Maryanne Amacher (1943-2009)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmglkEUHUO8[/youtube]
Maryanne Amacher (1943-2009)
[From: Post Classic, Kyle Gann on Music After the Fact at www.artsjournal.com]
The music world lost one of its most bizarre characters today, and I say that with the utmost 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 obsessively running around and changing things. She was a tireless perfectionist. 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 perplexed answer: “I really can’t say.” She was vagueness personified. Yet she was an incredible artist …
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