City of Water (1994) With Concha Jerez. A sonic visit to the Alhambra—palace of the Moorish kings in Granada, Spain and one of the most magnificent creations of Islamic architecture (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). Traveling the monument's halls and courtyards, as well as the adjacent gardens with its fountains and streams, the artist/producers record the sonorities of the water, the voices of tour guides and visitors, and some of the Arabic texts and epigraphic poetry that can be found along the garden paths. Yet this serene and beautiful work is not simply another version of "acoustic tourism." Rather, it attempts a sonic rebuilding of the monument, reminiscent of its patterned mosaics. [Listen]

JOSE IGES (Madrid, Spain) is an industrial engineer and a composer. A former member of the Computer Science Seminary (University of Madrid) and of the performance group, ELENFANTE, Iges' compositional activities have been closely linked to radio since the late 1970s. He is the producer of the audio and radio art series Ars Sonora at RNE, Spanish National Radio.

CONCHA JEREZ (Madrid, Spain) is an intermedia artist whose visual installations and sound and visual spaces have been presented in individual exhibitions and in group shows throughout Western Europe, in Japan, Mexico, and in the U.S. Some of her art works are part of the permanent collections of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, and the Modernen Kunstmuseum of Norrkoping, Sweden. top

KRS-ONE: Philosopher (1989) A hip-hop style music documentary about Kris Parker, widely known as Blastmaster KRS-ONE. Parker has followed an arduous path to musical stardom. From his decision to leave home at the age of thirteen to pursue a musical career, to his struggles as a homeless teen on the New York streets and the tragic death of his partner DJ Scott La Rock, KRS-ONE has weathered the scene to become one of hip hop's most powerful and original voices. KRS-ONE: Philosopher is a vibrant portrait of a musician who is challenging the bad boy image of the current hip-hop scene by advocating education and intelligence. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

Passage (1991) A collage that focuses on the migration of black Americans from the South to the North. Passage examines the migration's physical, metaphysical, psychological, and social aspects and their effects on black communities and the nation as a whole. Stories, music, the voices of elders, excerpts from old newsreels, country blues and urban jazz, the sounds of rural America and of metropolitan areas, poetry, and dramatic skits make this an entertaining and informative work. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

White for a Weekend (1991) A comedy drama, speculating on what being white could mean to a non-white. The story follows the misadventures of Bobby Burnett, a young black sales representative who becomes a winning contestant in the bizarre game show, "White for a Weekend." More than simply a revamped reversal of "Black Like Me," the work touches on social, economic, cultural, and sexual myths, and the realities of contemporary race relations. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

HOMER JACKSON (Philadelphia, PA) is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in teaching and social service. He uses images, sounds, text, live performance, video, audience participation and found objects to tell stories and to teach. His work includes multi-media music performance works such as The Three Willies, Yacub: Mad Scientist or Genius, Affirmative Actions, Blues & The Naked Truth, the live planetarium performance Dogon PM, sound/radio theater works such as Passage, White for A Weekend, The Perfect Pitch and multimedia installations such as Can’t Trust a Big Butt & A Smile: Rethinking the Legend of Mami Wota, Why Malcolm Had To Read and High Flying.

A BFA graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art Jackson holds a MFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art. He has performed, produced, presented or exhibited works at New American Radio, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Nexus Gallery, Moore College of Art, Yellow Springs Institute, the Painted Bride Arts Center, Taller Puertorriqueno and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia; at Hallwalls Arts Center in Buffalo, Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, WGBH FM in Boston, Smithsonian Institute Traveling Exhibition, Art Center/South Florida in Miami Beach, Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, the Kitchen, Art In General and Aaron Davis Hall in New York City and Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington. His work has received the generous support the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, The Funding Exchange, Art Matters, and Franklin Furnace Fund For Performance Art among others.. Jackson currently serves as the publisher and editor of the artists’ newsletter, Shine: Conversations Between Artists. top

Piano Problems (1988) With producer Kaye Mortley. At age forty Johnson, already a respected music critic and recognized "minimal" composer, discovered his true passion: counting. Since that moment, he has composed only music that operates with logical and predictable sequences. His radio plays for German, French, and Australian radio are based on the same principle. They are examples of what might be called humorous dramatic exercises in musical counting, designed to help the listener understand the inner logic of musical structure. "Problem 4: Suppose that a series of melodies are released at a height of two octaves and are allowed to fall with gravity. Eventually they begin to pile up at ground level, just like sand, or apples, or anything else would. What would the pile sound like after fifteen melodies have fallen? Piano Problems was produced at Radio France for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Born in Greely, Colorado, TOM JOHNSON lived and worked in New York City until 1983. A student of Elliot Carter and Morton Feldman, his musical work and his music criticism, which was published weekly in the Village Voice, established him firmly in the contemporary/ new music world. Johnson moved to Paris in l983, where he continues to write music, and where he also composes for radio. top

Juno, the Universal Power Chile (1995) Juno, the "Universal Pioneer Chile" travels through space in her soul-saucer, The Sassy Sarah, to battle the evil Dr. Ranzeck's Galaxy Colonization Plan. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

JAKE-ANN JONES (New York, NY) is a performer/writer, whose credits include the mixed media play Eclipse in Bottomsville; an acting role in Spike Lee's film, Malcolm X; and afro-funky performance evenings of cabaret, music, and poetry at Dixon Place, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and other New York City venues, which she co-produced and co-curated. JONES is a 1993-94 resident artist at Mabou Mines. top

Discardia #1 (1992) The first section of The Discardia Report—a suite of works for radio which use the voice and spoken word as the vehicle for the exploration of the human condition and the struggle of individuals to find meaning in their lives. Discardia #1 uses the voice of Heather Ehlers along with sound effects and electro-acoustic sounds to create an amorphous, ever-changing soundscape within which the voice can reside. The primary dramatic element here is the contrast between the world of reason and a world of uncertainty, in which meaning is as fluid as the soundscape in which it occurs.

