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Sep 3, 2014
09/14
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Other Minds
Other Minds, a private 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization based in San Francisco, is a global New Music community where composers, students, and listeners discover and learn about innovative music by composers from all over the world. Other Minds Records, a project of Other Minds, produces a select catalog of contemporary music exploring areas seldom touched upon by mainstream institutions. You can explore their collection of available works here on archive.org, and visit their online store...
Topics: other minds, new music, classical
A short, humorous poem, listing the unattractive qualities and poor personal hygiene of Wilfred Funk. Written by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and read by the poet this work pokes fun at Wilfred Funk, the famed lexicographer, and columnist for the conservative “Reader’s Digest.” Although the portrait it paints is quite uncomplimentary and is ridden with vulgarities, the seemingly vitriolic nature of the tirade is leavened by an inherent sense of amusement and the over the top nature of the...
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Topics: KPFA-FM, Poetry, Spoken Word
3,905
3.9K
Aug 27, 2014
08/14
by
Sarah Cahill
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01 - Terry Riley: Be Kind to One Another (Rag) (2008/2010) 02 - Meredith Monk: Steppe Music (excerpts) (1997) Frederic Rzewski: Peace Dances (2007/2008) 03 - Nano Sonatas, Book 4, ''Peace Dances'' - I 04 - Nano Sonatas, Book 4, ''Peace Dances'' - II 05 - Nano Sonatas, Book 4, ''Peace Dances'' - III 06 - Nano Sonatas, Book 4, ''Peace Dances'' - IV 07 - Nano Sonatas, Book 4, ''Peace Dances'' - V 08 - Nano Sonatas, Book 4, ''Peace Dances'' - VI 09 - Nano Sonatas, Book 4, ''Peace Dances'' - VII 10...
Topic: Other Classical
Source: CD
Professor Jess B. Bessinger, Jr. reads the general prologue and the concluding retraction of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales.” One of the foremost experts on early English poetry, Bessinger offers a masterful recitation of this seminal work of literature, all in the original Middle English. The lyrical quality of Chaucer’s masterpiece is best appreciated when read aloud by someone fluent in the archaic form of English in which it was written. While most students have read at...
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Topics: KPFA-FM, Literature, Spoken Word
A live performance of four early works by Steve Reich: "Four Organs", "My Name Is", "Piano Phase", and "Phase Patterns." This performance marked an important moment in San Francisco Bay Area new music history with the triumphant return to the East Bay by Reich, who studied at Mills College with Luciano Berio, and who performed the 1964 world premiere of Terry Riley's seminal work, “In C", at the San Francisco Tape Music Center. The resonant...
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Topics: Music, KPFA-FM, Minimalism, New Music, Steve Reich, University Museum, UC Berkeley
Source: Other Minds
Amirkhanian introduces a program of poetry from the Dial-A-Poem exhibits organized by John Giorno at the Museum of Modern Art and other spaces. These poems were originally available to the general public via a special telephone number from the The Architectural League of New York. However due to some of the adult content contained in certain pieces the project was threatened with lawsuit’s from concerned, conservative parents and the telephone number was eventually disconnected. John Giorno...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Ode to Gravity series, Poetry, Spoken Word
Other Minds Audio Archive
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Nov 20, 2003
11/03
by
Charles Amirkhanian & Brian Eno
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Charles Amirkhanian and Brian Eno discuss Phonetic Poetry, how Brian writes his lyrics, and the spirit of inquisitiveness at KPFA Radio on Saturday February 2, 1980. Listen to some of Brian Enos pieces; After the Heat, Everything Merges With the Night, Another Green World, Spirits Drifting and sections of other pieces. Brian Eno also discusses the artist Peter Schmidt and their work on the Oblique Strategies Cards, being a producer, Process vs Product and looping. Reel I ends with some thoughts...
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Topics: KPFA-FM, Ode to Gravity series, Interview and Music, New Music, Popular Music, Brian Eno
Source: Other Minds
John Cage reads: "On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist and His Work", published in his book Silence, and "26 Statements Re Duchamp", and "Jasper Johns: Stories and Ideas", both published in his book A Year From Monday. The lecture begins with an amusing and informative autobiographical introduction to his interest in art and artists, how he became a composer, and how he wrote each of these pieces. This lecture is of great historical value. Recorded at the L.A. County...
