Alvin Lucier

Alvin Lucier was born in 1931 in Nashua, NH. From 1962 to 1970 he taught at Brandeis, where he conducted the Brandeis University Chamber Chorus. Since 1970 he has taught music at Wesleyan University. Lucier has pioneered in many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers' physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes. His recent works include a series of sound installations and works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra in which, by means of close tunings with pure tones, sound waves are caused to spin through space. Lucier performs, lectures and exhibits his sound installations extensively in the United States, Europe and Asia. He also regularly contributes articles to books and periodicals. The Wesleyan University Press published his own book, "Chambers", written in collaboration with Douglas Simon. In addition, several of his works are available on Cramps (Italy), Disques Montaigne, Source, Mainstream, CBS Odyssey, Nonesuch, and Lovely Music Records. In October, 1994, Wesleyan University honored Alvin Lucier with a five-day festival for which he composed twelve new works based on a poem by John Ashbery and a collaborative theater work with Robert Wilson. His most recent sound installation, EMPTY VESSELS, was exhibited at the Donaueschingen Music Festival in Germany.

For several years I have made a series of work which explores the resonant characteristics of rooms and other enclosed spaces. In Chambers (1968), battery-operated radios, tape recorders, and electronically powered toys of various kinds are hidden in paper bags, shoes, kettles, and small suitcases and other small resonant environments. As performers carry these small "rooms" into larger ones, such as concert halls, football stadiums and underground cisterns, the sounds, already altered by the acoustics of the small environments, are altered a second time by the acoustics of the larger ones.
    In Vespers (1969) performers with Sondols (sonar-dolphin), hand-held pulse wave oscillators, explore the acoustic characteristics of given indoor or outdoor spaces by monitoring the echoes of the pulse waves off the walls, floors and ceilings, as well as any objects or obstacles in range of the sound waves. Over time, the listener receives an acoustic signature of the room. In I am sitting in a room, (1970) human speech is recycled into a room many times, reinforcing the room's particular set of resonant frequencies, transforming the speech into pure sound.
    More recently, in Theme (1994), four readers recite a poem by John Ashbery, the sounds of which are picked up by microphones inserted into a sea shell, milk bottle, flower vase and an empty ostrich egg.
    Certain frequencies of the voices are caught in the vessels and excite the resonance tones of the vessels. And in Small Waves (kleine Welle), still in the process of composition, six glass water containers with microphones inserted into their cavities cause strands of feedback to sound at frequencies determined by the size, shape and physical make-up of the vessels. An ensemble consisting of a string quartet, trombone and piano plays long tones against the sustained strands of feedback, producing interference patterns at speeds determined by the distances between the instrumental tones and the pitches of the feedback strands. In addition, two dancers walk slowly through the space, causing the feedback to change in pitch, get softer, and in some cases, stop altogether. Small Waves was written for the Arditti Quartet, trombonist Roland Dahinden and pianist Hildegard Kleeb.
    In Empty Vessels (1997) eight green glass flasks, vases and melon jars are placed on pedestals positioned in specific locations in the room. Microphones are inserted into the mouths and necks of the vessels and routed to eight loudspeakers similarly deployed throughout the space. The volume levels of the amplifiers are set to just below the threshold of feedback. As visitors walk through the installation the motions of their bodies will alter the delicate balances of the system and cause unexpected resonances, acoustic ringing and soft feedback sounds to occur. This recording was made on October 18th, 1997 from 3:18 to 4:32 P. M.