Robert Ashley
Robert Ashley (1930 – 2014) was an American contemporary composer, who was best known for his television operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. His works often involve intertwining narratives and take a surreal multidisciplinary approach to sound, theatrics and writing.
Robert Ashley (1930 – 2014) was an American contemporary composer, who was best known for his television operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. His works often involve intertwining narratives and take a surreal multidisciplinary approach to sound, theatrics and writing.
Perfect Lives
2023 upgraded and remastered version of Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives -- in 1080P full HD video format, pressed on double-Blu-Ray (175 minutes; stereo; Region 0/worldwide). Perfect Lives has been called "the most influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s." At its center is the hypnotic voice of Robert Ashley. His continuous song narrates the events of the story and describes a 1980s update of the mythology of smalltown America. Perfect Lives is populated with myriad characters revolvi…
Spontaneous Musical Invention
*350 copeis limited edition. Comes with 16-page booklet of program notes * In the 1960s, Robert Ashley pioneered the American avant garde with the ONCE Group and festivals, before irrefutably changing the face of American opera later in the 20th century. Buckner, in addition to running the fabulous 1750 Arch record label in the 1970s and 80s, is a noted baritone who has collaborated for decades with the likes of Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and the late Noah Creshevsky, amongst countless ot…
The Guests Go in To Supper (Book)
Rare 1st edition from 1986. Nearly 400 pages, large size, paperbound, smythe-sewn. Texts, scores and ideas of 7 American composers using language in composition: John Cage (Mushrooms et Variationes), Robert Ashley (Improvement), Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, Charles Amirkhanian, Michael Peppe, and Kenneth Atchley.
Published by Burning Books, 1986. Edited by Melody Sumner Carnahan, Kathleen Burch and Michael Sumner. Introductions by Charles Shere and Frances Butler.
Qicksand (Book)
Quicksand was written to be an opera libretto. But it was written in the form of a novel. . . . I am devoted to "mystery" stories. I read them one after another, mostly two or three times. Some of the best writers today are writing in this form. So, I thought that I would try to make an opera libretto from a mystery story, told verbatim. That is, the libretto and the novel would be the same: no scenes moved around or actions adapted to the proportions of a libretto, just tell the story the way i…
Atalanta (Acts of God) (Book)
Rare 1st edition hard cover. The definitive text of Atalanta (Acts of God) is followed by an Afterword by Robert Ashley. An excerpt from the Afterword: "I had already decided who the three characters of Atalanta (Acts of God) would be: Max Ernst, a long-time artistic hero for me; Willard Reynolds, my uncle, a storyteller to whom I had listened for most of my life; and Bud Powell, a legendary jazz pianist. The "successful suitor" in the Atalanta myth now has three forms (reminding us of his succe…
Sign Of The Times
Centered around the mesmerizing voice of Robert Ashley, presented here is early version (released on LP by Lovely Music in 1979) of "The Park" and "The Backyard", a masterpiece in its simplicity of form and in the purity and intensity of its effect on the listener. These two pieces were later to become the opening and closing segments of the seven part opera for television, Perfect Lives. Personnel: Robert Ashley - voice; "Blue" Gene Tyranny - keyboards; Kris - tablas.
eL/Aficionado
Robert Ashley's eL/Aficionado is a group of scenes from the life of an "agent". The scenes are a kind of "debriefing" to a jury of Interrogators, in which the Interrogators (chorus) challenge the Agent (soloist) in various forms of musical dialogue. The mood of the opera owes much to our fascination with espionage and with the character of those people who lead double lives. The opera was performed many times between 1987 and 1993, and Lovely Music released a recording of the opera in 1994 (LCD …
Foreign Experiences
This new release from Lovely Music features Robert Ashley's famous ensemble, the "band" who interpreted his work for 20 years, from 1992 through 2012. They included Sam Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Marghreta Cordero, Tom Hamilton, Jacqueline Humbert, Joan La Barbara, and Amy X Neuburg. This recording was made at the Hebbel Theater, Berlin on May 12, 1995. The opera was also heard live at the Festival d'Avignon, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Musica Strasbourg, and Site Santa Fe. Foreign Experiences i…
Private Parts
**2020 repress **Lovely Music presents a reissue of Robert Ashley's Private Parts, originally issued in 1978. This newly mastered CD release is a must-have for aficionados as well as a perfect introductory work to Ashley's oeuvre. Among Lovely Music's first six releases, it came to be known as "the yellow record". No one had ever heard anything like it; Ashley presented an unvarnished exposition of the inner workings of a man's mind. And on the other side, those of a woman. These two episodes we…
Music with Roots in the Aether
"Music with Roots in the Aether" is a series of interviews with seven composers who seemed to me (Robert Ashley) when I conceived the piece-and who still seem to me twenty-five years later-to be among the most important, influential and active members of the so-called avant-garde movement in American music, a movement that had its origins in the work of and in the stories about composers who started hearing things in a new way at least fifty years ago.There is, of course, our indebtedness to Eur…
Outside of Time - Ideas about Music
English-German Edition, 655 pages (!) collection of writings about ideas concerning music by American composer Robert Ashley. For nearly forty-five years, composer robert Ashley has pursued his vision of opera in the face of near complete indifference from the American mainstream culture industry. Ashley’s experience parallels that of other American indepen-dent avant-garde figures such as Terry Riley, Alvin lucier, and Pauline Oliveros. like these composers, Ashley uses notation only to the ext…
Desert Plants
**Essential reading!** Walter Zimmermann interviews Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, John Cage, Philip Corner, Jim Burton, Phil Glass, Steve Reich, Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, Joan La Barbara, Pauline Oliveros, David Rosenboom, Richard Teitelbaum, Larry Austin, James Tenney, J. B. Floyd (about Conlon Nancarrow), La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine, Charles Morrow, Garrett List, John Mc Guire and Ben Johnston (about Harry Partch).
