Legendary American composer Alvin Lucier is turning 90 this Friday!
Our Sound Portraits show with Doron Sadja is airing at 18:00, introducing Alvin Lucier’s work and featuring an interview with the artistic directors of The Ever Present Orchestra Bernhard Rietbrock and Jan Thoben.
At 19:40 we are airing a version of Lucier’s most famous piece “I am sitting in a room”, performed by Auguste Vickunaite. Her earlier public intervention Lietuva Brangi/Lithuania was inspired by Lucier’s groundbreaking work and followed similar principles of re-recording.
“I am sitting in a room” consists of several sentences of recorded speech recycled into a room by means of cascaded playback and re-recording. As the process continues, the resonant frequencies of the room are reinforced, while the intelligibility of the recorded speech is gradually eliminated. The recoding space acts as filter or instrument, imprinting its sonic particularities on the sonic outcome.
We are thrilled to record a version of this piece in our beloved Lichtenberg studio, thus archiving its sonic profile. Tune in on cashmereradio.com or on FM 88.4 MHz Berlin / 90.7 MHz Potsdam. After the broadcast you will be able to listen back to the recording here.