Glancing Blows (1989) A work that explores the difference between language as a generator of images and language as pure sound material. The piece creates an audio world of its own—spaces into and out of which its characters move, trying to express themselves while at the same time they try to be a part of an audio environment that is always changing. In Glancing Blows nothing is stable, everything is in a state of flux. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

Imaginary Portraits #1 and #2 (1990) The first parts of a trilogy of works for radio that use a single voice as the sole source for the entire composition. Imaginary Portrait #1 is made entirely from the voice of vocalist Jill Burton. #2 is made from the voice of actor Rob Donaldson. In both, the source recordings are mixed, edited, processed, and manipulated using sampling techniques to construct the final pieces. Spatial placement both in the stereo field and in changing foreground-background relationships adds a sense of motion to these pieces.

The WNYC Project and Imaginary Portrait #1 (1989) In 1988 composer and audio artist Kevin Jones did an on-air interview with WNYC's Lucy Sumner in which they discussed Jones's text-sound compositions. The interview was recorded. Jones subsequently cut it up, processed and repeated parts of it and produced a piece that is a Jones composition, that talks about Jones's compositions and that demonstrates how Jones makes a composition.

KEVIN JONES (Brooklyn, NY) studied composition at the New England Conservatory for Music in Boston, and computer music at M.I.T. in Cambridge. He now lives and works in New York City, where he collaborates on large scale music/dance/ theater works with choreographer Theresa Reeves and pursues his own writing, installation work and compositions. top

Aunt Aida's Hand (1989) With performer/ composer Alva Rogers. Stories about two black women trying to piece together family legends and their cultural history. Neither women have mothers. And since the history of women is largely passed down by women, they must seek out other female relatives. Aunt Aida lives on a farm in North Carolina and is struggling to hold onto her house -- the repository of her family history -- though day by day she is losing her memory. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

Ethnic Cleansing (1993) A surreal satire that begins as a fireside chat but quickly leaps out of the frame to become real. It addresses the question: What would happen if an ethnic-racial "cleansing movement" took hold in America? First there's a racial mix-up in a local sperm bank -- then there's a full-scale civil war. With an exciting cast of young New York performers; sound design and original music by hip-hop composer Guido Osorio. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

Stained (1991) With performer/composer Alva Rogers. A fury of passion, then a sudden loss and all that's left is the music. A woman is haunted by music she associates with a lover who disappeared without explanation at the height of their love affair. The piece looks at how much our memory and emotions are linked with music. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

LISA JONES (Brooklyn, NY) is a playwright, journalist, and author. She won a Bessie Award for the stage adaptation of Stained, her musical-theater collaboration with Alva Rogers, most recently produced at the African American Art Festival in June 1995. Her play Combination Skin, which was premiered at the Company One Theater in Hartford, Connecticut in 1992, has been staged around the country. Her work is included in a new anthology of contemporary plays by women of color to be published by Routledge Press in early 1996. Jones contributes to the Village Voice, Essence, and Vibe. A collection of her essays, Bulletproof Diva: Tales of Race, Sex, and Hair, was published by Doubleday.

ALVA ROGERS (Brooklyn, NY) Collaborated on Aunt Aida's Hand and Stained. Rogers is a writer/performer, who has been active in the downtown New York City scene since 1986. Called New York's "Down Diva" by the Village Voice, Rogers addresses the issues of race and gender with uncanny wit and directness, and draws upon musical styles ranging from jazz to gospel, blues to funk. The New York Times has described her as " . . . a natural mimic, brilliantly funny and acidic in her portrayals." She has performed at many of New York's major venues, including P.S. 122, The Kitchen, The Knitting Factory, and Central Park's Summer Stage series. She recently received an M.F.A. as a book writer/lyricist in musical theater writing from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is a recipient of the Dance Theatre Workshop New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award (1995) as co-creator of the stage adaptation of Stained. top

Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women (1993) With composer/ performer Idris Ackamoor. Based on the powerful one-woman performance Jones toured in 1991-92. The story follows the real-life adventures and misadventures of an artist hired by the California Arts Council to teach "aerobics" in San Francisco's city jail. While teaching there she meets and hears the horrifying, dangerous, and sometimes profoundly touching stories of the incarcerated women. Jones' portrayal is an intense and moving tour-de-force. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

RHODESSA JONES (San Francisco, CA) is an actress, singer, and writer who has been active in San Francisco's performing arts community for many years. Recent performances include The Mother of Three Sons with choreography and staging by Bill T. Jones, libretto by Ann T. Green and music by Leroy Jenkins (Grand Opera, Houston, TX, 1992); and Reality is Just Outside the Window (Theater Artaud, San Francisco, 1992). In 1990 Jones founded The Media Project, a program to promote incarcerated women's self-awareness and self-esteem through the creation and production of theater pieces based on their personal histories.

