KPFA-FM Music Dept. ➔ Three Works by Robert Ashley

Analog Audio

Event Type

Music

Origin

KPFA

Identifier

P.ASH.ROB.02

Program Length

30 min

Dates

| broadcast
| 402 | created

Description

Two electronic music works and one rather avant-garde piano sonata by Robert Ashley. The first piece of electronic music “Heat” was conceived as a sort of soundtrack for one of Milton Cohen’s light sculpture/theater works entitled “Manifestations: Light and Sound.” This is followed by a somewhat sparse piano sonata which has as it’s subtitle, “Christopher Columbus crosses to the New World in the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria using only dead reckoning and a crude astrolabe.” One can easily envisage the 15th century explorer wandering aimlessly around the Atlantic Ocean, searching for India, as the piano plays in the background. The program concludes with another typical early electronic composition. Robert Ashley was born in 1930 and in addition to being a frequent collaborator in Cohen’s intermedia “Space Theater” during the late 1950s and early 1960s he was also one of the founders of the ONCE Festivals, as well as a composer of numerous avant-garde operas including “That Morning Thing” and “Perfect Lives (Private Parts).”

Genres

Electro-Acoustic / Electronic
20th century classical

Musical Selections

Heat [for Milton Cohen’s “Manifestations: Light and Sound”] (1961) (8:22) -- Piano Sonata: Christopher Columbus crosses to the New World in the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria using only dead reckoning and a crude astrolabe (1959-61) (7:26) -- The Fourth of July (1960) (12:39)

Performers

Robert Ashley, piano (Sonata)

Subjects

Electro-acoustic
20th century classical
Electronic music
Sonatas (Piano)
Aleatory music

Acknowledgment

Funding for the preservation of this program made possible through a grant by the GRAMMY Foundation.

Related place

Berkeley (Calif.) (was broadcast at)

Related Entities

Ashley, Robert, 1930-
Cohen, Milton