Entrevista a Morton Feldman

 
KPFA - July, 1967
Charles Shere

This wide ranging literate, and always fascinating conversation between composer Morton Feldman (New York, 1926 - Buffalo, 1987) and writer/composer/journalist (and former KPFA music director) Charles Shere touches on the work of various composers, performers, artists, and writers. Feldman talks about ways of composing, including his own, and to what degree a composer is "on the make" with regard to his audience.

The composers Feldman and Shere discussion includes John Cage, Christian Wolff, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, and Milton Babbitt. Surprisingly, Feldman admits to admiring Babbitt, and wishes that he himself could write serialized music like Babbitt, freehand.

Conlon Nancarrow’s 80th Birthday

27.10.1992

Charles Amirkhanian

Composer Conlon Nancarrow was born on October 27, 1912 in Texaskana, Arkansas and has lived in Mexico City since 1940. Richard Friedman speaks with him by telephone about his career, and introduces recent recordings of Nancarrow’s player piano music as well as works for live performers. Friedman also talks to Gordon Mumma who describes the early career of Nancarrow during which his music was largely unappreciated until Henry Cowell and John Cage took an interest in the composer’s studies for player piano. Also heard from a CD released by Music and Arts is Two Canons for Ursula, a nearly impossible polytemporal essays played by Ursula Oppens.

Entrevista a Witold Lutoslawski

KPFA - 05.03.1991
Charles Amirkhanian

Charles Amirkhanian interviews Polish composer and conductor, Witold Lutoslawski (Warsaw, 1913, Warsaw 1994). They discuss the political changes in Poland after the end of the Cold War and how that effects the ability to criticize the government and change the way in which the arts are supported. Lutoslawski also talks about his composition, Mi-Parti, which was to be performed by the San Francisco Symphony soon after this interview. Charles then quizzes the maestro about the role of emotions in music, his opinion of some lesser known Polish composers, and the importance of silence while composing. Lutoslawski also discusses the difficulties he experienced as a composer in Poland during and soon after World War II.

Entrevista a Lou Harrison y Bill Colvig

16.02.1989

Charles Amirkhanian

Charles Amirkhanian talks with one of America's most distinguished composers, Lou Harrison (Portland, 1917 - Lafayette, 2003), whose use of gamelan instruments and interest in other musics of the world helped bring an appreciation of Pacific and Asian music to the U.S. William Colvig (1917-2000) has collaborated with Harrison for many years, building original and gamelan-inspired instruments. The program begins with Eric Marin's film documenting Harrison & Colvig, and continues with excerpts from Harrison's Piano Concerto (featuring Keith Jarrett) and "Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra." The second part of the program includes a demonstration of original instruments by Harrison & Colvig.

Entrevista a Frederic Rzewski

09.01.1989

KPFA-FM / Charles Amirkhanian 

Charles Amirkhanian interviews one of the most important American composer/performers of the past quarter century, Frederic Rzewski (Westfield, 1938), who has lived in Rome and Brussels during that period. The composer of a famous set of piano variations on Victor Jara's “El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido”, Rzewski discusses his recent music and artistic tastes. Rzewski is known for both his remarkable virtuosity as a performer, improviser and composer, and his committed involvement in left politics. How he resolves these in his work is a problem which he has concluded with thoughtfulness and inventiveness of an uncommon sort.

Entrevista a Philip Glass

Speaking of music - 13.09.1988

Charles Amirkhanian

Charles Amirkhanian interviews Philip Glass (Baltimore, 1937). They discuss his early experiences in theater, his work with Ravi Shankar, his development of minimal music, and his work with modern opera and cinema.

