May 25th, Playlist, Ameriocan String Quartets

Tonight we're exploring more string quartets, but specifically American String quartets, and string quartets from America that treat each voice or instrument within the quartet as a unique entity...

And so to begin, just as an appetizer, we played

Charles Ives, Scherzo for String Quartet, Arditti USA Quartets

and then dove into our theme with these little ditties:

Charles Ives, String Quartet No 2. Ives: the Two String Quartets by The Julliard Quartet (Columbia)
Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet 1931, Ruth Crawford Seeger Portrait, (Deutsche Grammophon)
Elliot Carter, String Quartet No. 2, Elliott Carter: The Four String Quartets, The Julliard Quartet
John Cage, Music for Four, The Arditti String Quartet: John Cage, The Complete String Quartets

May 18 Playlist: String Quartets

Tonight's program, and probably for those for the next few weeks, will be all about String Quartets. Early on in my composing career, I went through a massive string quartet fetish phase where I sought out every string quartet that I could find that was worth listening to. I listened to Beethoven's, Bartok's, Shostakovitch's, Schoenberg's, Webern's, Bergs (Lyric Suite anyway), then came across the New York School's work (OK, that's a bit of a lie as I actually started with them and worked backwards and sideways, but more on that later)....of course I discovered Scelsi, Xenakis, Penderecki, Estrada, Pape, Saariaho, and others too. Oh, and let's not forget Ives, Cowell, Carter, Crawford-Seeger, and all the other Yanks as well!

So, we will be listening to many (not all, just not that many weeks in a year I'm afraid) of these over the next few weeks. If you're into string quartets, May and June are your months on the Fog!

1. John Zorn, Forbidden Fruit, on Kronos: Winter Was Hard.
2. Earle Brown, String Quartet No. 1., on Earle Brown DVD: Chamber Works
3. Kaija Saariaho, Nymphea: Jardin Sectret III, on Arditti String Quartet from Scandinavia
4. Bill Thompson, String Quartet No. 1., played by Imbroglio String Quartet, Unreleased
5. Live At Axiom 2002, Track4, String Trio (James Alexander, Brent Fariss, Travis Weller), Unreleased
6. Gerard Pape, Le Fleuve du desir 1994, Ardititi String Quartet, on Electroacoustic Chamber Works
7. Julio Estrada, , on Arditti String Quartet Edition No 27-Julio Estrada
8. Live At Axiom 2002, Track4, String Trio (James Alexander, Brent Fariss, Travis Weller), Unreleased

May 11th, Playlist

Tonight is all about vinyl...well, except for the first tracks to make up for my Jerry Lewis-esque mistake for playing the wrong cd at the end of last weeks program...so here goes...the actual sound art remixes from the bridge recordings of last weeks show to start and then some old school vinyl from Greece, Romania, and elsewhere.

Kent Macpherson, Matinkaari, London Uk, Singing Bridges Vibrations: Variations
Karl Muller, when Bridges Remix: Traversing the Gap, Singing Bridges Vibrations: Variations
Roger Mills, Limbo in Lausitz, , Singing Bridges Vibrations: Variations
Francisco Lopez, Untitled #168, Singing Bridges Vibrations: Variations
Jani Christou, Praqxis for String Orchestra and Piano, Edition RZ 1006
Iancu dumitrescu, Cogito: Trompe-L'Oeil, Edition RZ 1001
Horatiu Radulescu, Astray fur 6 Saxophone and Sound Icon, Edition RZ 1007
Luigi Nono, A Carlo Scarpa, Edition RZ 1004
Luigi Nono, A Pierre, Edition RZ 1004

Thanks for checking out the show...next week, who knows...but thinking about Ives maybe. Tune in and find out!

Bill

May 4 Playlist

Hi everyone,

Tonight's program will focus loosely on phonography and composition. For those of you unfamiliar with phonography, there's a good site and a great yahoo group you should check out here: http://www.phonography.org/ and http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/phonography/

There are also a few sites (actually many) where you can listen to some phonography, but one particularly interesting one is soundtransit where you can actually plan a journey across the world via field recordings: http://soundtransit.nl/book/about.html

I also hosted phonography concert when I first moved to Aberdeen and most of the concert can be listened to on my site here: http://www.billthompson.org/phonography.htm

And finally, a home-grown hybrid, Aberdeen's own Pete Stollery has an interesting site where he recorded his favourite sounds around the Aberdeenshire area and put them on an online map you can visit and listen to here: http://www.petestollery.com/ (click on the link for Gordon Soundscape)

Ok, and now onto the show:

Bernd Schurer, track 1, Construction Sonar, track 1
Luigi Archetti, Trans, Construction Sonar
Bernd Schurer, tracks 2-21, Construction Sonar
Dalduin, Creative Construction Tunnel Session, Construction Sonar
Monolake, Drift, Construction Sonar
Bernd Schurer, tracks 22-44, Construction Sonar
Fennesz, Construction, n68, Construction Sonar
Chris Knapp, koi feeding, phonography comp 1
Toy Bizarre, Kdi Dctb 130, phonography comp 1
Yannick Dauby, bird sanctuary, phonography comp 1,
Yannick Dauby, rain-reconstructed, phonography with compositions
Bill Thompson, xmas '99 (edit), phonography with compositi0ons
Toy Bizarre, Kdi Dctb 053b, phonography with compositi0ons Jodi Rose, Anzac Bridge, Sydney Australia, Singing Bridges Vibrations: Variations
Jodi Rose, My Thuan Bridge mecong Delta Vietnam, Singing Bridges Vibrations: Variations
Jodi Rose, Erasmus Bridge, Rotterdam Holland, Singing Bridges Vibrations: Variations
Jodi Rose, Millennium Bridge, London Uk, Singing Bridges Vibrations: Variations
Sawako, Yukidoke, phonography with compositions
Josh Russell, Hospital Death, phonography with compositions