence between "serious" electroacoustic music and popular music, especially
TV music. Formally, it is an attempt to apply film/video editing concepts
to the structure of music. Commissioned by the Swedish National Institute
for Concerts.
WILLIAM BRUNSON (Stockholm, Sweden) was born in Dallas, Texas, and has been living in Sweden since 1980. He is a composer, freelance music producer, and recording engineer for film, radio and record productions. Brunson is best known for his electroacoustic music (Tapestry II, Unseen, An Open Place, and others) which has been widely performed in Europe and the United States. top |
|
| C | |
| CALEB,
J. RUFUS CARLSON, CALEB CARNAHAN, MELODY SUMNER CARRIER, SCOTT CASPAR CELLI, JOSEPH CHANG, DIANA CHENEY, ROSLYN COLEMAN, CONNIE COLLINS, NICOLAS COMPILATIONS CURRAN, ALVIN |
|
| CALEB, J. RUFUS | |
| The
Ballad of Mistuh Jack (1992) A nonlinear
narrative that unfolds in patterns similar to those of blues lyrics. There's
a bar on the outskirts of a small Northeastern town. A bottle smashed
against a table. A gun cocked. And for the first time Mistuh Jack, former
steel mill worker, bar owner finds himself poised to do what he has always
said he would do—shoot anyone who disturbs the peace of his bar.
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
J. RUFUS CALEB (Philadelphia, PA) received his Master of Arts from John Hopkins University and joined the english department at the Community College of Philadelphia in 1975. His plays have been produced for television, radio, and for the stage. He has also published poetry and short fiction in various magazines. He serves on the boards of the Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival and the Theatre Association of Pennsylvania. top |
|
| CARLSON, MORTEN | |
| Gefion (11:10) (1997) was first performed as a sound installation at the Gefion Fountain in the center of Copenhagen, Denmark. It illustrates an old Nordic legend: After the god Odin had settled on a Danish island, he desired more land. He sent his young daughter Gefion north to search for it. When Gefion came to the court of the Swedish king Gylfe, the king promised her as much land as she could plough in one day and one night. The goddess transformed her four sons into oxen, who ploughed out a patch of king Gylfe's land. This the goddess cast into the sea, where it became known as "Sealand" or Denmark. Composed of the sounds made by the Gefion Fountain, the radio version presented here, includes brief texts about the Gefion myth, performed in Old Norse and in Danish. Gefion is beautifully recorded and produced, and resonates with the spirit of the medieval myth. MORTEN CARLSON: bio not available at this time. |
|
| CARNAHAN, MELODY SUMNER | |
| Manananggal
(1994) With Laetitia Sonami and Marie
Goyette. Carnahan's story is about two powerful women who come under each
other's influence, thereby releasing unconscious contents. Each begins
to see the other as evil, bringing to life a type of vampire —a woman
who can cut her body in half—the once-metaphorical beast known in
Philippine folklore as "the manananggal." During the unraveling of their
history, the two women again draw close, the leitmotif of each is firmly
underscored as she projects onto the other woman emotions and elemental
forces she has repressed in herself. Originally commissioned for stage
by STEIM in Amsterdam. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]
