Barry Schrader

Tokafi has published an interesting interview with electroacoustic pioneer Barry Schrader:

“Monkey King” and “Wu Xing – Cycle of Destruction” are both recent works and they both deal with China. A coincidence? Or is there a special interest you’ve taken in the country, its culture and spirituality of late?

“Wu Xing”, on the one hand, is an effort at musically capturing the traditional Chinese elements. On the other, they are part of a superordinate concept, which assigns each element a function (or “stage”) within a particular framework. Was it part of the compositional process to make both of these aspects audible? Or to put it differently: Would the “Cycle of Birth” have sounded vastly different from the “Cycle of Destruction”?

I’ve always been interested in ancient cultures and their mythologies. One of the first books I read as a young child was Hawthorne’s “Tanglewood Tales”, a retelling of some of the Greek myths for children. I went on to read many histories of ancient cultures, books on their mythologies, as well as many volumes dealing with archeology. I didn’t read a translation of “Journey to the West” until I was in graduate school in the late 1960s, but it made quite an impression on me.

My first visit to China was in 1988 as a guest of the Ministry of Culture when I gave lectures and concerts at the conservatories in Beijing and Shanghai. I was quite taken with the Forbidden City and other historical sites I saw. I had composed a live interactive computer work for that trip, “Twilight”, based on a poem of the same name by the 19th century Chinese poet Chen Yun, and I used a traditional Chinese melody type as the basis for that piece.

So I guess by that point Chinese culture had entered my mind in a fashion similar to that of other ancient cultures, and this fascination continues to grow as I learn and read more. In subsequent visits to China I’ve seen more historical sites and there are many more I’d like to see, perhaps, someday, even Huaguoshan Scenic Spot in Jiangsu Province which is the site of Monkey’s birthplace, the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit.

So the decision to use scenes from “Journey to the West” as the basis for a programmatic composition came from my fascination with the book as well as the culture.

I had begun to work on “Monkey King” in 2005 when I was approached by the remarkable jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, who also teaches at CalArts, to do an “overlay” piece with him for one of his Creative Music Festival concerts at REDCAT in November of 2005. I was quite nervous about this, as Leo is an incredible improviser and I am mostly concerned with fixed works. But his overlay concept allowed us to each create a piece simultaneously and then Leo would perform his over mine, allowing the fixed structure to influence his performance.

Leo’s side of this unusual duet was “Pacific Light and Water”, and we had an early discussion about what we would do in which Leo gave me a drawing he made depicting the various frequencies of light that would filter through the Pacific ocean at various depths. My mind was filled with things Chinese at that moment from all of the research and work I had been doing on “Monkey King”, which I had already started composing, and so the water idea led to using the Chinese concept of “wu xing”, of which water is one of the five elements (metal, wood, earth, water, fire). These are usually ordered in one of two ways: the cycle of birth, which ends with water, and the cycle of destruction, which ends with fire.

My decision to use the ordering of the cycle of destruction was based on my thinking that it would be more dramatic to end with fire. Had I used the cycle of birth as the ordering, I think it would have been a very different piece, and I would certainly have composed the water and fire sections differently. I also liked the architecture of the cycle of destruction in terms of what I imagined the various levels of energy of the sections of the piece to be, which, I think, I realized fairly well. The “Metal” and “Wood” sections both build up energy fairly quickly, while the “Earth” and “Water” sections are at relatively low levels of energy, both ending with considerable dissipation. The “Fire” section continually builds up energy and the piece finishes on a high point.

We published an in-depth Barry Schrader interview a couple of years ago, talking with him about electroacoustic music, the role of classical electronic composers, collaborating with pigs, and more!

REDCAT will be presenting a multimedia celebration of electro-acoustic composer Barry Schrader’s music on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

This retrospective concert of works from the past 33 years includes the world premiere of Fallen Sparrow, a solo work performed by violinist Mark Menzies, and a new dance theater setting of the piece After Death by choreographer Kyu Hee Park and video by Francesca Penzani.