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Topics: Avantgarde, Spoken Word, 20th Century Classical
Source: Other Minds
John Cage / Morton Feldman: Radio Happenings I - V Recorded at WBAI, New York City, July 1966 - January 1967 John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed Variations V in 1965 and Variations VI and VII in 1966, and would publish...
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Topics: Avantgarde, 20th Century Classical, Interviews
Source: Other Minds
Charles Amirkhanian interviews Frank Zappa in anticipation of his appearance on Speaking of Music at the Exploratorium. Zappa discusses his digital re-mastering of his album "Lumpy Gravy" and other early works. The musical selections played during this program are not included in this recording.
Topics: KPFA-FM, Interview, Popular Music, Avant-Garde, Frank Zappa
John Cage / Morton Feldman: Radio Happenings I - V Recorded at WBAI, New York City, July 1966 - January 1967 John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed Variations V in 1965 and Variations VI and VII in 1966, and would publish...
Topics: Avantgarde, 20th Century Classical, Interview
Source: Other Minds
On October 18, 1972, Tom Zahuranec invited the radio audience down to the KPFA Music Office to communicate mentally with a philodendron which was wired with liquid electrodes feeding impulses into a Buchla synthesizer. His call for audience participation was answered by scores of avid listeners who flocked to the KPFA studios in order to see for themselves just how responsive a philodendron could be. Once there they experimented with the plant by getting closer or farther away from it,...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Inter-Media, Visual Arts, Interactive Art, Electro-Acoustic, Electronic, Tom Zahuranec
Phil Elwood presents a retrospective program dedicated to the music of Louis Armstrong a week after the great musician’s death. The first half of the program is dedicated to Armstrong’s early career in New Orleans during the 1920’s. In the second half of the program, Elwood focuses on recordings that Armstrong made in the 1930s when he had become popular outside of the strictly jazz, mostly African American community and had begun to perform more popular types of songs, including show...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Music, Jazz, Louis Armstrong, Phil Elwood
A program of text-sound and poetry works by Anthony Gnazzo, Clark Coolidge, and Charles Amirkhanian. Gnazzo is interviewed by Charles about his career and the techniques he uses to create his compositions. Gnazzo, a pioneer in the field of electronic music who now lives in relative obscurity in Oakland, composes entirely on tape, and yet does not even have a tape or record player in his house. His rigorous training in music at Brandeis University under the tutelage of Arthur Berger, amply...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Ode to Gravity Series, Spoken Word, Sound Poetry, Charles Amirkhanian, Clark Coolidge,...
On February 12, 1988, KPFA dedicated an entire day to take a closer look at the music and career of Brian Eno, one of the most influential composer, performer, producer, and visual artist of our times. Eno joins Charles Amirkhanian in the studios of KPFA to assist in hosting a day of his music. In a number of far ranging interviews, some previously recorded and some live in the studio, Eno discusses his English adolescence and early musical influences, as well as sharing stories about his work...
Topics: Interview, Music, Popular Music, New Music, Rock Music, Ambient Music, Electronic Music, Video Art
Clark Coolidge reads a number of his poems, many of which were unpublished at the time of this recording. Coolidge, was perhaps more than any other person, responsible for inspiring the entire experimental field of Language Poetry, which became popular among avant-garde, mostly American poets, during the 1960s and 70s. This type of poetry was partially inspired by the work of Gertrude Stein, John Cage, and others who sometimes used mathematical sequences and other aleatoric or logical...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Spoken Word, Poetry, Clark Coolidge
On December 20, 1972, composer Annea Lockwood appeared live on Ode To Gravity. She was interviewed by Pauline Oliveros, who begins the discussion by reading a number of dreams that she has had involving Annea, although they had not actually met until this day. They go on to discuss their mutual interest in meditation, and in particular sonic meditation. Later a gathering of 30 composers and performers executed Annea's serenity-inducing event for multiple hummers. Among the many guests were Don...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Ode to Gravity series, Interview and Music, Avant-Garde, Soundscapes, Annea Lockwood,...
Gordon Spencer of WBAI in New York presents a program about Louis Hardin, more popularly known as Moondog. From the 1940s up until 1974 Moondog made his living as a street musician and poet in New York City and was typically found near the jazz clubs on 52nd Street. Blind since an accident when he was 16 years old, Moondog was always recognizable in his Viking helmet playing a variety of instruments, some of his own design. In this program Moondog talks about his interests, his influences and...