IDRIS ACKAMOOR (San Francisco, CA) is a composer and performer whose work is rooted in the artistic principles embodied in the music, theater, and dance he encountered in his travels to Africa in the 1970s. His works include collaborations with choreographer Bill T. Jones, playwright Ed Bullen, musician Don Moye and performer Rhodessa Jones. Ackamoor has toured the Uniited States, Europe and Japan for the last twelve years. He recently premiered a collaboration with Rhodessa Jones, Ed Bullen, and rock musician/composer Vernon Reid, called Emergency Report, which is based on materials derived from the life stories of participating at-risk inner city youth. top

Formula I—the Art of Speed (1995) (12:40) A radiophonic composition that deals with speed in the twentieth century. The piece makes a connection between the famous manifesto of the Italian futurists, which ranks the beauty of a modern race car higher than the classical beauty of the "winged victory of Samothrace," and our own time with its continuing obsession with cars and speed. Formula I was produced for the series Kunstradio at ORF, Austria, in 1994. (#41,95 with Gautier and Zwedberg)

Klavierabtasten (1992) An intimate, contemplative sound composition developed during a workshop at Austrian radio (ORF) in 1990. "I entered the studio, closed the door and looked around. Somewhere in a corner there was an old battered piano which I approached as if it were a living being. Scattered stones came to life like animals in a cage. For the third section of the work called "Skin," I tried to become as conscious of my body as possible, and the sounds evolved, as if by themselves . . . " (Jovanovic) Cut into this work are short audio art pieces by Canadian radio/audio artist Christof Migone. Taken from Migone's The Transpiring Transistor, these short works were inspired by texts from Ecrits Bruts (France 1979)—writings of the insane.

Roadside Tombstones (1970) With Enriko Josif. A powerful and moving "ritualistic commemorative service to the victims of war and to a nation in the agony of death." (Jovanovic) A drama without a plot; an oratorio; authentic literature and original music; inscriptions from roadside tombstones. [Listen]

The Prophecy From the Village of Kremna (1990) A million voices raised in protest and other sounds recorded live in Belgrade and the surrounding country, are the materials of this unusual sound composition on the 1989 90 ethnic and political uprisings in Yugoslavia. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

ARSENIJE JOVANOVIC (Belgrade, Serbia) is a former professor of dramatic arts, and the award-winning director of over 100 plays for theater, television, and radio. One of the best known radio artists in Europe, his credits include commissions from the WDR Cologne, Germany; RAI, Italy; and the ABC, Australia. Jovanovic has been awarded a prestigious PRIX ITALIA award and numerous other international prizes. top

Advertising Secrets (1991) A dynamic blend of rhythmic elements and original audio constructs—actual ad jingles, lines and phrases—commentary by and about advertisers—books on tape materials about how commercials are conceived and created—plus various out-takes from commercial productions which depict the sophisticated process (and elaborate cynicism) of the professionals involved. "My motivation is to inspect and depict some of the paradoxical aspects of media advertisement which both attract and repel me as an artist in America—a society whose entire economic well being rests solely on consumerism and the need to manufacture want." (Joyce) Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

Guns! (1989) A dense, pulsing "action song" whose verses deal with America's intimate relation ship with firearms: "The gun and the Bible carved this nation out of the wilderness," a man exclaims. A tradition unfolds that links the voices of the past as we know them through television cowboy movies and gangster films, to the modern Annie-Get Your-Gun, the business woman of the 'eighties with her handy sub-machine gun. An evolving patchwork of movie excerpts and TV ads, statements and information about guns, and certain phrases repeated like bullets. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

A Piddle Diddle Disneyland, Part 1 & 2 (1994) An edited two-part version of a special edition of the long-running "Piddle Diddle Report"—an "in depth report on current issues of substance" produced by the American Broadcasting System (ABS). This Piddle Diddle special brings us live and remote to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, where a communicastor's booth has been built high atop the slightly swaying, but structurally reliable Matterhorn. The occasion: an all-night gala to celebrate the opening of a huge parking garage just outside the park, a beautiful structure with its own exit off the freeway. From their privileged position, hosts Doug Piddle and Peter Diddle along with the Weatherman and Rex Everything (the famous but unpublishable author) draw an animated picture of the past, present, and future of this amusing amazement area.

Time Zones (1990) A radio talk-show approach to the question: how many time zones are there in the Soviet Union?

DON JOYCE (Oakland, CA) Joyce has been working in radio since 1976. He is the producer of the late night show Over The Edge, in which he and other Negativland members (Mark Hosler, Chris Grigg, David Willis, Richard Lyons) use the entire studio as an instrument to produce a weekly session of live spontaneous sound combustion. Over the last decade Negativland has developed a variety of collaborative and listener interactive ways of presenting their noise/rock/found sound/sound animation compositions, including Radio Teletours "from our house to yours—phone charges only." top

Dug-Out (1990) With original sound score by Helen Thorington. In 1984 when two dug-out canoes were unearthed on a private estate in Malone, New York, it was a very special occasion for the Mohawk Indian Nation at Akwesasne. These two artifacts preserved for 400-500 years in the mud of the Malone pond, were the oldest known artifacts linking the Mohawks to their past. Deeply moved by their excavation, and the subsequent unsuccessful effort to place the dug-outs in the Indian Museum at Akwesasne, Native American poet Maurice Kenny wrote an epic poem that serves as the textual base for this radio work. His performance evokes the past of the Mohawk Nation and its present. As history, family, ritual and nature merge in Kenny's poem, so do voices, sounds and music in the production. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

MAURICE KENNY (Saranac Lake, NY) was born in 1929 of a Seneca mother and a Canadian Mohawk father. In the 1950s, he moved from his native North Country to Brooklyn, where he first taught at the Mary Taracai School of Drama, and later co-edited the poetry journal Contact II, and became publisher of Strawberry Press. Many of his volumes of poems originated in Brooklyn, among them "Blackrobe" (1982) and "Is Summer This Bear" (1985). Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Kenny is the winner of the prestigious American Book Award, the Boston Globe Award, and the William Carlos Williams Award. He is currently living in Saranac Lake, NY. top

