Ode to Gravity - 17.05.1972
KPFA-FM / Charles Amirkhanian
Charles Amirkhanian presents an Ode to Gravity program featuring an interview with the composer Alvin Curran (Rhode Island, 1938) from his home in Rome. Selections from this informal talk with Curran are interspersed with musical excerpts, with a special emphasis on the group Curran helped found in the mid-1960s, Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV). The composer discusses his co-founders, who included Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum and Alan Bryant, and describes the synthesis of the group, its working methods, and the situation that led to its disbandment. Curran further describes the group’s second incarnation, MEV2, and briefly discusses his own recent work, Music for Every Occasion. The program concludes with selections by David Ahlstrom and Robert Erickson, released on an Orion disc New Music for Trumpet featuring Jack Logan.