Topics: KPFA-FM, WBAI, Interview and Music, Jazz, Avant-Garde, Louis Hardin, Moondog
John Cage / Morton Feldman: Radio Happenings I - V Recorded at WBAI, New York City, July 1966 - January 1967 John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed Variations V in 1965 and Variations VI and VII in 1966, and would publish...
Topics: Avantgarde, 20th Century Classical, Interview
Source: Other Minds
A selected number of excerpts from all Other Minds CD releases to date (1999-2013) Catalogue Nos. OM1001-1022. For more information about Other Minds, visit: otherminds.org
Topic: Other Minds Records, OM Records
This is an interview with John Cage & David Tudor, conducted in French and English. This particular interview was purportedly recorded on May 29, 1972, a time at which both John Cage and David Tudor were on a European tour featuring performances in London, Bremen, Paris and other European cities. Cage talks about the influence that Henry David Thoreau, Marcel Duchamp, and others have had on his own artistic output. Works discussed include Cage’s “Mureau” and David Tudor’s...
Topics: KPFA-FM, New Music, Interview, John Cage, David Tudor
A lively 1963 interview of John Cage by Jonathan Cott. The discussion covers several aspects of Cages creative process and aesthetic. At every turn Cott antagonizes Cage with challenging questions. In addition, he quotes from numerous sources (including Norman Mailer, Michael Steinberg, Igor Stravinksy and others) criticizing Cage and his music. Includes a performance of Aria with Fontana Mix featuring vocalist Cathy Berberian. This program is notable particularly for the challenging stance of...
Topics: Interview, New Music, John Cage
Source: Other Minds
John Cage / Morton Feldman: Radio Happenings I - V Recorded at WBAI, New York City, July 1966 - January 1967 John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed Variations V in 1965 and Variations VI and VII in 1966, and would publish...
Topics: Avantgarde, 20th Century Classical, Interview
Source: Other Minds
Field recordings from the San Diego Zoo, recorded on Nov. 14, 1968 by Pauline Oliveros. Many various animals and bird calls are heard in this recording of ambient sounds that is refreshingly free of crowd noise.
Topics: KPFA-FM, World Ear Project, Other Finds, Soundscapes
From a concert recording made in 1963 and not commercially available, Terry Riley performs his “Two Piano Pieces.” Well known for his seminal minimal, or repetitive music, compositions including “In C,” as well as for his association with the master Indian singer Pandit Pran Nath, Terry Riley is also a virtuosic keyboard player, who supported his composting activities by performing at local piano bars. All these qualities are evident in this short, delightful, and rare recording.
Topics: KPFA-FM, Music, 20th Century Classical, Terry Riley
Charles Amirkhanian interviews Turkish born, Ilhan Mimaroğlu, about his company Finnadar Records. Mimaroğlu , a record producer and a composer in his own right, founded Finnadar in a partnership with Atlantic Records, in order to present avant-garde and new world music to the American audience, as well as a means to publish his own compositions. In this interview, recorded in October of 1975, Mimaroğlu discusses the challenges of recording and selling avant-garde and electro-acoustic music...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Interview, Avant-Garde, Electro-Acoustic, Electronic, Ilhan Mimaroglu
The first in a series of programs produced by Peter Yates, highlighting the works of Harry Partch. This program begins with an excerpt from one of Partch's pieces followed by a 1960 interview of Partch by Peter Yates in which he discusses his career.
Topics: KPFA-FM, Interview and Music, Microtonal Music, Unconventional Instruments, Harry Partch
Computer music pioneer Laurie Spiegel discusses her compositional tools and processes with host Jude Quintieré (WBAI). Having recently completed a number of works using the GROOVE system at Bell Labs, Spiegel describes the flexibility of her programs, and her approach to sequencing and real-time manipulation of synthesized sounds. The composer further elaborates on the evolution of her personal interests, especially in regard to her use of specific pitch and rhythmic materials drawn from her...
