Music From Other Minds

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

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

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

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

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

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

On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb plays Petr Kotik‘s percussion work The Plains of Gordium (2004) performed by Talujon on 36 tuned-drums and bells followed by an archival broadcast of works of radio art by Peter Gordon, Ned Sublette/David van Tiegem, and Maryanne Amacher.

Artists that were creating new experimental music in New York City in the 1980s. We’ll hear Rhys Chatham’s work for rock ensembles; David Linton’s created uncompromising work with an emphasis on volume and abrupt changes of direction; Nicolas Collins’s electronics-focused work with a radical political tilt; The Ordinaires, whose work is challenging without being pretentious.

The futuristic world imagined in Nicole Mitchell’s Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds is “an egalitarian society designed by people who have awakened their ability to communicate directly with the Source. Having survived the destructive forces of the Egoes Wars and the global virus, the Mandorlians have made a biological transformation after two generations of a natural lifestyle, making them permanently immune to the virus.” A live performance of Mandorla Awakening at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, plus Old Locks and Irregular Verbs by Henry Threadgill, and works by Douglas Ewart, Trio WAZ (Ed Wilkerson, Tatsu Aoki, Michael Zerang), and Irreversible Entanglements are featured in this week’s program.

On June 6 the Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund visits the Bay Area for a performance of his The Exotica Album, a sophisticated parody/tribute combining elements of “exotic lounge music” from the 1950s with early electronic modernism. In anticipation of this momentous event Ed Herrmann presents music by Øyvind Torvund along with highlights from music that inspired him, including Les Baxter and Martin Denny. In addition to excerpts from The Exotica Album, we’ll hear Torvund’s untitled school performed by Yarn/Wire; and the Norwegian ensemble asamisimasa performing Torvund’s Neon Forest Space. The program also includes selections by Hans Reichel, Bart Hopkin, Mauricio Kagel, Tom Djll, Spike Jones, and Edvard Grieg.