Entrevista a Heinz Holliger

   
KPFA - 07.1987

Charles Amirkhanian

Recorded in July of 1987, during the Cabrillo Music Festival, Charles Amirkhanian interviews oboist, composer, and conductor, Heinz Holliger (Langenthal, 1939), who was one of the main, featured participants during that year’s Festival. Amirkhanian begins by getting the Swiss musician’s impressions of the Festival, which Holliger praises for it’s relaxed atmosphere and large and sophisticated audiences, although he does voice some reservations about the concert’s acoustics and wind-flapped tent. When Amirkhanian praises the oboe player about his virtuosic performances and dramatic gestures the musician claims to be unaware of such tendencies, and replies with the utmost modesty that the oboe is not as difficult to play as some other instruments. The conversation then turns to the availability, or lack there of, of quality music written for the oboe, with Holliger saying he has explored traditional as well as avant-garde classical music in order to find enough good works with which to build his repertoire. The interview then concludes with Holliger talking briefly about his recent efforts at composing and conducting, during which he confesses a current predilection for writing neo-romantic works.

Entrevista a Terry Riley

KPFA - 11.06.1983

Charles Amirkhanian

Charles Amirkhanian interviews composer Terry Riley (Colfax, California, 1935) at his home in Northern California on June 11, 1983. Riley describes his early childhood experiences with music, his life as a student in San Francisco and his first experimentation with serial and then minimal composition. He goes into great detail about the processes that led to his seminal work "In C". Riley describes his early collaborations with others and his later tendency to work alone. Both Charles and Terry lament the fact that growing up in rural California there was little chance to be exposed to classical music. Riley also discusses his exploration of musical traditions from around the world, and in particular his affinity for Asian and Indian music and Eastern spiritual philosophies. Terry also discusses the influence that Pandit Pran Nath had on his life and music.

Entrevista a Steve Reich

KPFA - 12.05.1980

Charles Amirkhanian

Charles Amirkhanian interviews composer Steve Reich (New York, 1936) in May of 1980. The interview begins with Reich giving a brief description of his childhood experiences as a piano student and member of a school band. He then plays two recordings of his “Music for a Large Ensemble”, highlighting the ways in which he revises a piece based on his ability to rehearse it, explaining that he always prefers to work with his own ensemble, perfecting a piece, before allowing it to be played by others. Reich then continues to focus on the ability for each performer to bring their own expression to Reich’s compositions, by playing two versions of his “Violin Phase” played at different tempos. In the second half of the program, Reich touches upon his renewed interest in Orthodox Judaism, including the chanting of Hebrew scripture, and how these studies have influenced his works such as “Octet”. The program ends with Reich’s “Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards” which is slightly scaled down from the full orchestral version that may be better known to most listeners. Al in all this is a fantastic look at what it takes to make a performance of Reich’s consonant minimal music shine.

John Cage - In Celebration of his 65th Birthday

Morning Concert - 05.09.1977

Charles Amirkhanian

John Cage (Los Angeles, 1912 - New York, 1992) was undoubtedly the 20th Century composer who did the most to change the definition of the word “music”. In this program dedicated to Cage's work, which first broadcast on the composer's 65th birthday, Charles Amirkhanian presents a selection of his music which will attempt to dispel the popular notion that Cage’s philosophy of music is more interesting than the actual substance of his compositions. In the second half of the program Cage is heard answering a number of questions from a concert audience, in which he address the role of chance operations in his compositions as well as his opinions about the role of beauty in art.

Entrevista a Charles Dodge

Ode to Gravity - 03.12.1975

Charles Amirkhanian

Charles Amirkhanian interviews composer Charles Dodge (Iowa, 1942). Dodge specializes in composing computer speech music. He discusses how he composes and the pieces played on the program.

