RIP Maryanne Amacher..

I just heard ( from Joe Foster ) that she's gone..

Damn..little known and underrated. She taught us all about the use of volume and psychoacoustics..

RIP..

lots of loss this year

This is a rough one. The world just got a lot quieter.

[mudd]

shit.

m

[mudd]

and sirone, too.

sad day.

m

fuck

heaven just got a lot harsher.
RIP. i'll be crushin the sound characters tonight for you, mama.

But death can create life--seeing her obituary is the first time I've ever heard of her, and a quick Google session leaves me wanting more. Maybe this will lead to greater exposure. Is there a place I can start to listen to her work? Sadly for me it seems she worked more on installations rather than CD-type projects though...

But a loss for everyone, those her knew her and those who didn't.

Is there a place I can start to listen to her work?

the two Tzadik CDs, Sound Characters and Sound Characters II. the first track on the first one is amazing. I highly doubt MP3s do justice to it, FWIW.

Thank you. And from a Youtube (!) video I just watched, I don't have high hopes for a good MP3 of her work, either.

the two tzadik CDs have their moments but neither do what she does live. she's never been able to bring herself to release a stereo reduction of one of her full length concerts, to her it loses too much. but I hope someone trustworthy's in charge of the archives because believe me, any of the three shows I've seen, released intact, would be a masterpiece

her contributions to the Asphodel Sombient compilations (throne of drones / swarm of drones / storm of drones) are probably the best of what's been officially released. but what you want to search for is the room recording of her 1982 Music Gallery Toronto show, that one's proof (you can hear a shorter version of this period of her work on the OHM gurus of electronic music comp)

Incredible woman with incredible ears.
She not only generated loud sounds,
but beautiful low volume sound architectures as well.
Her "Close Up" from '79 is an example of this.
Performed live during Cage's reading of the complete "Empty Words"
this was a life-changing memorable 12 hour performance.
I'll have to find those tapes around here and finally make a clean, digital copy.
Much love and huge respect.

®ø∂

Fuck.

Kyle Gann's obit (http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2009/10/maryanne_amacher_1943-2009.html)

The music world lost one of its most bizarre characters today, and I say that with the utmost possible affection. Maryanne Amacher was an amazing composer of sound installations, who occasionally taught courses at Bard. I first encountered her in 1980 at New Music America in Minneapolis. She had, as was her wont, fitted an entire house with loudspeakers, and the staff was in a state of jitters because at opening time she was still fine-tuning. She was an incredible perfectionist, and there was no overriding her exacting judgment. Years later I interviewed her for my history of American music. A Stockhausen student, she was absolutely inscrutable, so intuitive that pinning facts down was an insult to her spirit. My first ten questions having elicited no specific information, I finally asked whether her original sound sources were acoustic or electronic in origin. Her answer: "I really can't say." She was vagueness personified. Yet she was an incredible artist, and my son thought she was the best electronic music teacher Bard ever had. She typically wore bright red overalls and aviator goggles, and I'd be astonished if her wiry frame weighed 90 pounds. After one semester with her, one of my colleagues - an artistic and sympathetic soul, but I understood his frustration - said, "I feel like I'm on the set of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." She did dress a little like Snoopy. She lived in a huge old house in Kingston that was cluttered wall to wall with papers, tapes, and technical equipment, among which one walked gingerly through narrow paths. You closed doors carefully, for fear the entire soggy house would fall down. But she was some kind of genius, and her sound installations, better appreciated in Europe than here, had to be heard to be believed. Like La Monte Young, she had an ear that one struggled to emulate. She absolutely lived for her art. I heard a few weeks ago that she'd had a stroke, then from Pauline Oliveros that she was in a nursing home, and today she passed away. I do hope her work is well documented, because it is absolutely unique and inimitable. We will never hear her like again.

I was at that New Music America performance, my first exposure to Amacher, Laurie Anderson, Julius Eastman [who performed Evil Nigger for 4 grand pianos, and whom Walker staff mistook for a janitor!], Robert Ashley [performed sections of Perfect Lives], Malcom Goldstein, many others.
Not to detract a whit from remembrances of Ms. Amacher, just to say her music is forever embedded for me in that week of discovery, of mind-stopping new art.

but what you want to search for is the room recording of her 1982 Music Gallery Toronto show, that one's proof (you can hear a shorter version of this period of her work on the OHM gurus of electronic music comp)

Where should one search, if I may be so bold?

but what you want to search for is the room recording of her 1982 Music Gallery Toronto show, that one's proof (you can hear a shorter version of this period of her work on the OHM gurus of electronic music comp)

Where should one search, if I may be so bold?

The compilation referenced above is called Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music. It's been released by Ellipsis Arts as a 3-CD set in 2000. There's a 2005 reissue including a bonus DVD :

http://www.discogs.com/Various-OHM-The-Early-Gurus-Of-Electronic-Music/release/597905

This one is available through Metamkine.

but what you want to search for is the room recording of her 1982 Music Gallery Toronto show, that one's proof (you can hear a shorter version of this period of her work on the OHM gurus of electronic music comp)

Where should one search, if I may be so bold?

The compilation referenced above is called Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music. It's been released by Ellipsis Arts as a 3-CD set in 2000. There's a 2005 reissue including a bonus DVD :

http://www.discogs.com/Various-OHM-The-Early-Gurus-Of-Electronic-Music/release/597905

This one is available through Metamkine.

I have the compilation, thanks. I was referring to "the room recording of her 1982 Music Gallery Toronto show".

online for the first time, Alan Licht's 1999 WIRE mag interview with Maryanne Amacher

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/3220/

http://www.maryanneamacher.org/