Search - University of Utah A Capella Chorus; Newell Weight; conductor; Jo Ann Ottley; soprano; chorus of the University of Utah; brasses from the Utah Symphony; Macalester College Chamber Chorus; Ian Morton; conductor; Alice Shields; mezzo-soprano :: Vladimir Ussachevsky: Electronic and Acoustic Works 1957-1972

In 1950, the Columbia University Music Department requisitioned a tape recorder to use in teaching and for recording concerts. In 1951, the first tape recorder arrived, an Ampex 400, and Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911-1990), then a junior faculty member, was assigned a job that no one else wanted: the care of the tape recorder. This job was to have important consequenses for Ussachevsky and the medium he delveloped. Electronic music was born. Over the next ten years, Ussachevsky and his collaborators established the In 1950, the Columbia University Music Department requisitioned a tape recorder to use in teaching and for recording concerts. In 1951, the first tape recorder arrived, an Ampex 400, and Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911 1990), then a junior faculty member, was assigned a job that no one else wanted: the care of the tape recorder. This job was to have important consequences for Ussachevsky and the medium he developed. Electronic music was born. Over the next ten years, Ussachevsky and his collaborators established the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, which Ussachevsky directed for twenty years. The Center became one of the best-known and most prolific sources of electronic music in the world. This composer portrait features six of his pioneering works in the medium as well as two of his choral works, an aspect of his output that was just as important to him. The final two works on this CD make extensive use of the human voice. The first of these, Three Scenes from The Creation (1960; rev. 1973), is based on texts from Ovid s Metamorphosis and the Akkadian creation epic Enuma Elish, telling the story of the primordial gods and their struggle to create order out of chaos. The recorded choral tracks were edited, assembled, and manipulated with electronic accompaniment in the studio. The Prologue was played in concert and also issued on a Columbia recording. The Interlude, originally Interlude and Conflict, dates from the sa