Also making special guest appearances are harpsichordist Barbara Cadranel and pianist Vicki Ray. Schrader’s music will be accompanied by films and videos by Adam Beckett, Steve Eagle, Jules Engel and Michael Scroggins.

Details:

Barry Schrader: Soundworld
When: Wednesday, February 22
Where: REDCAT
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Time: 8:30 P.M.
Admission: $10, $14, $18

More information is available at the REDCAT site.

Electroacoustic pioneer Barry Schrader has released his latest CD, Beyond, on Innova.

This album features four recent electro-acoustic music works: First Spring, Beyond, Duke’s Tune (the first and only musical work based on a melody composed by a pig), and all three movements of Death: Before Death, Into Death, and After Death.

Regarding the music on this CD, pioneering electro-acoustic music composer Bebe Barron proclaims “This music conjures up a whirlwind of emotion from some primeval source that permeates the listener with awe.”

Concerning the work Death, composer Judy Klein writes “ I am captured in the very first moment. And then, what subtle enhancement in the second section, and what a journey in the third! I hear the release of the spirit, its energy, its guides; darkness, hugeness, powerful monsters. Images foreign but not unfamiliar come to mind. There is such musical drive and such unity throughout the piece. I feel I’ve heard transformations of an element through gaseous and solid states, and that in the end, a spirit has become one with the voices which called to it in the beginning.”

Beyond has a street release date of September 27, at which time it will be available from online and retail stores. Beyond is available for purchase online directly from Innova.

Electro-acoustic music pioneer Barry Schrader’s works for tape, dance, film, video, mixed media, live/electro-acoustic music combinations, and real-time computer performance have been presented throughout the world. Schrader is the founder and first president of SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States). He is also the author of the book Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music.

Schrader teaches at the School of Music at Calarts. He has several current CD releases, including Lost Atlantis and EAM.

In this interview with Synthtopia, Schrader talks about electroacoustic music, the role of classical electronic composers, collaborating with pigs, and more!

Background

Synthtopia: In the late 60s, when you first got into electronic music, electronic sounds were still avant garde. They were beginning to catch the public’s ear, but mainly for their novelty. What piqued your interest in electronic music?

Barry Schrader: My first experience with electronic music was in 1956 when, at the age of 11, I saw Forbidden Planet. I was fascinated by the music in that movie, so much so that I stayed in the theater and watched the film several times until my somewhat exasperated father came looking for me and dragged me home. Over the next 12 years I heard snippets of electronic music on the radio and on recordings, and I also had a tape recorder and experimented a little with the manipulation of recorded material. But it wasn’t until 1969 when I was a graduate student in musicology at the University of Pittsburgh that I actually became involved with working in a studio.

Synthtopia: What made you decide to make this the focus of your career?

Barry Schrader: The University of Pittsburgh installed a studio built around a Buchla 100 system, and I became the teaching assistant for the studio which forced me to learn things rather quickly. I became absorbed by the medium and,even though I finished my degree in musicology, I decided to devote myself to electro-acoustic music from this point on. The things that fascinated me about the medium then are the qualities that still interest me: electro-acoustic music offers the composer an intensely personal and controlled environment within which to create new musical universes.

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Electro-acoustic music pioneer Barry Schrader has announced his new site, barryschrader.com, featuring audio clips, photos and an online store.

Schrader’s compositions for tape, dance, film, video, mixed media, live/electro-acoustic music combinations, and real-time computer performance have been presented throughout the world. Schrader is also the founder and first president of SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States). He is also the author of the book Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music.

According to Schrader, “The site will be changing on a regular basis, particularly the image and download pages, and I’ll be sending a quasi-regular e-mail newsletter announcing what’s new as well as giving information on upcoming concerts, CD releases, and other events.”

Upcoming site features:

• Photos and block diagrams of the “Fortune Modules” built for Schrader in the early 70s by Fukushi Kawakami of Yamaha for use with the Buchla 200 modular system
• Sound file downloads of selections from upcoming releases as well works unavailable on commercial recordings
• Announcements of premieres and other concert events.

Offsite link: http://www.barryschrader.com/