World Sounds (1989) A digital journey into the soundscapes of Third World countries. The opening section focuses on Kenya, moves slowly through the jungle to a small village where the ritual drums of initiation beat throughout the night, then rises with the sounds of morning to journey on to Nairobi and its urban environment. The second section focuses on transportation and the ease with which it is possible to move from one remote location to another -- from the Brazilian jungle to Hong Kong, from Hong Kong to Nepal -- the world at our fingertips, world sounds in our ears. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

Sound engineer, recordist and production consultant, CONNIE KIELTYKA (NY) has worked with an impressive number of radio producers and new music composers. Her credits include work for Tom Lopez, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, and Steve Reich as well as live remote broadcasts for WNYC-FM (New York) and the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria. In 1986 she joined the Godfrey Reggio/Phillp Glass film team as a sound location recordist for a six month worldwide film shoot of Powaqqatsi. Her radio piece World Sounds is based on sounds recorded during that trip. top

See Negron, Frances, "Third World U.S.A.: First Stop, Philadelphia." top

I Am 99 Years Old (1989) A multi-layered and multi-textured collage with two narrative strains: people's voices stating their age, from 99 years down to 1 year of age, and moving towards 99 years again; and interview excerpts that speak about the volatile dynamics of family life and relations. Though musically "fractured," this work builds to an amazingly clear and single listening experience: a sense of our shared humanity. Produced for radio station Sender Freies Berlin, Germany. [Listen]

MAYAKO KUBO (Berlin/Rome ) is a sound artist from Japan. Her radiophonic works include Mothers Children Lovers People (independent production, Germany, 1988) and Father! Song of a Lost Figure (SFB/SR, Germany, 1992). The main thrust of her work is the artistic exploration of family relations, the experience of Japanese immigrants in Europe, and a (critical) discussion of contemporary Japanese society. top

Hearing Things (1991) Uses music, interviews, and other sonic specimens in a meditation on the unheard and the unhearable. An example of unheard sound is found in the 5 Hertz chirp produced at irregular intervals by the Tappan Zee Bridge. More figuratively, there is the Foley artist, who carefully crafts "misheard" sound effects. And, on the most abstract level, there is the contingency of "musical meaning." What, for instance, is hidden in the Kreutzer Sonata that it could trigger marital rape on the part of both Tolstoy and Mahler? What in Brahms, that it could render a parking lot mugger free? And what in Easy Listening, that it could empty a 7-11 of punk teenagers? Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

RON KUIVILA (Middletown, CT) composes music and designs sound installations that revolve around the unusual homemade and home modified electronic instruments he designs. He pioneered the use of ultrasound and sound sampling in live performance. More recent pieces have explored compositional algorithms, speech synthesis and high voltage phenomena. His sound installations have worked with the same materials. For example: Radio Arcs, a sound installation commissioned by Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, includes the coordination of ninety-six stun guns. Kuivila has performed and exhibited throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. He has collaborated with other composers, artists, and choreographers, including Anthony Buxton, Rudi Burckhardt, Merce Cunningham, Hugh Davies, and Susan Foster. top

Northern Lights—Aurora Borealis (1995) (9:18) A beautiful sound-music work that reverberates with images of the North: reindeer bells, the sounds of Sami reindeer herders, a wood fire, and sounds of the forest: such as, birds, wolves . . . Close your eyes and Northern Lights will conjure up in front of your inner eye, the magical, high-altitude, many-colored, flashing luminosity known as aurora borealis. Commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE).

MIKKO LAAKSO has worked in television sound and as a sound supervisor for twenty years. Since 1981, he's been a sound designer and creator of sound effects for Special Projects at Yleisradio.

See also Toiviainen, Ilkka, "Letters From the Front." top

Tracks and Traces (1994) An exploration of 'non-linear' structure, i.e. the tangential linking of ideas and emotions through words and sounds. Each of the loosely related sound works deals in its own way with following trails, tracking things down, reassembling the past from evidence left behind. The work includes an actual recording of the producer's attempt to walk a straight line through his own suburb, a composition made from sounds taken from a tape found in the sea, and a tracing in sound of a childhood valley by means of recording the natural reverberations of steam whistles. Produced for The Listening Room, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

MICHAEL LADD was born in Berkeley, California in 1959, but grew up in the hills near Adelaide, South Australia. He studied poetry and philosophy, and in 1980 formed the poetry performance group, The Drum Poets. Ladd joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 1983 as a trainee sound engineer and has since gone on to produce features, dramas, and poetry specials. top

MOTPIKHO: mostofthepeopleIknowhaveone (1989) This project began on the producer's thirty-fourth birthday and involved the recording of his travels to and from work for thiry-four days. Reversing the customary function of the "walkman," Lander absorbed the sounds of his environment, while others around him used it as a playback system to mask those sound. Later all the journeys were mixed down into a stereo composition. In Lander's own words, MOTPIKHO is about "marking time, the compression of experience, the documentation of a specific sonic environment, and the obsession with data collection and presentation. It is also about the noisy business of getting where we're going."