Topics: KPFA-FM, WBAI, Interview and Music, Electro-Acoustic, Electronic, Laurie Spiegel
Laurie Anderson's record release party for O Superman 7" (and Walk The Dog) (released on 110 Records) on April 28, 1980 at The Kitchen in New York City. Charles Amirkhanian interviews Laurie Anderson, Bob George, John Gibson, Phill Niblock, Roma Baran and Ken Friedman. Like Hitchcock's "Rope" this slice of reality in one take features Amirkhanian wandering through a dense crowd of revelers, nabbing interviewees spontaneously as they appear in his peripheral vision. No splices!!
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Topics: Avantgarde, 20th Century Classical
Source: Other Minds
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was a British born composer, pianist, and author who wrote some of the longest and most difficult to perform works for the piano ever composed. Although a 20th century composer his works had more in common with the elaborate counterpoint of Bach than with the modern compositions of his contemporaries, such as Cage, Antheil, or Schoenberg. His compositions were so difficult to play that he actually forbid public performance of them for decades, so as to avoid them from...
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Topics: KPFA-FM, Documentary, New Music, 20th Century Classical, Shapurji Sorabji
Fred Frith joins Charles Amirkhanian for a brief discussion on Hans Reichel, a musician/friend/collaborator, and "a master craftsman" of guitars. (Frith and Reichel performed together later that week). Frith also comments on the noise/free music/improv scene, and his compositional work at the time. Program portion ends with selection of Frith's "Technology of Tears", a piece written for dance.
Topics: Fred Frith, Interview, Free Improvisation, Unconventional Instruments, KPFA-FM, Hans Reichel
A series of improvisations, recorded around 1957, and featuring Pauline Oliveros, Loren Rush, Terry Riley, Laurel Johnson, Robert Erickson, and Bill Butler. The instrumentation for these five pieces is varied and unspecified, but seems to include piano, percussion, flute, and a trumpet, or some other brass instrument. The first improvisation is used as accompaniment for a lengthy monologue. These early experiments with aleatoric and improvisatory music serves as a valuable historical record...
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Topics: Music, New Music, Improvisation, Monologues with music
One in a series of programs produced by Clark Coolidge that feature the works of late 20th century poets, sound poets, and authors. In this recording, made in San Francisco in August 1969, Tom Veitch reads from his experimental novel “The Luis Armed Story”. Veitch, who is perhaps best known today as an author of graphic novels, including a couple based on George Lukas’ “Star Wars” series of movies, was during the 1960s and early 1970s a major player in the underground comics scene, as...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Words series, Spoken Word, Experimental, Literature
One in a series of programs produced by Clark Coolidge that feature the works of late 20th century poets, sound poets, and authors. This recording, broadcast on October 13, 1969, features a two tape works by Alvin Curran. The first piece, “A Day in the Country: Part 1” is a compilation of ambient recordings made in Italy that range from the sound of children playing to those of a walk along a shoreline. These sounds have then been spliced together so as to form a continuos soundscape...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Words series, Spoken Word, Ambient Sounds, Soundscapes, Electronic Music
Charles Amirkhanian reads an excerpt from Gertrude Steins “Portraits and Repetition” which was originally published as part of the author’s “Lectures in America.” In what is a fascinating explanation of the Stein style, presented in the Stein style, the famed avant-garde poet and author defends herself against the common criticism that her literary portraits of fellow artists are full of repetition, by insisting that as long as the emphasis is different then there is no repetition....
Topics: KPFA-FM, Lecture, Panel Discussion, Literature
Daniel Bernard Roumain performs the World Premiere of String Quartet No. 4, "Angelou" (2005) at Other Minds 11 at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2005. Daniel Bernard Roumain, electric violin DJ Scientific, laptop and CD DJ equipment Del Sol String Quartet Commissioned by Other Minds and sponsored through a grant from the Cultural Equities Grants Program of the San Francisco Arts Commission. Composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain presents the world premiere of...
Topic: 20th Century Classical
Source: Other Minds
Ivan Wyschnegradsky was a Russian-born composer who in the early 1920’s designed the first quarter-tone piano. For the next 30 years Wyschnegradsky developed an intricate system for composing microtonal music, producing numerous musical works and written articles. However it was not until the 1970s that his music finally found the audience that it deserved. Part of his newly acquired cult status among young composers was due to a day long series of concerts produced by Radio France on January...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Music, 20th Century Classical, Monologues, Ivan Wyschnegradsky
Author, essayist, and environmentalist, Edward Abbey gives a talk and reads from his essays and books during an appearance at the Telluride Ideas Festival on August 17, 1986. Abbey is perhaps best known for his radical stance on public land policy and supposed support for eco-terrorism. A true iconoclast, Abbey has been condemned and praised by mainstream environmentalists and conservative Western ranchers alike. He was a pro-gun, anti-immigration, self-declared desert anarchist, who thrived on...