Entrevista a Claude Ballif

31.12.1973

KPFA-FM / Charles Amirkhanian  

French composer Claude Ballif (Paris, 1924 - Poissons, 2004) is interviewed in his Paris home by Charles Amirkhanian (recorded on December 31,1973). Ballif wrote music of enormous strength and clarity. Like his compatriot Messiaen, his music is the result of his deep involvement in Catholicism, a fact which he discusses in the interview. Little known in the United States at the time of this recording, Ballif had produced a highly original and very unified series of works dating back to the mid-1950s. He was a professor of music at the Reims Conservatory and the product of the exciting and turbulent post World War II years of the Western avant-garde which saw the rise of such musical metaphysicians as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. But Ballif’s vision was a wide one, and he has shown himself open to a variety of influences stemming from his contact with such widely disparate musicians as John Cage, Boris Blacher, and the quarter-tome composer Ivan Wyschnegradsky, who had worked with Ballif on microtonal theory. Although Ballif’s English is not perfect, he speaks with such intensity and purpose that his meaning is almost always clear, and as such should not prevent anyone from enjoying this interview with a remarkable composer. A selection of Ballif’s music is also heard.

Entrevista a Luc Ferrari

06.1972

Charles Amirkhanian

Host of KPFA-FM's Ode to Gravity series Charles Amirkhanian, interviewed French composer Luc Ferrari (Paris, 1929) at his home in Paris in June of 1972. The night before the interview, Ferrari had a world premiere performance of his "Monologos I" at the Opera Comique. Ferrari discusses his compositional practices and experiments in voice and tape delay that developed into Monologos I. The two also talk about Ferrari's activities since 1970 which included the writing of his book "Les réalisable et le journal d'un autobiographe", a work of text compositions and part autobiography; and creating the first sonic chapter of his "ecological" series in observation, "Allô ici la terre". The interview also takes a philosophical turn as Ferrari describes the non-existence of "truth" or any correct "system", political or otherwise, and how we must devise many different ways of going about the act of living.

Musical selections during the program include:

Monologos I [live recording]

Performers: Luc Ferrari, electronics; Elise Ross, voice

Entrevista a Alvin Curran

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.

Entrevista a Carlos Chávez

KPFA - 14.09.1971
Charles Amirkhanian

Charles Amirkhanian and George Cleve talk with noted Maestro, Carlos Chávez (Ciudad de México, 1899 - Coyoacán, 1978), just before his appearance as conductor and musical director of the 1971 Cabrillo Music Festival in Aptos California. Chavez talks about his musical careers, as a composer, conductor, and founder of the Mexico City Symphony. He tells about the time he conducted a work by Varese in Mexico in 1924. And he talks about his work as music director of the Cabrillo Music Festival. This program, recorded during a live broadcast on the afternoon of July 29, 1971 at KPFA, also includes recordings of the first movement of H.P. (1927) by Chavez, as well as a 1970 Festival recording of the composers Invención for Piano and Discovery for Orchestra.

Entrevista a Luciano Berio

KPFA - 24.07.1962
Glenn Glasow

Recorded in July of 1962, this is a fascinating interview between composer, music professor, and KPFA presenter, Glenn Glasow, and the Italian avant-garde composer Luciano Berio (Imperia, 1925 - Roma, 2003), who had just joined the faculty at Mills College. In many ways this interview highlights the difficulty that many musicologists and listeners of traditional classical music, had dealing with the new, radical concepts being promoted by the likes of Berio, Pierre Boulez, and John Cage.

The interview begins with Glasow inquiring about Berio’s previous observation that a composer’s “attitude” or “conception” about life and society could be discerned from hearing their music. Berio suggests while there may be no obvious cause and effect relationship between a particular piece of music and current trends in society, he does feel that some works can reflect certain social conditions. Glasow does not fully agree with Berio’s attempts to trace those relationships, and wonders how pure music, removed from any knowledge about the composer’s life, could be interpreted in such a manner. Glasow also quizzes Berio on the idea that contemporary composer’s feel required to shock their audience. Berio considers this tendency toward protest a somewhat American phenomenon, which while not always agreeable may be required in certain societies. He thus defends the work of John Cage, and states that is many ways America deserves, nay even requires, John Cage. A concept that Glasow seems to accept, suggesting that perhaps America has lusted after culture to such a point, that Cage was prompted to make fun of such pretensions.