Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier (born May 14, 1931) is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma. Much of his work is influenced by science and explores the physical properties of sound itself: resonance of spaces, phase interference between closely-tuned pitches, and the transmission of sound through physical media.
Alvin Lucier (born May 14, 1931) is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma. Much of his work is influenced by science and explores the physical properties of sound itself: resonance of spaces, phase interference between closely-tuned pitches, and the transmission of sound through physical media.
Eight Lectures on Experimental Music (Book)
In this brilliant collection, path-breaking figures of American experimental music discuss the meaning of their work at the turn of the twenty-first century. Presented between 1989 and 2002 at Wesleyan University, these captivating lectures provide rare insights by composers whose work has shaped our understanding of what it means to be experimental: Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, James Tenney, Christian Wolff, and La Monte Young. Collected here for th…
Lucier & Bach: Sitting In A Room
2024 stock bastille musique presents its seventeenth release »Lucier & Bach: Sitting in a Room« featuring Hanna Herfurtner (soprano, voice), Clara Blessing (oboe), Joosten Ellée (violin), Linda Mantcheva (violoncello) and Elina Albach (harpsichord, organ). The album combines Alvin Lucier’s sound art piece I am sitting in a room with arias by Johann Sebastian Bach (from BWV 61, 1, 58, 199, 57, 36, 248, 68). Recorded in co-production with Deutschlandfunk, the set also includes a 48-page bilingual …
Illuminated by the Moon (4LP + Cd+ Book) box
Long sold-out second edition of 500 numbered copies of this stunning set of 4LP, CD and book in heavy box celebrating Alvin Lucier's 85th birthday.
One Arm Bandits
"One Arm Bandits is an hour-long piece in four parts, scored for four cellists. The cellists play only open strings, thus using only their right arms, never fingering the strings with the left hand. Recorded in Alvin Lucier's dining room, this work features cellists Tyler J. Borden, Laura Cetilia, Charles Curtis and Judith Hamann. Lucier oversaw and produced the recording, and approved the final takes. One Arm Bandits was an important project for Alvin Lucier. The idea for the piece goes back to…
Alvin Lucier: Navigations
“It is not enough just to play the right notes at the right time in the right way; one must also have the right consciousness. It places the performer in the role of explorer of the interior in order to produce, and being still in order to be active.” — Pauline Oliveros "These words, spoken by Pauline Oliveros, remind us of how fundamental an influence Alvin Lucier has had on the development of new music and its interpretation; they remind us of our role as explorers of sound, and of the irresis…
Nothing Is Real ...
*2022 stock* The focus of the pieces by Alvin Lucier on this CD is on the phenomena of resonance – sympathetic vibration – in many variations. “Time and again I find myself having to pare away any musical gestures in a work in order to uncover the true idea in a piece,” says Alvin Lucier.The composer knows which ideas he wants to liberate. But the process of causing the environment to resound is always a collaborative, interactive project. It needs someone who is creatively engaged, even obsesse…
Still and Moving Lines
Pogus is absolutely delighted to offer this new release by Alvin Lucier, three of which are previously unrecorded. The overwhelming feeling that comes from Still and Moving Lines, a new Pogus disc featuring four compositions by Alvin Lucier performed by the Australian new music ensemble Decibel, is that it is an exercise in listening. It invites you to explore the world sonically beyond the immediate aural experiences normally presented to you. By challenging and subverting listening conventions…
Orchestral Works
Orchestra Works brings together three groundbreaking compositions by Alvin Lucier, each redefining the orchestral tradition through radical explorations of sound, space, and perception. Performed by the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra under conductors Christian Arming, Petr Kotik, and Zsolt Nagy, with cellist Charles Curtis, this album showcases Lucier’s singular ability to transform familiar instruments into vehicles for profound auditory discovery.
