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Greta Monach

Untitled (Book + 2 Tapes and Ephemera)

Label: Counter Culture Chronicles

Format: 2 Tapes + Book and various Ephemera

Genre: Sound Art

Out of stock

Edition of 26 copies. Greta Monach (1928-2018), an early proponent of computer generated concrete poetry. Greta spent her childhood in indonesia and curaçao. In 1946 she returned to the hague, where she saw abstract painting for the first time, and started to think about abstract (non-semantic) poetry. For decades she experimented without success. from 1946 to 1948 monach studied literature at leiden university, then switched to music. She studied the flute for seven years at the royal conservatory in the hague. From 1955 to 1961 she worked in classical music, including chamber and symphonic music, opera, and oratorio.

In 1961 she attended the Darmstadt summer course for the first time, exploring contemporary classical music. "contemporary music" opened a new world to monach, and in the years that followed she gathered experience in this field, living in munich at the time. in 1965 she was back in holland, where she studied electronic music. From 1966 to 1986 she held a job at the institute of sonology in utrecht and got familiar with computer music. From 1970 on she used the computer to generate concrete poetry (letter-drawings called "automaterga").

Greta Monach is perhaps best known for her series of "fonerga", notated sound poems for one to four voices. each comes with a detaled set of instructions for the speakers regarding pronunciation, tempo, dynamics, and rhythm. she was explicit that they not be considered as music, and not performed in any musical context.

Published by Counter Culture Chronicles in an exclusive edition of 26 copies available only from Soundohm, “Untitled” by Greta Monach includes the following:

- two cassettes with rare, long out of print material + unreleased pieces;
- a binder with a detailed overview of her life and career and the people she worked with like Ulises Carrión, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Michael Gibbs and many more, 15 pages, including photos;
- a map with facsimile texts by Greta;
- a 15x21 cm original photo of a young Greta (recent print);
- an original invitation card for the Text & Sound Festival 1977 that took place at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam;
- a two-sided insert with the names of all the participants, besides Greta: Sten Hanson, Bob Cobbing, Gerhard Ruhm, Henri Chopin, Bernard Heidsieck;
- a large original print made by Greta of one of her computer-generated sound poetry pieces, a beautiful coloured work, all copies different and unique - 75x50 cm, folded;
- a 30x25cm original print made by Greta, one of her colorful sound poetry Lapjes, every copy unique with some of her original handwritten notations, folded;
- an original printout made by Greta of a part of one of her computer-generated sounds works;
- other selected ephemera.

All the material is housed in a transparant plastic holder.

Details
Cat. number: Counter Culture Chronicles 142
Year: 2024