New podcast: Conversartion with Alvin Lucier

[RWM]

New podcast: Conversartion with Alvin Lucier

 

Link. http://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/alvin-lucier/capsula

 

A key figure in post-Cage experimental music, Lucier is one of a kind, a composer who, as James Tenney says, makes his fellow musicians find themselves “having to revise our basic (and often unconscious) assumptions – our self-evident axioms about music.” Driven by a curiosity to understand “how things work” (an innocent and unprejudiced curiosity that Tenney compares to that of a child), Lucier always seems ready to disappear within sound. It is as if his fascination with the sound phenomenon leads him to avoid interfering in its manifestation. His work is thus by no means based on self-expression or on compositional interventions. Instead, he allows sounds to “be themselves” without pushing or directing them in any way.

To coincide with his 85th birthday, SONA features a conversation with Lucier (that took place in Boston in 2014) in which he talks about the need to listen carefully, the composers that have accompanied and influenced him over the years, and the role of space and technology in his work, among many other things. Near the end, he also explains some interesting facts about “I am Sitting in a Room”, one if his best known and most enigmatic works. Many happy returns, Mr Lucier!

Background music: "Music on a Long Thin Wire 1", 1977

Timeline
00:00 Not just listening
00:46 Revealing implicit sounds
02:53 Let it happen: on "Music for Piano and Magnetic Strings"
07:18Transparency of sounds
08:35 The question of space
10:48 Music that happens in a loudspeaker
13:16 Letting the players play
14:59 "I'm Sittting in a Room"... live: something wonderful about real time
17:30 "All I wanted to do is to tell people what I was doing"

[dr lopez]

lucier is the man. such a talent and a genuinely nice, kind and funny man. I feel so lucky that I was able to learn from him in the year before his retirement! blessed

[Amen Lare]

lucier is the man. such a talent and a genuinely nice, kind and funny man. I feel so lucky that I was able to learn from him in the year before his retirement! blessed

 

We have a superstar here. So what are some of the things you've learnt from him, aside from the fact that you were assumingly sitting in a room of course

[dr lopez]

He thinks reich is overrated

[Amen Lare]

He thinks reich is overrated

 

AGREE! Please continue

[Amen Lare]

Did he have anything to say about post-African repetitions of his industrial children et al? Queensbridge rap's metaphorical language?

[aencre]

Absolute hero. Had a chance to see him perform Bird and Person Dyning amongst others last year and it was nothing short of pure magic.

[hello spiral]

Thanks for this

[realthanks]

wow! respect..

 

this is incredible

[dr lopez]

 

He thinks reich is overrated

 

AGREE! Please continue

 

 

and la monte young is a genius (but yeah we already knew that)

 

for one class we just sat and listened to the well-tuned piano for the entire time (90 min) which is only like a quarter of the piece. changed my life.

 

another time he had me try the hard part of clapping music in front of the class lol. failed miserably.

 

oh yeah and he LOVED le moutons de panurge. rzewski in general but that piece also changed my world.

https://youtu.be/xLjwoUml_2A

 

such a sick piece

[Herr Jan]

Thanks for sharing, enjoyed this.

 

https://youtu.be/xLjwoUml_2A

 

such a sick piece

 

Thanks for sharing, enjoyed this.

[dr lopez]

it's both really easy and really hard to play

[RWM]

Hey many thanks for the feedback and opinions!

 

you may also enjoy the deleted scenes we recently published

http://rwm.macba.cat/en/extra/alvin-lucier-deleted/capsula

 

Timeline
00:00 People are listening differently