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Topics: KPFA-FM, Literature, Literature, Current Events, Spoken Word, Telluride, Edward Abbey
One in a series of programs produced by Clark Coolidge that feature the works of late 20th century poets, sound poets, and authors. This recording, first broadcast on December 1, 1969, contains five text-sound compositions by John Giorno. Created using multiple tape decks and a MOOG synthesizer these works feature both male and female voices with some minimal electronic manipulation such as reverb and delay. The words themselves are broken up into phrases that are often repeated in full or in...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Words series, Clark Coolidge, John Giorno, Spoken Word, Sound Poetry, Test-sound...
One in a series of programs produced by Clark Coolidge that feature the works of late 20th century poets, sound poets, and authors. In this recording, first broadcast on November 10, 1969 Coolidge presents a selection of his own tape-word compositions. These range from very simple works in which he repeats a number of words in seemingly random patterns, to more complex works utilizing multiple readers or multi-tracking. The simpler works feature just a few different words that often share a...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Words series, Text-sound compositions, Sound poetry, Poetry, Spoken Word
The 23rd Other Minds Festival, focused on the art of Sound Poetry, took place in San Francisco at the ODC/Dance Theatre over the course of six days (April 9-14, 2018); OM’s longest festival to date which included five concerts and a day of lectures and workshops. This year’s line-up brought together old and new masters from several countries, all well representing the “intermedium between poetry and music”: Beth Anderson (US), Mark Applebaum (US), Tone Åse (Norway), Jaap Blonk...
Topics: Sound poetry, Other Minds Festival, OM 23, Spoken Word
John Zorn and Larry Ochs join Charles Amirkhanian to discuss and play a selection of Zorn’s compositions. Among the pieces heard is an excerpt from “Spillane” in which Zorn tries to capture some of the film noir sensibility that imbues the Mickey Spillane novels and the gritty New York City in which they are based, and which Zorn calls home. This is followed by a couple of excerpts from Zorn’s collaborative improvisational work “Cobra” for which he created a number of general rules...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Morning Concert series, Interview and Music, Jazz, Avant-Garde, John Zorn, Larry Ochs
Recorded at St. Marks Church in New York City on November 8, 1972, John Giorno presents a lengthy excerpt from his poem “Dakini Software.” Giorno is well known for his provocative sound and performance poetry that blends a bohemian sensibility, radical sexual politics, and spiritual practice. All these elements are featured in this echo-laden rendition of “Dakini Software,” which mixes the metaphors of a female, tantric and Tibetan Buddhist deity, or embodiment of enlightened energy,...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Spoken Word, Poetry
John Cage / Morton Feldman: Radio Happenings I - V Recorded at WBAI, New York City, July 1966 - January 1967 John Cage and Morton Feldman recorded four open-ended conversations at the studios of radio station WBAI in New York. These meetings spanned six months between July 1966 and January 1967, and were produced as five "Radio Happenings". Both were at transitional points in their music. Cage had completed Variations V in 1965 and Variations VI and VII in 1966, and would publish...
Topics: Avantgarde, 20th Century Classical, Interview
Source: Other Minds
Donald Buchla's newest synthesizer, the 700, is introduced to the San Francisco community at a gathering held at the Sake Factory. Charles Amirkhanian interviews the inventor as well as numerous local composers about their experiences with Buchla's creations while we hear in the background people trying out the newest version.
Topics: KPFA-FM, Ode to Gravity Series, Other Finds, Electro-Acoustic, Electronic, Buchla
A 1975 recording of a party to introduce one of Don Buchla’s synthesizers, the Buchla 500 (Electric Music Box). This program begins with the sounds of Buchla and others preparing the instrument for presentation while also describing its features to interested people who are milling around the studio. Then a composition entitled “Terminal References” is performed, followed by additional music that plays in the background as the party continues, and ending with the performance of a long...