Talking to a Loudspeaker (1989) Recorded in the comfort of the artist's own home, the work offers a humorous challenge to traditional notions of radio production. In a series of short sketches, Lander pokes fun at the radio call-in show; the place of music in broadcasting; radio's "commercial" values; balance in news reporting; and the notion of "broadcast quality." A light-hearted work that reflects the artist's love hate relationship with the medium, Talking to a Loudspeaker also asks important questions about the listener's relationship to radio. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

Talking to a Loudspeaker, Part 2 (1991) Further explores the contradictions inherent in our attitudes as radio listeners and producers. The work is made up of short vignettes that investigate the saturation of the airwaves; state regulations; audience research tactics, the question of objective information; the disembodied voice; and access to the airwaves. While humorous in its approach to radio, Talking To A Loudspeaker, Part 2 also comprises a critique of the radio we hear and seriously contemplates a radio we might like to hear. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

DAN LANDER (Toronto, Canada) received his education at Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design. Since then, he has become one of Canada's leading audio/radio artists and critics. His audio work has been heard in Europe, the U.S., New Zealand, and throughout Canada. Lander has had his own radio/audio art show on CKLN-FM, Toronto, and has involved himself with such innovative ventures as "Radia"—a month-long radio project broadcast from the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta (1989). Lander is the co-editor of an anthology on the use of sound by visual artists, Sound by Artists. top

See Huhtamaki, Harri, "Calewalayana." top

See Earwax Productions, "Virtual Paradise -- The Reality Tape." top

Navigation (1994-95) (13:25) A musical navigation/travel notebook/log that leads the listener through different areas of Paris. In the words of the artist: "Grope one's way along, quietly. To listen. To discover a landscape. To approach. Hear it disappear and find oneself alone. And then let oneself be snatched by the swell. And then let oneself be invaded by voices. And then silence. Sensations engulfed by the wind." Produced for Atelier de Creation Radiophonique, Radio France.

CECILE LE PRADO Biography unavailable. top

A Gift of Ghosts (1990) A real fantasy of fantastic reality realized through the ever growing minds-souls-spirits-world beat-sound of Philadelphia. This program grew out of fifteen years of documenting performance poetry. It's a vibrant, energetic "jam session" of poets who perform their work musically— using their voices, other instruments, and various acoustically and electronically generated sounds to complement and dramatize the text of their poetry. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

Postcards from the Edge of the Road (1993) Explores the concept of international "audio postcards" as a series of mini poetry-prose-music sound compositions. Recorded with poets and musicians who are native or long time residents of the areas described. The work features postcards from Columbus, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Montreal, Canada; Zurich, Switzerland; Tijuana, Mexico; San Rafael and Los Angeles, California; and Yokahama, Japan. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

ELLIOT LEVIN (Philadelphia, PA) studied music and creative writing at the University of Oregon. Additional studies followed with Michael Guerra, jazz great Cecil Taylor, and flutist Claire Pollin. Levin has performed original poetry and music throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe. He has also performed with such diverse ensembles as Cecil Taylor's Unit Core Group. Gunter Hampel's Big Band, Bill Haley's Comets, and Iltar. top

See Lindberg, Magnus, "Faust." top

Dance with a Stone (1990) The first part in a tri-part sound composition called "Soundings of a Mountain." As the title suggests, all the sound elements of which this work is composed were recorded during a climb with mountaineers Andrej Debec and Igor Likar of the Kogel, a mountain in the Slovene Alps in 1990: gravel under the climbers' feet . . . breathing . . . the climbers' equipment. They are shaped into a sound-music composition that evokes a sense of the "rhythm" of the mountain itself.

IGOR LIKAR (Slovenia) Biography unavailable. top

Faust (1985-86) With Juha Siltanen, and Juhani Liimatainen of Finland. A radiophonic composition commissioned by Finnish National Radio in 1985, winner of the prestigious PRIX ITALIA Award for Music the following year. The work is presented in Finnish and English. Faust is about the process of searching for beauty in the impossible. The story is about a ship and its departure and arrival at "the burning city built in the sea." Soundscapes, improvisational music, and a stream-of-consciousness text shape a kind of play without a plot, its polished surfaces concealing an astonishing, enigmatic world.

MAGNUS LINDBERG (Helsinki, Finland) studied composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki; with Vinko Globokar in Paris. He also attended Franco Donatoni's master classes in Siena. His work KRAFT received the prestigious Nordic Music Prize in 1987.

Collaborators:

JUHANI LIIMATAINEN (Helsinki, Finland) has worked with sound since the mid-seventies. He has worked internationally with live-electronic music groups, performance art groups, and in opera and ballet productions as a sound engineer and a teacher. For many years he's been on the staff at Yleisradio, Finland, where his realizations have won him several international awards, including two PRIX ITALIA's (1986 and '88).

JUHA SILTANEN (Helsinki, Finland) is a playwright and librettist whose work comprises numerous musical productions, film scripts, and essays. He has also directed many radio programs and translated several productions into Finnish. top

Eating in Tongues (1992) With Nancy Steadman. An audio dinner that plays with the juncture of food, language, and sexuality on the tip of the tongue, where words are savored as if they were succulent chicken breasts. A four-course meal devoured blindfolded, the secrets of a recipe, the lonesome twang of a twisted tongue, and a recurring rhyme of edible body parts give the work a resistant playful quality reminiscent of a coyly al dente pasta: firm at the center, but tender.

JULIA LOKTEV (New York, NY) is a Russian-born radio artist, whose home is now Loveland, Colorado. Among her recent creative fixations are carnal architecture, obnoxious children, and food. Locktev was active at CKUT (Montreal), where she produced Voiceage, a one-hour collage on old age, and a half-hour work with a group of twelve-year-olds, dadababies. Since she has traveled extensively through the former Soviet Union and attended film school at New York University in New York City.

NANCY STEADMAN (Montreal, Canada) grew up in a small prairie city in Canada, the daughter of a proprietor of a number of Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. A degree in psychology compelled her to study dance with a variety of companies in Canada, which led to her working as a private movement instructor—particularly with musicians, which piqued an interest in radio that lead to her working with Montreal community radio. top

Piled High (1989) (2:20) A woman lives in her neighborhood dumpster, where she contemplates the usefulness of the things discarded by others and philosophizes for us: "So you see, if things get too rough for you, you find a dumpster. You be alright."

