ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Summary: The letter F has Martin and Georgia talking about the idea of “Formless,” Morton Feldman, Barbara Monk Feldman, Jürg Frey, Malachi Favors and Susanna Ferrar.
Array to Zed is a monthly podcast exploring experimental music by way of the alphabet. Hosts Martin Arnold, Artistic Director of ArrayMusic, and Georgia Carley chat about the ideas, procedures, composers and music that make up that nebulous beautiful thing we call “Experimental Music.”
Music Credits: Filament 1 is a recording made by Filament: who are Sachiko M (no-input sampler and tone generators) and Otomo Yoshihide (turntable and CD player) in 1998. They are also bandmates in the group Ground Zero. There is a fair amount of information about both artists and this recording on the internet.
Morton Feldman is all over the internet. The cycle The Viola in My Life was begun in July 1970 in Honolulu (composed especially for Karen Phillips, resident performer at Hawaii University) and consists of four individual compositions utilizing various instrumental combinations with the viola. We played The Viola in My Life III, for viola and piano.
Canadian composer Barbara Monk Feldman’s The Northern Shore is taken from a recording of the same name and is performed by violinist Marc Sabat, percussionist Dirk Rothbrust and Array Ensemble pianist Stephen Clarke. For more information, go to: www.moderecords.com/catalog/244_monk_feldman.html
Jürg Frey is a Swiss composer and clarinetist and member of the Wandelweiser group. For more information, see: www.wandelweiser.de/juerg-frey.html and www.anothertimbre.com/freygrizzana.html
Frey’s String Quartet no. 3 (the long piece that finishes this podcast) is performed by Montréal’s Quatuor Bozzini.
Malachi Favors was the bassist for the Art Ensemble of Chicago until his death in 2004 and took part in many other projects, all pretty well documented throughout the internet.
The excerpt from “Peace Be Unto You” (on which Favors plays all the instruments) is taken from his solo album Natural and the Spiritual (1977).
Susanna Ferrar is a woefully underrepresented on the internet. Both pieces on this podcast are taken from her wonderful album A Boy Leaves Home (1997).
Examples of Susan Ferrar’s work can be found at: https://vimeo.com/13958811 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eovrgXjBWk
