The Other Minds Ensemble perform Alvin Lucier's composition Island (1998) at the Other Minds Music Festival in 1999 at Cowell Theater in San Francisco. The Other Minds Ensemble George Brooks, soprano saxophone Larry London, clarinet Robin May, English horn Susan Radcliff, trumpet Toyoji Tomita, trombone The presentation of this work was made possible with the support of Stephen Weaver. Islands, for wind instruments and amplified snare drums, is the latest in a series of works by Alvin Lucier that explore the spatial characteristics of sound waves in enclosed spaces. In Directions of Sounds from the Bridge (1978), flashlights deployed around a cello are activated by sounds which flow out of the instrument in different directions for different frequencies; in Self-Portrait (1989) air flow from the lip of a flute causes the blades of a wind anemometer to spin at various speeds. In Islands sound waves from five wind instruments cause a collection of snare drums, scattered throughout the room, to resonate and sound. As the sounds from the instruments flow out into the space, the drums react singly and in combinations, determined by pitch, loudness, directivity of the wave-flow and the architecture of the room. Islands, completed in November of 1998, was written for the United Berlin Ensemble and is dedicated to Christian Wolff. It was first performed on February 2nd, 1999, at the Schauspielhaus, Berlin, on the "Woher-wohin? Komponieren heute" series. - Alvin Lucier Author: Alvin Lucier Source: Other Minds Recorded by: Other Minds Collection: Other Minds Archive Categories: Avantgarde; 20th Century Classical Recording Run Time: 00:35:57 Downloads: 36 [Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial] Annea Lockwood and Thomas Buckner performance at Other Minds 8, 2002 March 09, 2002 Annea Lockwood performs two pieces at the Other Minds Music Festival 8 in San Francisco California. Annea Lockwood and Thomas Buckner: Duende (1997) Thomas Buckner, baritone; Annea Lockwood, tape Annea had this to say about Duende: "Duende was commissioned by Thomas Buckner, with whom I have collaborated for several years, composing two other works for him, Night and Fog and The Angle of Repose. This is the most collaborative of the three works, and draws on the remarkable and expressive array of sounds which he has evolved over years of improvisational work, a form of personal vocabulary. From this vocabulary I selected sounds which remind me of certain vocal transformations I have heard in recordings of shamanic ceremonies. In such singing, changes in the voice mirror and also help to bring about changes in the singer's mind and awareness. Within an improvisational framework, Thomas Buckner explores the possibility of change of state through such transformations, moving through three stages: preparation, a first flight, and a final flight in which he moves beyond the self he knows. Thus Duende is not a prepared, performed work, but a vehicle for experience. He is partnered by a tape drawn from the sounds of the cuica (an African and South American instrument), a large glass gong and other glass sounds, wind, a Cameroonian rattle, a kea (New Zealand mountain parrot), and a bullroarer; our thanks to Tom Hamilton for his assistance in making the tape. Federico Garcia Lorca, for whom duende was a fundamental, essential quality, said 'The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, "The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, form the soles of the feet.' Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation." And, "We have said that the duende loves the rim of the wound, and that he draws near places where forms fuse together into a yearning superior to their visible expression." - Annea Lockwood Annea Lockwood: Immersion, for marimba, quartz bowl gong in F, and two tamtams (1998) The Other Minds Ensemble (William Winant and Ches Smith, percussion) This quiet and dramatic work is based on a continuous four-mallet, then eight-mallet roll on the marimba, colored by sound from a quartz bowl gong tuned in F. The bowl gong sits on the keys of the marimba, setting up beat frequencies which are gently amplified and provide a haunting atmospheric effect. The second player employs two tam-tams, one of which is "prepared" with hanging ping pong balls and other objects, which vibrate gently when excited. Both the tam-tams are bowed as well. Immersion was composed for keyboard percussionist Dominic Donato. - Annea Lockwood Author: Annea Lockwood Other Minds Ensemble