MEREDITH LUDWIG (Nashville, TN) is an actress, writer, and radio producer. She makes her living as a production assistant for commercial television. top

See Madsen, Virginia, "Cantata of Fire." top

Cantata of Fire (1994) With Tony MacGregor. About the standoff between FBI agents and members of David Koresh's cult in Waco, Texas, 1993. The work is a song of tragedy that begins with guns—with cult members invisible behind the walls of their compound, all communication by telephone and the command center for the FBI agents in distant Washington—with the compound surrounded by loudspeakers blasting out a sonic assault that seemed to echo the collapse of the walls of Jericho. . . Incorporating fragments of reportage and survivor accounts, the work is a poetic speculation on states of mind, on sound as a weapon and the voice of God. Produced for The Listening Room, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Taken by Speed, Parts 1 and 2 (1990) (abridged) With Andrew McLennan. Takes you to The Listening Room studios at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, where host Andrew McLennan and producer Virginia Madsen composed an extraordinary three-hour program on the ideas of French architect, strategist, and philosopher of speed, Paul Virilio. Virilio's book, The Aesthetics of Disappearance is about speed-space: the collapsing of physical dimensions, the world disappearing before its image. It warns us that we're going too fast, so fast that we're losing consciousness. In Taken by Speed, Paul Virilio in Paris, philosopher Sylvere Lotringer in New York, and radio maker Virginia Madsen in Sydney come together via satellite. They conduct a three-way conversation in French and English in electronic space—the space Virilio calls speed-space. An outstanding radio art documentary.

VIRGINIA MADSEN (Sydney, Australia) is an independent radio producer, sound designer and writer. She has created a number of significant works for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and her work has been broadcast in the U.S., France, Denmark, and Sweden. Madsen has taught radio at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she is currently doing doctoral studies. She is also involved in writing and sound design for installation and performance.

Collaborators:

TONY MACGREGOR (Sydney, Australia) Collaborated on Cantata of Fire. MacGregor has a background in experimental theater, and has worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio since 1984, primarily with the ABC arts unit, The Listening Room. MacGregor frequently works in collaboration with artists on projects that include theatrical performance and gallery or site specific installation. The co-founder of the Pacific region audio arts festival, SoundCulture, he received a fellowship from the Australia Council to work in Paris for four months in 1994.

ANDREW MCLENNAN Collaborated on "Taken By Speed, Parts 1 & 2." (see McLennan, Andrew) top

Building from Scratch (1991) (14:00) An audio art work with a simple fictional pre-text: the discovery of a letter written in a foreign language and hidden in an unfamiliar house. A young girl narrator provides directions for finding it. Parallel to this fictional information are several linguistic explorations of the male-female/female-male relationship. Instructions, descriptions, arguments, songs, and phone calls are combined with electronic, musical, and ambient sounds to present alternative views of the relationship and the struggles that define it. The sonic experience is not fixed in a definitive narrative or ideology, but remains fluid, multi valent and evasive.

Dizzy, Not Numb (1995) An audio art work that explores the sensorial body. Utilizing four original texts on breath, heat, bulk, and scent, several other linguistic layers or interpretive shells were constructed by asking several people to converse or improvise on the given themes. The sounds of bodies in motion, in space, and in repose interact with these texts.

Drifters (1998) by Lou Mallozzi. Drifters is an attempt to find ways for both language and place to drift: different representations of language drift among each other - from stories in fragments to phrases to phonemes, from real stories to re-creations and back. These languages also drift among different sonic locations, which also drift among themselves - from a dripping cavern to an airport to the ocean. Eavesdropping, or the comments on eavesdropping, become the linchpins for the various sections, eavesdropping being a surreptitious drifting in and out of someone else's narrative space, as their sounds drift in and out of the eavesdropper's acoustic space. [Listen]

Lingua Franca (1992) A rich playful composition on language and communication that exploits a variety of language combinations to comment on the impossibility of complete communication and to explore the possibilities of language-as-material. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

New World del Vecchio (1992) A work about the blurry line between exploration and exploitation, and about the interaction of history, memory, and fiction. Through interwoven narratives—the first voyage of Columbus to the Caribbean, Leonardo Da Vinci's anatomical dissection of a 100-year-old man, and stories about immigrating Italian peasant workers—this piece investigates the various motives and dreams behind the quests for "new worlds." Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

LOU MALLOZZI (Chicago, IL) is a performance, audio, and installation artist. Much of his work explores the methods by which men define the world and impose that definition on women and children. Mallozzi is a recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Artist's Fellowship and has performed extensively in Chicago. He teaches interdisciplinary arts and sound at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and is a founding member of the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. top

Stop Talk (1990) Old arias, scratched symphonies, pop ballads, cut-up verses, disco beats, children's stories, and numerous other vocal and musical fragments, mixed and manipulated into a lyrical composition on multiple turntables and a 16-track tape recorder. Subliminal narratives flicker into existence only to dissolve instantly, then reform like micro worlds momentarily glimpsed and lost. "I want to trigger the mechanisms of memory," Marclay says, "to bring to the surface what has been deposited in our collective and personal memories. I don't want to impose a single reading but to involve each listener in the narrative process. The work is a reaction to the overflow of sound contributed daily by the media. In this saturated aural environment, I don't ask myself what more to add, but rather, what to do with it. " Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY (New York City, NY) Christian Marclay is a visual artist and composer whose innovative work explores the juxtaposition between sound recording, photography, video and film. Born in California and raised in Geneva, Switzerland, he studied sculpture at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and Cooper Union in New York. As performer and sound artist Marclay has been experimenting, composing and performing with phonograph records and turntables since 1979 to create his unique "theater of found sound." He has collaborated with musicians such as John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay, and Sonic Youth among many others. A dadaist DJ and filmmaker his installations and video/film collages display provocative musical and visual landscapes and have been included in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art New York, Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou Paris, Kunsthaus Zurich, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Marclay is a professor of video collage and sound at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he conducts an intensive summer seminar. top