The Bench (1995) With Laetitia Sonami. This story takes place in a city square, depicting an episode in the lives of two street people, a man and a woman, as observed by a narrator who watches from her hotel balcony. Focusing in, the narrator begins to "hear" fragments from the minds of the lovers: The young man, once a classical pianist, now produces a hellish blues, which fuses with the courtyard's musique concrète, with shards of his narcissistic dreams, and with dehydrated strings of the older woman's distorted understanding. The narrator doesn't move to interfere, yet she is compelled by what she witnesses: Is the woman rescuing or destroying the man? Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] MELODY SUMNER CARNAHAN (Santa Fe, NM) received an M.F.A. in writing from Mills College where she began working with composers, including Robert Ashley. The author of story collections, The Time Is Now and Thirteen (Burning Books), and a Tibetan man's biography, In the Presence of My Enemies (Clear Light), she has published thirty works of fiction and essay in periodicals and anthologies including the San Francisco Chronicle and the City Lights Review. Experimental Intermedia Foundation commissioned a one-hour radio program featuring her collaborative works with composers, and other programs featuring her writing have been aired by KPFA, Berkeley, WEVL, Memphis, and CFUV in Victoria. LAETITIA SONAMI (Oakland, CA) Originally from France where she studied with composer Eliane Radigue, Sonami moved to the U.S. in 1976, and has since been composing and performing live electronic solo works in numerous venues in the U.S. and abroad, including The Kitchen (NYC) and Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria. For three years she was awarded residencies at STEIM in Amsterdam, where she developed and adapted new gestural controllers for musical performance and composed works with them. Her compositions have been recorded Imaginary Landscapes (Electra Nonesuch), Jewel Box (Tellus 26), and Another Coast (Music & Arts). Collaborator: MARIE GOYETTE (Berlin, Germany) Co-composer/co-producer Manananggal. Goyette, originally from Montreal, studied piano at McGill University and with Radu Lupu in London. Since 1989 she has been working in the field of electronic music, collaborating with dancers, artists, and performers. She developed her interactive electronic shoes and belt—used in creating her vocal and musical composition for Manananggal—during a residency at STEIM in Amsterdam. top |
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| CARRIER, SCOTT | |
| Battle
Mountain (1991) is the story of an attempted
ski trip in Nevada at the time of the Gulf War. That year there was hardly
any snow at all and the trip turned into an extended drive through the
state’s mountain ranges and basins. As the producer encountered scene
after scene of violence – cowboys cutting off the testicles of cattle
and branding them, the ear-shattering noise of military jets; a drunken
sledding race turned bloody – the CNN coverage of the Gulf War blasting
from the tv screens in local bars took on new meaning. [Listen]
SCOTT CARRIER (Salt Lake City, UT) has produced documentaries, essays, commentaries, and sound portraits for public radio since 1983. His work has been broadcast by NPR on "All Things Considered," "Weekend Edition," and "Soundprint." His stories have also been aired by the BBC and the ABC, Australia, as well as “This American Life” (WBEZ, Chicago), Radio Smithsonian, NEW AMERICAN RADIO and "The Ossgood Files." (CBC Radio Network). Battle Mountain was premiered by NPR’s "Soundprint" in 1991. top |
|
| CASPAR | |
| Hommage
to D.G. (1992)
Metal pipes, pneumatic tubes, radio and television recordings, vocal articulations,
processing equipment—all combine to shape impulsive and aggressive
sound textures with great impact. (#18, 93; #23, 95 with Messina and Rydberg)
CASPAR (Germany) Biography unavailable. top |
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| CELLI, JOSEPH | |
| World Soundprint:
Pacific (1993) With composer/performer
Jin Hi Kim. Two widely traveled musicians and well-known new music artists
combine their creative sensibilities in search of the indigenous "soundprint"
of four Asian countries. Many location recordings, such as, of aboriginal
drones, the clanging cymbals of Korean shamans, the double reeds of Japan,
the winds of New Zealand, sounds from airports around the Pacific Rim,
and overheard conversations, identify and capture an aspect particular
to and characteristic of a site or location on the composers' travels.
Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]
JOSEPH CELLI (Connecticut) is the only oboist in America who has devoted his career to the performance of new and experimental music. For the past eighteen years Celli has commissioned and collaborated with composers to create an extensive body of new work for oboe and English horn. These works range from solo acoustic works to works with ensembles, live electronics, multimedia works and improvisation. Over the past decade Celli has studied and worked with the musics of Africa, India, and recently, Asia. JIN HI KIM (Connecticut) was trained as a traditional musician in her native Korea. She came to the United States in 1980. She is a pioneer in the fusion of traditional and contemporary music in both her komungo (a six-string instrument) improvisations and her compositional activity. Kim has given solo concerts in the U.S., Canada, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and South America. She has worked with such contemporary improvisers as Elliott Sharp, Malcom Goldstein, and Henry Kaiser, and she has been commissioned to compose works for the Kronos Quartet, the California EAR Unit and other ensembles and soloists. top |
|
| CHANG, DIANA | |
| Falling
Free (1989)
In a curious repeat of the history of Asian immigrants, this work focuses
on an elderly Chinese-American woman left behind in an American suburb
by a husband who wishes to return to his native China. More Americanized
than he, her solitude proves a liberation. Told as a monologue with flash-backs
to scenes from her earlier life, Falling Free is a delicate, poetic rendering
of ambiguities: the ambiguity of the Chinese-American experience, and
of human desire. An adaptation of a short story by the same name. Commissioned
by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen] DIANA CHANG (New York, NY) , the daughter of a Chinese father and Eurasian mother, was born in New York City, but spent some of her childhood in Beijing and Shanghai as well as in the United States. She has taught creative writing at Barnard College, exhibited paintings in solo and group shows, and edited The American Pen. She is the author of A Woman of Thirty, The Only Game in Town, A Passion for Life, Eye to Eye and A Perfect Love, and the poetry collections The Horizon Is Definitely Speaking, What Matisse is After and Earth Water Light. top |
|
| CHENEY, ROSLYN | |
| New
and Curious Subjects (1994)
(13:00) Using recordings of animals at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, this work
is an "animal performance piece" that seeks to provide the quintessential
zoo experience: curiosity, a feeling for the exotic, entertainment, and
reflection. Cheney's outstanding sound recordings and studio mix were
created with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's award-winning producer/engineers
Phillip Ulman and John Jacobs. [Listen]
The Listening Room Presents (1995) A portrait of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Listening Room series, which, since 1988 has commissioned and aired an amazing variety of sound expressions under the guidance of Roz Cheney. This program features an interview with Roz Cheney about the series' concept and most recent activities, along with excerpts from award-winning productions, edited and produced by Regine Beyer. ROSLYN CHENEY is a founding member of Double Jay, Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Sydney station of contemporary music, cultural ideas, and politics, which began broadcasting in 1975. A former producer and director with the drama and features department as well as the comedy unit, Cheney is currently executive producer of the experimental audio/radio series, The Listening Room. top |
|
| COLEMAN, CONNIE | |
| Borderland
(1990) With Alan Powell. An exploration
of a psychic aural space just south of our consciousness. That very special
location defined as "between the GRASS and where the GRASS is always greener"
. . . Borderland . . . plotted by scientific method and the Western white
male gaze . . . that ever so elusive place of American media myth." (the
artists) A collage that blends stories and found sounds in a contrapuntal
assemblage of gender encounters and questions of "otherness." The stories
include R. Gordon Wasson's recounting of his first psychotropic mushroom
experience with the Mexican-Indian shaman, Maria Sabena, and Rosemarie
Waldrop's tale of Washington, D.C., and the sacrifices of younq Aztec
virgins. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]
Ground Wars (Parts 1 and 2) (1991) With Alan Powell. An experiment with real life stories from neighbors and friends who knew soldiers in the Gulf War, juxtaposed with military statements taken off the air. Part 1: "The Interior" (internal/being within). The combat of daily living in a free and open society wherein politics and technology draw the lines of battle and everyone chooses sides. Part 2: "The Exterior" (outward/ foreign). Has the Third World War finally begun, or have we only just noticed the battle that's been raging for some time? Language appears to be the ultimate camouflage. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. CONNIE COLEMAN (New Jersey) received her education at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she majored in textile design. She is currently a lecturer at the University of the Arts, photo/film/animation department, in Philadelphia. As a video artist, Coleman has worked collaboratively with video artist Alan Powell for well over a decade. Their work has been presented in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally. ALAN POWELL (New Jersey) is currently an assistant professor in the radio/television/film department at Temple University. Coleman's and Powell's work has been presented in numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally, and has been shown on Swiss television, Montreal Cable TV, Swedish television, the Learning Channel, and WHYY-TV 12, among others. top |
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| COLLINS, NICOLAS | |
| The
Spark Heard 'Round the World (1989)
A sonic portrait of the world as revealed through electromagnetic phenomena.