Topics: Music, interview, electronic music, electro-acoustic, synthesizers
Breakfast Conversation in Concert: Anthony Braxton, as interviewed by Roland Young, Glen Howell, and Sandy Silver, with music from Anthony Braxton's concert the night before at the Palace of the Legion of Honor on October 10, 1971. Produced by Sandy Silver.
Source: Other Minds
Michael Reynolds introduces a live reading before an audience of over 1,000 at the Pauley Ballroom of UC Berkeley given by America's most noted writers, William S. Burroughs and John Giorno. Giorno (b. 1936) reads his newest work "Subduing Demons in America" and his "Suicide Sutra". Burroughs reads from "Nova Express" , "The Wild Boys" and other works. Warning: Contains scatological phraseology and other obscenities.
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Topics: KPFA-FM, Literature, Poetry, John Giorno, William Burroughs
Robert Ashley joins Charles Amirkhanian, Richard Friedman, and William Maraldo for a discussion about his modern opera, “That Morning Thing”, which was scheduled to be debuted just two days after this recording was made on December 6, 1969. The program begins with a rather detailed description of the opera or work of musical theater, which had no singing, per se, but instead was scored for multiple speakers, many of them prerecorded, and several dancers. The inspiration of the piece,...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Interview, Opera, Music theatre
This program is dedicated to a lecture given by John Cage’s on October 7, 1969, at the University of California Davis during the first meeting of his class on Music in Dialogue.
Topics: Lecture, Panel Discussion, New Music, Avant-Garde, John Cage
As of May 1973 when this program was recorded, Shandar Records of Paris had produced a series of 14 impressive record albums by avant-garde composers and performers including Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Karlheinz Stockhausen, La Monte Young, Pandit Pran Nath, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray, and Sun Ra. The owner of the company, Chantal d'Arcy talks in Paris with Philip Freriks, a reporter for VPRO/Amsterdam about the record company and her views on new music. Charles Amirkhanian also...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Ode to Gravity Series, Interview and Music, Avant-Garde, Minimalism, Shandar Records
Dane Rudhyar, well known in New Music circles as a modern composer of often brief, and sometimes dissonant, works for piano, was also a philosopher and author of many books on Astrology. Less deterministic than traditional Astrology, Rudhyar’s system was more a blending of Jungian philosophy with elements of Astrology, Theosophy, and New Age thinking. In this lecture, recorded at the Newman Center in Berkeley California, on March 10, 1972, Rudhyar distinguishes between these two types of...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Lecture, Panel Discussion, Dane Rudhyar, Astrology, Psychology, Self-actualization
A recording of a 1979 lecture by Roland P. Young, given at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Young was, at the time of this recording, a musician, composer, KPFA program host, and aspiring musicologist, or sound philosopher. In his talk, which he entitled, “The Social, Political, and Aesthetic Development of African American Classical Music,” Young attempts to trace certain elements of jazz back to their roots in native African musical traditions. He begins his lecture with a description,...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Lecture, Panel Discussion, World Music, Jazz
Russ Jennings interviews La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela about their new collaborative work, The Well Tuned Piano. This work is the culmination of a life long interest in just intonation on the part of Young and also incorporates the light art of Zazeela. The two also discuss the influence that Pandit Pran Nath has had on their art.
Topics: KPFA-FM, Interview, Performance Art, Minimalism, La Monte Young
US Premiere of Amelia Cuni & Werner Durand's Ashtayama - Song of Hours (1997-98) performed at Other Minds 10 at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2004. To purchase the studio recording of Ashtayama, please visit the Other Minds webstore at www.otherminds.org, http://otherminds.org/shtml/Ashtayama.shtml. Amelia Cuni, vocals Werner Durand, electronics Uli Sigg, projections first yama: sunrise second yama: morning third yama: midday fourth yama: afternoon fifth yama: sunset...
Topic: World Music
Source: Other Minds
This program features a number of pieces by La Monte Young with such cryptic titles as “23 VIII 64 2:50:45-3:11AM, the volga delta” some of which can be played at various speeds, as demonstrated in this recording. Described as some of the most difficult music played on KPFA, Young’s music combines effectively the spirituality of the East with Western intellectual and technical interests. These performances are by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. (from KPFA Folio)
Topics: KPFA-FM, Music, Electro-Acoustic, Avant-Garde, La Monte Young
This review deals with a performance on Dec. 8, 1969, at Mills College, of Robert Ashley’s opera “That Morning Thing”. Charles Shere speaks out against the mainstream media’s reception of the opera as well as the rude reaction of some of the audience.