Lucier’s Diamonds uses split orchestras to “dr…
Almost New York
"Twonings" with Charles Curtis, cello and Joseph Kubera, piano. "Almost New York" with Robert Dick, flutes. "Broken Line" with Robert Dick, flute, Danny Tunick, vibraphone, and Joseph Kubera, piano. "Coda Variations" with Robin Hayward, tuba. Pogus is extremely delighted to release this 2 CD set of recordings of works by Alvin Lucier. He is one of the key experimental artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and is one of my favorite composers. A unique and individual artist: No one sounds quite …
Sferics - Music for solo performer
'Sferics is the shortened term for atmospherics, natural radio-frequency emissions in the ionosphere, caused by electromagnetic energy radiated from nearby or distant lightning. These signals - resonant clicks and pops, called tweeks and bonks by scientists - occur in the audible range of humans and may be picked up by antennas and amplified for listening. They are best received at night, far from power lines. Occasionally, certain sferics get caught on and travel long distances along the magnet…
Source: Music Of The Avant Garde - Source Records 1-6, 1968-1971
Astoundingly great collection of some of the classic pieces from the 60s avant-garde / live electronic music wave presented here as originally issued (in chronological order) by larry austin & stanley lunetta via their “source: music of the avant garde” magazine & 10” record series between 1967 and 1973 .... Source Records 1 and 2 with Robert Ashley: The Wolfman (1964). David Behrman: Wave Train (1966). Larry Austin: Accidents (1967). Allan Bryant: Pitch Out (1967). Source Records 3 and 4 with A…
Wind Shadows
The music on these CDs takes us into a new realm of music making, one that Alvin Lucier has defined for us and one that demands that we start to listen anew. His work has been more often described in terms of science than of art as if it were a series of quasi-scientific experiments, but to put the emphasis here is to miss the point, for its purpose is never “explanatory” (the goal of science) but, like all art, “revelatory.” This is not to suggest that the composer has some spiritual agenda in …
Vespers and Other Early Works
Alvin Lucier is best known for his pioneering work in the mid-sixties in the exploration of sonic environments, particularly sounds that we would never perceive under ordinary circumstances. Vespers and Other Early Works restores to the catalog several of his key works from that time. In Vespers (1969) performers with Sondols (sonar-dolphin), hand-held pulse wave oscillators, explore the acoustic characteristics of given indoor or outdoor spaces by monitoring the echoes of the pulse waves off th…
Apollo And Marsyas: Het Apollohuis 1980-1997 An Anthology Of New
A lucky restock of one of the most important archival releases in experimental music: "Apollo and Marsyas: Het Apollohuis 1980-1997, an Anthology of New Music Concepts" - a stunning double CD documenting nearly two decades of radical sound art and experimental performance. Het Apollohuis in Eindhoven was one of Europe's most vital centers for avant-garde music, and this anthology captures the extraordinary scope of programming curated by Paul Panhuysen from 1980 through 1997. From over 500 perfo…
Theme
Theme features three works from Alvin Lucier. Music for Piano with Magnetic Strings is a work in which the strings of a piano sound by themselves. Several EBows (small electromagnets used primarily with electric guitars) which would cause the piano strings to vibrate and sound are placed on the strings of the piano. The pianist works from a prose score which describes the process and suggests she freely position and reposition five EBows on the piano strings, creating strands of sounds of v…
Crossings
Three works investigating interference between instruments and oscillators. When closely tuned tones sound together, their oscillations create audible beats that spin through space. Lucier reveals acoustic phenomena through minimal means
Still and moving lines of silence in families of hyperbolas
Monumental reissue of Lucier's four-part investigation into acoustic interference. Musicians sustain tones against fixed sine waves, creating audible beat patterns that reveal the hidden architecture of sound itself
Music on a long thin wire
First released on Lovely Music in 1980, Music on a Long Thin Wire is a classic example of Alvin Lucier's investigations into the physics of sound and the sonic properties of natural processes. A 50-foot length of taut wire passes through the poles of a large magnet and is driven by an oscillator; the vibrations of the wire are miked at either end, amplified and broadcast in stereo. The thin wire is set vibrating four times at four different frequencies; what results is not the low drone one migh…