It is shaped out of the tremendous buzz, hum, and squawk of the international
communications systems: commercial FM and AM, short-wave and long-wave
transmissions, HAM and CB radio, public service bands, Morse code, telex
and other coded signals. A frenzied noisy striving for communication that
thickens into an almost tangible morass of sound, then loosens into sound
patterns and light textures. The human voice and its messages seem strangely
lost in this environment—distorted, barely audible—while the
transmission system itself sounds vibrant and amazingly alive. Commissioned
by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]
NICOLAS COLLINS (Chicago, Illinois) Nicolas Collins is currently Assistant Professor, Chair, Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Born in New York City in 1952, he began composing in 1972. He attended Wesleyan University (BA, 1976 and MA, 1979), and worked for several years with David Tudor. An heir to Tudor's school of "home-made" electronic circuitry, and a pioneer in the use of microcomputers in live performance, Collins has also made extensive use of radio and found sound material in his compositions and sound installations. From 1992-95 Collins was visiting Artistic Director of Stichting STEIM (Amsterdam), and in 1996-97 a DAAD composer-in-residence in Berlin. Since 1997 he has been editor-in-chief of the Leonardo Music Journal. In September 1999, he joined the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. top |
|
| COMPILATIONS | |
| CHRISTINE
BACZEWSKA, LYNN BOOK, CELIA, ANNA HOMMLER, ELYSE KERMANI, and the QUBE CHIX
New Voices and Sounds is an inspired collage by NEW AMERICAN RADIO producers Helen Thorington and Regine Beyer, created from audio art works, improvisations, and compositions by women composers from across the country. Listen to the playful, punk-influenced avant-cabaret song, "I want a bald boyfriend" by the Qube Chix juxtaposed with Celia's surreal music/poetry influenced by the mysticism of her Aztec background (San Francisco). Hear Anna Hommler's pseudo-language explorations (Los Angeles) echo against the delicately meditative "Clearing, Mode of Dream" by Lynn Book (Chicago). Get into the spirit of Christine Baczewska's silly lyricism in "Letter From Home" and the wild and angry vocalizations of Elyse Kermani (New York). These artists have something to say, and they express themselves with passion, intelligence, and sensitivity. |
|
| CURRAN, ALVIN | |
| A
Beginner's Guide to Attracting Birds
(1995) A tone-poem for radio that draws
on a number of never used sounds from the composer's archives, as well
as newly recorded materials such as the magical singing tones of high-tension
wires in the wind, and the elusive musical hums of the Bay of La Speza
(Italy). These sounds are as much about acoustic spaces as they are about
geographical ones, and while all vastly different, are powerful sources
of natural melody, rhythm, and harmony. Above all they are sounds that
suggest the presence of "voices," human, ghostly or otherwise. The definitive
character of A Beginner's Guide to Attracting Birds is given by the gradual
and continuous digital transformation of these sounds into those of human
voices. The work culminates in the slow emergence of John Cage's voice,
based on fragmented samples of his Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard
(1988-89). Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]
ALVIN CURRAN (New York City/Oakland/ Rome) Alvin Curran is known internationally for his compositions, solo performances, and large scale sound installations. Inspired by the legacy of the American experimental music tradition, his 100 plus works embrace all the "contradictions." From these he forges a very personal musical language from all the "languages." He is dedicated to the restoration of dignity to the profession of making non-commercial music as part of a personal search for future social, political and spiritual forms. Curran has been the Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills since 1992 where his seminars and private lessons embrace every aspect of being a professional in today's new-music world. Curran's work is recorded on CRI, New Albion, Catalyst/BMG, Tzadik, Centaur Wergo, Ellipsis, BTC, Music from Mills. top |
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