See Apple, Jackie, "Frenzy in the Night"; and "Redefining Democracy in America, Parts 1, 2, & 3: Episodes in Black and White"; and "Part 6: A Leap of Faith." top

Joe Celli's Portrait (1991) (9:20) A work for avant-garde oboist Joseph Celli that reflects in content and form on the composer/ performer's musical philosophy. Composed from sampled interview excerpts, word fragments, and parts of letters. (#25,95 with Bassenge and Whitehead)

Tracing the Radio Landscape (1992) A sound portrait based on "snapshots" of living room environments that include a radio as an active sound element. The first layer of the work is made up of these recordings. The second layer is constructed from a selection of the same sounds, but manipulated and processed by computer. The third layer, representing the interpretative stage of the work, includes a text developed in collaboration with writer Robert Gregory. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

GUSTAVO MATAMOROS (Miami, Florida) is an experimental composer, performer, and sound installation artist, and the founder of the composer based group PUNTO. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1957, where he developed an interest in music through experimentation with short-wave radios and tape recorders, he has lived in the U.S. since 1979. His music and sound installations have been featured at The Latin American Music Festival and the III Encuentro de la Nueva Musica Electronica '91 in Caracas; the XV New Music Forum in Mexico City; and at numerous venues in the U.S. and Europe. Since 1989 he has been director of the South Florida Composer's Alliance and artistic director of the Subtropics New Music Festival in Miami. He co-directed the WORD(S)OUND festival of text-based sound works and poetry for the 19th Biennial of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is the producer of FISHTANK Radio Journal of New and Experimental Music on WLRN in Miami. top

Five Minutes Before (1943) (5:00) A strikingly simple, playful, electro acoustic work built from the sounds of a ticking alarm clock. The theme: Human beings tend to expect that significant events will interrupt the dull flow of their lives and somehow give meaning to them. This expectation is an illusion. Rather, it is the small, barely perceptible changes around them that probably have the most meaning—the NOTHING that seems to happen. Accordingly, it is the gradual spatial variations in an otherwise unchanged musical environment that one should listen for in Five Minutes Before. Produced for Czech Radio.

Praga 1993 (1993) (5:01) Uses characteristic sounds from Prague as its raw material—bells of the Loreto Church, the Singing Fountain, the Old Town's astronomical clock—and musical quotes from works associated with the city, such as the symphonic poems by Bedrich Smetana. Prague's ancient history and its beauty are ever present in the sounds of this evocative polyphonic work. Produced for Czech Radio.

VLASTISLAV MATOUSEK (Prague, Czech Republic) studied musical science, music theory and composition from 1977-89 and then turned his attention to non-European cultures and ethnic musical influences. His compositions range from chamber music and symphonies to children's songs and alternative rock. With the ensemble "Relaxation" he has been playing meditative Orient-inspired music since 1979. Matousek is also a music dramaturg and publicist for Czech Radio in Prague. top

See Earwax Productions, "Audiographs -- Songs From the Tenderloin," "Bloody Angle," "Virtual Paradise -- The Reality Tape," and "Wake for Tom." top

Komar and Melamid (1988) Introduces two Jewish artists who emigrated from Russia in the early seventies when emigration finally became legal. Like most Jewish-Russian emigrants of the time, they first went to live and work in Israel. Later they moved to the United States. Some critics call them clowns; others prefer the term "political artists." Produced for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

ANDREW MCLENNAN (Sydney, Australia) was a professional performer in theater and dance from 1961-71. In 1975 on a grant from the Australian Council on the Arts, he studied advanced radio drama production techniques in Europe. Since that time he has been a Senior Producer (drama and features) and producer-presenter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's experimental audio and music programs. McLennan is currently producer and founding member of The Listening Room, a program of radio performance art, audio essays and explorations in the acoustic arts.

See also Madsen, Virginia, "Taken By Speed, Parts 1 & 2." top

See Thorington, Helen, "In the Devil's Footsteps, Parts 1 & 2." top

Proposition Four (1989) A work that propels us into the year 2004, when San Francisco Bay has just been drained to create the perfect environment for a theme park. The vision of the world's most powerful private citizen, Arthur Seymour Sullivan, a man whose boundless love for amusement parks may eventually transform the entire planet into one. But before the construction begins, the people of San Francisco get ready to witness the ultimate: the recovery of the ancient Hologram of Creation from the bottom of the Bay. Finally mankind will know the secret of life. . .Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

Pruning: A Love Story (1991) Maria Esperanza, a dental hygienist and chanteuse loves Clay Balfour, the divorced father of two children and owner of a little house on 34th and Fever. And he loves her back. But as a man emotionally "in extremis" who tries to heal himself by extreme means, Clay also falls in love with something he can't define: with the ambiguity, the act of juggling all the chaotic elements of his life. Music and sound play an unusual role in this exploratory drama. They intrude upon, complement, and accompany Clay's tour of his own mind. They take on the form of reaction-connection. Events react with events, the reaction connects with other reactions involving other events . . . nuclear introspection! Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