Topics: KPFA-FM, Interview, Opera, Robert Ashley
In the second of two consecutive appearances before a live audience, as part of the San Francisco Exploratorium’s Speaking of Music series, Charles Amirkhanian interviews composer and artist Brian Eno, about his latest multi-media installation, and other subjects of interest. Eno had just finished working at the Exploratorium on a video art project called “Latest Flames,” in which he had used video monitors as an ever changing light source to illuminate a selection of paintings, all...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Speaking of Music, Exploratorium, Interview, Music, Popular Music, Modern Art
Recorded on November 29, 1984 as part of the San Francico Exploratorium’s Speaking of Music series, Charles Amirkhanian interviews American composer, critic, and former musical director at KPFA, Charles Shere, about his opera “The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even “. The opera, which is inspired by the Marcel Duchamp painting of the same name uses Duchamp’s notes for much of the libretto. Shere, who was heavily influenced by the new music of John Cage and others, describes in...
Topics: Speaking of Music Series at the Exploratorium, Interview and Music, 20th Century Classical, New...
Master shehnai (Indian oboe) player Bismillah Khan plays three ragas, accompanied by unidentified tabla and tamboura players. Born in 1916, to a family of court musicians, Khan was perhaps the person most responsible for popularizing shehnai music in the modern era. This particular recording was made in the 1960s. Khan died in 2006.
Topics: KPFA-FM, Music, World Music, Bismillah Khan
On September 29, 1979, Ivan Wyschnegradsky died in Paris at the age of 86. Only in the last two years of his life did he become widely recognized in Europe for his contributions to the repertoire. Since the early 1920s he had composed in various microtonal systems in an attempt to expand the possibilities of musical expression. Presented in this program is the first American broadcast of Wyschnegradsky’s early (1916-17) mystical work “La Journee de l’Existence”. The performance,...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Morning Concert Series, Interview and Music, Orchestral Classical, Microtonal music, Ivan...
From a program recorded in 1968, Tom Donahue interviews Frank Zappa about his life and work, and allows the irreverent rock star to present some of his favorite music. The ensuing free form program ranges from surf music, doo-wop, jazz, the blues, to the works of Pierre Boulez. The song selection is very informative for any fan of Zappa’s music, as one can easily trace the influence of all these styles on his own creative output, be it the cheesy harmonies of 1950s pop songs or the intricate...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Interview and Music, Popular Music, Frank Zappa
A live recording of the complete experimental opera, “That Morning Thing” by Robert Ashley, possibly from the Dec. 8, 1969 performance at Mills College. Composed in 1967 this was Ashley’s second foray into the realm of avant-garde musical theater, and is a work for five principal voices, eight dancers, women's chorus and tape. The mainstream media’s reaction, as well as that of some in the audience, was notably mixed, however rather than being a commentary on the ultimate quality of the...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Music, Opera, Music Theatre, Robert Ashley
Each year for some time the music department at the University of California Davis invited a well-known musician to lecture for a term on material of his own choice. John Cage accepted such an appointment for Fall, 1969. In addition to his class, John Cage scheduled a one-day musical exposition for November 21, 1969, centering around the music of Erik Satie. It was to be called Godamusicday, a title which, because of a university policy banning obscene language, was ultimately rejected....
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Topics: Avantgarde, 20th Century Classical
Source: Other Minds
A live broadcast of a concert of traditional Chinese music performed by the Flowing Stream Ensemble, given at Hertz Hall on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley on March 9, 1977. Ensemble director and performer, Betty Wong, introduces the pieces and provides some background information about the music and the instruments used to perform it.
Topics: KPFA-FM, Music, World Music, Flowing Stream Ensemble
La Monte Young is an American composer living in New York, where he is associated with the group of composers who have derived a good deal of their impetus from the music and personality of John Cage. He was a student at the University of California, where much of his early music was performed in the late 1950s. Since that time he has gone on to fame as a progenitor of the minimalist music movement. His hypnotic electronic and electric keyboard works, ranging from drones to blues and from equal...