Automatic Writing
Lovely Music present a reissue of Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing, originally released as an LP in 1979. Following on the heels of Private Parts, forming some of the early building blocks for his long-standing preoccupation with language and the human voice. Here he examines language at its primitive and impulsive root, where it seeks to express an inner state - to speak into the silence, to oneself, even if no one is listening. At one deeply personal - drawing on Ashley’s notions of 'involunt…
Improvement (Don Leaves Linda)
Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) is the first of four operas about the "American" consciousness. The tetralogy, including Foreign Experiences, eL/Aficionado and Now Eleanor's Idea, is based on the notion of a sequence of events seen from four, different points of view. The operas share principal characters and vocal techniques (including the relationship of the voice to instrumental settings). The singers are used interchangeably as soloists and members of a chorus. The immediacy of choral respons…
Explosions
**2020 restock, nice price** Probably the first recording (1965!) of improvised jazz combined with electronic music, as well as playing inside the piano and other new music techniques. Bob James (piano); Barre Philips (bass); Robert Pozar (percussion). Also including Bob Ashley and Gordon Mumma (electronic tape collage). The recording is made of an assembly of estranging electronic sound effects, trite sports commentaries, and the music of a beautifully improvising jazz trio. Bob James has, thro…
Superior Seven / Tract
“I am finally able to say that I write for orchestra— even if I have to make the orchestra myself.” — Robert Ashley Robert Ashley is known primarily for his theater-based pieces and television operas. This new release presents the world premiere recordings of two of his “orchestral” pieces, Superior Seven (concerto for flute), and Tract (for orchestra and voice), where the orchestra is provided by a MIDI synthesizer. In Superior Seven, the flute floats freely in and out of an atmospheric electro…
Crash
Crash was Robert Ashley's last opera. It premiered at the Whitney Biennial weeks after his death in 2014, and presented again in 2015 at Roulette, where this recording was made. Featuring the original cast: Gelsey Bell, Amirtha Kidambi, Brian McCorkle, Paul Pinto, Dave Ruder, and Aliza Simons. Music Director: Tom Hamilton. "What I have appreciated most about previous reconceptions of Ashley's operas was the extent to which newcomers found fresh possibilities. Already in Crash, broadened horizons…
The wolfman
Alga Marghen presents a 2015 remastered CD edition of its 2003 CD The Wolfman, a collection of pieces that introduce the listener to the most extreme experimental side of American composer Robert Ashley. Presented in digipak with 12-page booklet including liner notes written by the composer and the complete score of "The Wolfman," first issued in Source magazine. The program starts with "The Fox" (1957), Ashley's first electronic work, which displays his nascent electronic music theater style. D…
Atalanta (Acts Of God) Volume II
2010 release. Three of the satellite songs from Robert Ashley's opera Atalanta (Acts of God) - each inspired or revolving around one of the main characters of the opera, Max, Willard and Bud. Atalanta (Acts of God) was written in the 1980s, begun while Ashley was still in production for the television opera, Perfect Lives.
The many hours of material were performed throughout the world in many
different configurations, but this is the first time these songs have
been available on CD. Personnel…
In Sara, Mencken, Christ And Beethoven There Were Men And Women
Long out of print, beautiful remastered digipack edition with extensive booklet "This uniquely original work for voice and electronics is dated 1972. The voice part is read with as few inflections and breaths as possible and the voice activates electronic sounds that respond with inflected sounds. The musical effect is that of an internal voice stimulating involuntary ideas and feelings offering a profound musical exploration of the relation between the physical nature of the voice and social/la…