Robert Ashley
Robert Ashley (1930 to 2014) wrote operas for television, with characters who talk rather than sing over a slow electronic pulse, and in doing so invented a form that still has no proper name. Perfect Lives (1983), a seven part story about a bank robbery in a small Midwestern town, is its masterpiece; Automatic Writing (1979) turned his own involuntary speech into a whispered, hypnotic score. Born in Ann Arbor, he co-founded the ONCE Festival there in the 1960s, was a member of the Sonic Arts Union with Alvin Lucier, David Behrman and Gordon Mumma, and directed the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College.
Robert Ashley (1930 to 2014) wrote operas for television, with characters who talk rather than sing over a slow electronic pulse, and in doing so invented a form that still has no proper name. Perfect Lives (1983), a seven part story about a bank robbery in a small Midwestern town, is its masterpiece; Automatic Writing (1979) turned his own involuntary speech into a whispered, hypnotic score. Born in Ann Arbor, he co-founded the ONCE Festival there in the 1960s, was a member of the Sonic Arts Union with Alvin Lucier, David Behrman and Gordon Mumma, and directed the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College.