Saturday, Late in the Twentieth Century (1990) Laura Mace Riddle is a beautiful media magnet who understands the media she controls. Ruthless, mad for power and with a fondness for clothes, cars, and private wine cellars, Laura also has ideas. And that's why the ingenious and sly Jenkins ("Jinx") Potter, in love with her since the age of thirteen, agrees to create and host a radio program, Saturday, Late in the Twentieth Century. It is, of course, to be a vehicle for her enterprises, which are the show's sponsors. . .This is only the surface of Morelock's sharp and witty play. Add a framework of ideas by Marshall McLuhan, Walter Percy, and Glenn Gould. Fill in with music, sounds, and a host of characters living and dead. And there you are: Saturday, Late in the Twentieth Century, a radio show celebrating the possible. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

Short Summer at Longhurst (1992) Four young people in search of a comedy of manners get caught up in a succession of plot conventions and verbal repartees straight out of S.N. Behrman or Philip Barry. Set on the estate of lumber baron R. George Fellows, the play follows the no nonsense Laura, slothful Tom, the skeptical and exquisitely bored Regis, and sweet little rich girl Winnie as they come to terms with their meaning as characters in a world perpetually in love and perpetually at odds with privilege. A meddlesome Chorus encourages, censures, supports, chides, and occasionally calls up the characters in the midst of the action to give unsolicited advice. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.

Sims Serenade (1992) The story of a young man and his family, an old man and his town. Harry Lyman Sims is the unofficial bard of Hallam, a town east of San Francisco with a long, deep past buried beneath a development so bright and shining and inexorable no history can be seen or heard. As Sims says, "There has come a time when fewer and fewer people can tell the difference between knowledge and news. That is the time to tell a story—about people in a place, at a certain time, trying to recover from the dislocations of life lived through the filters of expectation and regret." Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

WILLIAM MORELOCK (Minneapolis, MN) was a producer and classical music host at KWSU-FM in Pullman, Washington beginning in 1982. In 1987 he occupied the newly established position of arts programming coordinator. Incorporating features on arts and entertainment into his classical music show, Morelock developed "Bob and Bill"—a daily National Public Radio program produced by Minnesota Public Radio. top

See Pura Fe, "Cement in My Way." top

Do You Remember Jogjakarta? (1992) "The work began as fragmentary notes, impressions, sensations, jotted down during a trip to Indonesia: Jogjakarta via Djakarta. Notes born of a growing sense of frustration because I did not have a microphone to catch the strangeness, the sensuality of the sounds, beguiling on all sides." (Mortley) Do You Remember Jogjakarta? is a work of extraordinary subtlety and stimulating complexity. Its text, original music by American composer Tom Johnson, and occasional ambient sounds are a poetic tribute to Indonesia as well as a reflection on sound as a language unto itself: "There are no words for sound, only similes." (from the work) Produced for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. [Listen]

Streets—Paris/Tokyo (12:00) A bilingual "sight seeing tour" in French and English that unfolds through the recitation of street names and brief reflections by people on their favorite streets. "Rue des Anglais—Rue Bonaparte—Rue du Bordeaux—Chateau Rouge—Rue de la Cle..." Poetic and compelling. Co-commissioned by Radio France and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. [Listen]

It is the Day's, Lucy's (1994) A beautifully subtle and complex work that is both document and reflection. Recorded on St. Lucy's Day in Stockholm, Sweden, the work is about the cultural meanings of this celebration. But it is also a reflection on light and darkness, seeing and not seeing, creation and destruction, and on memory. Produced for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. [Listen]

KAYE MORTLEY (Paris, France) was born and raised in Australia. After studies in Sydney, Melbourne and Strasbourg, France, she finished her doctorate in French literature and begun working as a writer-producer for the ABC, Australia. In 1981, Mortley moved to Paris, where she built a career as a documentarian working for Radio France and radio stations around the world. Today, she is one of the most respected documentary producers in the world. Mortley's works are characterized by a transparent, elegant production style, a quiet and poetic language, and a remarkably sensual sound quality. top

Conjure (1993) (10:00) Moss's second audio piece based on a Calvino text. A dizzying stew of music and narrative— quantum physics, languages, chants, stories, scientists, banquets, distant galaxies, songs, objects, and desire. Co-commissioned by Harvestworks, Inc., the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts., and NEW AMERICAN RADIO. [Listen]

Language Linkage (1986) (10:00) An OpeRadio that revels in the playful world of the late Italian writer and Nobel Prize winner, Italo Calvino. Moss uses selected texts from Calvino's "Invisible Cities" and his own inimitable vocal and percussion style.

DAVID MOSS is one of the most innovative percussionists and vocalists in the field. His solo performances combine drums, metal, strings, plastic, wood, and microchips with astonishing vocal techniques. Moss received a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Berlin in 1991. He has remained there, using Berlin as homebase from which to tour Europe, Japan, Australia, and the U.S.

Moss has worked with amongst others Fred Frith, Shelley Hirsch, Heiner Goebbels, Christian Marclay, Carlos Santos, Hans Peter Kuhn, Henning Christiansen, Tom Guralnick, Jon Rose, Sergei Kuryokhin, Z'EV, Malcolm Goldstein, Anthony Coleman, Peter Hollinger as well as collaborated with dancers Steve Paxton, Kei Takei, & Kenneth King.
As a soloist MOSS has been featured at: The Kitchen, Public Theater, Knitting Factory, Whitney Museum, Roulette, Musica '88/92 (Strasbourg/Bonn), Walker Art Center, The Ijsbreker, New Music America ('83-88), Wien Festwochen, Taktlos Festival, PS 122, Tokyo New Music, American Center (Paris), ICA (London), Milano Poesia, Alte Opera (Frankfurt), WDR (Koln), Kunst Museum (Bern). top