The Relache Chronicles The Relache Chronicles Team

Lois V Vierk is a unique voice in the recent history of music in America. She has composed stunning works for multiples of the same instrument that are technically complex and yield a mesmerizing aural experience. Among these is “Manhattan Cascade” for accordions, composed, recorded and performed widely by Guy Klucevsek, former Relache Ensemble member, composer and pioneering accordionist. (You can hear Guy’s music on Episode Four of The Relache Chronicles.) This episode of The Relache Chroni...

Episode Fifteen – Robert Ashley“Since he began composing and performing in the late 1950s, Robert Ashley has created a wholly original body of work. Continuously productive, his oeuvre encompasses nearly all versions of music and music/sound performance from instrumental and electronic compositions to film music and music videos to multi sectioned, intermediated staged operas. Ashley has also written essays and scores, and published books as well as dozens of audio and video recordings.” This...

Episode Fourteen - Annson KenneyAnnson Kenney was a dynamic presence in Philadelphia from the mid-sixties until his death in late 1981. A visual artist, writer, performer, and composer, Annson was a difficult man to pin down. Although initially trained in music, his imagination and introspection led him far from his role as a contrabass player. In the 1970’s Annson designed a remarkable series of works using classic luminous tubing (neon tubes) that explored a variety of lin...

Critical Band, an extraordinary composition by James Tenney has been described as a “sound poem,” and an “aural flower” slowly unfolding as the pitch tableau becomes evident and clear to the listener. John Cage, a long-time friend of Jim Tenney’s wrote him after hearing the premiere performance a congratulatory note, “…if this is harmony, I take back everything I said to you in the past.” (John and Jim had two quite different concepts of Western harmony.) The world premiere ...

William Duckworth – known as Bill to his friends – was a composer, educator and author who wrote for contemporary ensembles and soloists throughout a busy compositional career in the mid to late twentieth century. He was a professor of music at Bucknell University and published five books on twentieth century music and theory. At the time of his passing in 2012, Bill was developing large scale interactive digital works for the internet in collaboration with his wife, Nora Farrell, a computer ...

Episode 11Episode 11 is the third of three episodes of music and commentary from the New Music America Festival 1987 in Philadelphia, produced and presented by the Relache organization. Sound installations and outdoor performances in some unlikely locations have been part of New Music America festivals throughout the eleven-year history of the festivals. For this episode we have selected three outdoor events and one example of computer influenced works by composer-installations artists Alvin ...