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Topics: Avantgarde, Experimental, 20th Century Classical, Minimalism
Source: Other Minds
From a program first broadcast on Jan. 2, 1980, Matthew Holdreith introduces several settings of Johann Sebastian Bach's “Ricercar a 6.” The work, part of Bach’s 1747 collection of canons and fugues “Das Musikalische Opfer” or “The Musical Offering,” was a response to a challenge by Frederick the Great of Prussia, who gave Bach a series of notes and asked him to improvise a six voiced fugue based on this “royal theme.” Although unable to produce more than a three voiced fugue...
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Topics: Classical Music, Interview, KPFA-FM, Music
Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978) was an American folk and blues singer-songwriter who is best known for her song ?Little Boxes? that was made popular by Pete Seeger. Born in San Francisco to Jewish socialist immigrants, Reynolds married a communist carpenter and remained political active throughout her entire life. In this concert, recorded in San Francisco and broadcast live by KPFA-FM, Reynolds plays a selection of her songs, interspersed with brief comments and explanatory notes.
Topics: Folk music, Music, American Music, KPFA-FM
Originally broadcast in October of 1972 this recording represented the American premiere of an hour-long work by the British electro-acoustic composer, Trevor Wishart. The piece “Machine: An Electronically Preserved Dream,” was completed in 1971 and was the first major composition by Wishart. It was performed at the International Carnival of Electronic Sound series in London and was eventually released in 1973. Made without any traditional musical instruments, the work is a creative mixture...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Music, Electro-Acoustic, Electronic, Trevor Wishart
On January 28, 1992, John Cage delivered a series of lectures at Stanford University in Palo Alto California in early 1992, just a few months before his death. Representing his last major writing, “Overpopulation and Art” is a mesostic poem that covers a wide variety of Cage’s concern’s, from the implications of technology on the environment to the role of art in society. Although often remembered as a radical composer of aleatoric music, John Cage was also a extremely intelligent man,...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Lecture, Panel Discussion, Poetry, John Cage
One of the most dynamic groups in avant-garde rock music is San Francisco's own The Residents; an underground ensemble which has been composing anonymously and on tape since 1970. KPFA celebrates a decade of music by The Residents with this special three hour extravaganza hosted by Charles Amirkhanian and featuring Snakefinger (frequent guest artist with The Residents) and Jay Clem (promotion director for the group's label, Ralph Records). Tonight we’ll hear selections from the complete music...
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Topics: KPFA-FM, Ode to Gravity series, Interview and Music, Popular Music, The Residents
Recorded and broadcast live by KPFA on March 8, 1978, this is a concert of court music from Central Java, performed on a gamelan in Hertz Hall on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley. The word gamelan refers to the whole set of instruments collectively. Unlike the Western orchestra, the gamelan consists of the instruments only, and not the players. Each gamelan, and often large gongs as well, is given a name and treated with great reverence. The name of this gamelan is Khyai...
Topics: KPFA-FM, World Music, Gamelan Music, Indonesia
Steve Reich, noted musician and contemporary composer, plays his music and talks about his sounds and dimensions with Joanna Brouk. The program begins with Reich’s piece “Six Pianos”, and after listening to it he describes how his experience as a percussionist influenced this composition. The next piece played is “Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ” which is also in the minimalist style, and features the delicate vocals of three women blended with an instrumental...
Topics: KPFA-FM, Ode to Gravity series, Interview and Music, New Music, Minimalism
The last of three programs on the extraordinary career of George Antheil, hosted by Charles Amirkhanian. This programs covers the years 1948 to 1959. This program includes an interview with Benjamin Lees. This recording contains the only known extant recording of the voice of Antheil along with performances of his “McKonkey's Ferry Overture,” “Serenade No. 1 for Strings,” “Eight Shelley Fragments,” and the opera “The Wish.”
Topics: George Antheil, opera, music, 20th century classical, documentary
1. A recording of the morning composer presentations with Ricardo Dal Farra on August 17, 1989 in Telluride, Colorado during the 1989 Composer to Composer Festival. After four minutes of hearing the group chat and get settled in, Charles Amirkhanian begins by asking about the rehearsals from the pervious night, the problems with Trimpin’s installations, plans for the upcoming concert, and plans for the lunch picnic with the composers. He then introduces Ricardo Dal Farra. Dal Farra talks...
Topics: Lecture and Panel discussion, Electro-acoustic music, Electronic music, Synthesizer music, Sampling...