David Monacchi: States of Water (Stati d'Acqua)
EMF Admin
Keywords: Ear to the Earth 2006, water, sound art, field recording

David Monacchi presented his transformed field recordings of the Tiber River in Rome and projected images relating to the sounds. The composer writes: "Stati d'Acqua reflects the manifold mutations that water undergoes in its physical form. Motion, stagnation, evaporation, condensation, and falling are the states in which water gives rise to every life form. In creating this composition, I used experimental microphone techniques to record the sounds of water in the environment. I recorded springs, streams, waterfalls, water dripping in caves, and ocean waves. I found that water produces an infinite range of sounds throughout the entire range of audible frequencies, and that it sometimes creates melodies, sounding almost like human music. Listening to the melodies of water, I created a water tuning system that let me compose in homage to water and to its fluidity and its changing states. "

Iannis Xenakis: Concrete PH
EMF Admin
Keywords: musique concrete

Although Le Corbusier, the most prestigious architect in France at the time, was the architect of record for the Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair of 1958, Iannis Xenakis had played a leading role in its design. Composer as well as architect, Xenakis had been working in Pierre Schaeffer's musique concrète studio in Paris, where he composed Concrète PH, a composition of less than two minutes duration which was played every day as an interlude between presentations of Edgard Varèse' Poème Electronique. Based entirely on the gritty sounds of smoldering charcoal, Concrète PH is one of the first compositions to derive its musical material from a single natural source.

Joel Chadabe: One World 1
EMF Admin
Keywords: Ear to the Earth 2006, Urban Sound, Sound Art, Field Recording

The primary concept behind One World is that we all, whatever the specifics of our different cultures and beliefs, share the same world through a common human bond. "At the same time, it seems clear at this moment in history that the idea of sharing one world through a common human bond is a utopian goal rather than a current reality. It is one of the major problems of our age that, inundated with information, much of it disturbing, we view the world today as a complex, turbulent and chaotic system of different nationalities, religions, cultures, and politics, as if the world were one large crowded city overwhelmed by urban noise. We all face the same dilemma. How do we interact with this world? How do we extract humanity from the chaos to focus on individual lives?

Luc Ferrari: Presque Rien 2, Part 1
EMF Admin
Keywords: Ear to the Earth 2006, field recording, Luc Ferrari, Yugoslavia

The first Presque Rien (in English, "Practically Nothing") was composed in 1970. Subtitled "Sunrise near the sea", it was an early example of what Ferrari called 'anecdotal music', by which he meant music that tells a story. During a visit to the Dalmation Coast in Yugoslavia, he set his microphones on a window sill pointing out to the Adriatic Sea, recorded the sounds of the place including people, animals, a motor starting, cicadas ... and later, in his studio, transformed the recording into a composition. The first episode of Presque Rien 2, composed in 1977, is heard in this concert. Subtitled "Thus the night continues in my 'multiple' head", this composition is more personal, something like a diary of his exploration of a nocturnal landscape. Carrying his microphones, Ferrari talks quietly with his wife Brunhilde as he walks through the night and imagines, as well as records, the sounds.

Steven Feld: Suikinkutsu
EMF Admin
Keywords: Ear to the Earth 2006, field recording, Japan, water

"Suikinkutsu, literally 'water-zither-cave', is a unique instrument associated with washing for the Japanese tea ceremony. Water drips from a chozubachi stone basin into a partly-filled underground ceramic bowl. The dripping sound, resembling that of a koto zither, projected up through bamboo tubes into a garden, where water symbolizes spirit, purification, solace, and reflection. "Dating to the mid-17th century Edo period, the name suikinkutsu is often credited to the famous tea ceremony teacher Kobori Enshu. After a decline, the instrument re-emerged in the Meiji Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with renewed recent popularity. "In this August 2005 soundscape of Kyoto's Enko-ji Temple suikinkutsu one experiences an extremely subtle acoustic ecology where ever-changing water rhythms flow randomly into the pulsing surround of summer cicadas." - Steven Feld