OHAM: Paul Dresher

OHAM Info

AMERICAN MUSIC SERIES 253 a-f

Paul Dresher

with Eva Soltes

Berkeley, California

July 2, l997

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side a* pp. 1-23

Musical and family background--piano lessons--guitar lessons--musical influences--building musical instruments--Harry Partch--influence of world musics--sitar lessons--playing in rock and roll bands--Antioch College--Berkeley--more on building instruments--performing--musical influences: Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Riley--Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company--returning to Berkeley--Grateful Dead offshoot band.

Side b pp. 23-45

Grateful Dead offshoot band cont’d--Harry Partch--theater production at Brooklyn Academy of Music--United Artists--formation of Quintet group--jam sessions--Terry Riley--Rainbow in Curved Air--Cal Arts--Mel Powell--Frank Zappa--working with the band in NYC--Buchla--Mills College--making cloud-chamber bowls--glass instruments subject to tape manipulation--Music for Two Glass Instruments and Synthesizer for Liquid and Stellar Purposes--Serge Tcherepnin and the Serge Modular Systems--Steve Reich--Center for World Music at Berkeley--Nikhil Banerjee--playing the sitar--summer program in performance of non-Western music--collaborating with Lou Harrison on instrument building--Berkeley gamelan--musical traditions organization--instrument project.

Side c pp. 45-68

Playing pop music--East Bay New Music Ensemble--Guitar Quartet--In C--John Adams--music notation--decision to become a composer--going back to Berkeley--instrument building project--Earle Brown--Olly Wilson and the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players--Glass Piece--system of tape delay and loops--Terry Riley and La Monte Young--tape compositions of Liquid and Stellar Music and of Music for Two Glass Instruments and Synthesizer--tape compositions for live performance--This Same Temple--Syphmere Work for Four Guitars--minimalism, maximalism, and pre-maximalism--Where We Are Now--control and perception of time--doing KPFA radio programs--graduate work at San Diego--Robert Erickson--Pauline Oliveros--Bernard Rands--Roger Reynolds--psychoacoustics--Erickson’s Timbre Seminar.

Side d pp. 68-90

Channels Passing--playing in bands--studying Indonesian music--travel--commission from Steve Reich: Z--improvisation--commission from New Porte Costa Players--Night Songs--travel in India--position at Cornish Institute--instrument building--tuning--just intonation--La Monte Young--Charlemagne Palestine--Terry Riley--class: Rhythm and Time--Night Songs--tape loop system--writing a concerto--more on tape loops and tape composition--Liquid and Stellar Music--The Way of How.

Side e pp. 90-112

Liquid and Stellar Music--The Way of How--working with Eva Soltes--Are Are--importance of theater in his work--See Hear--”Sleeping with the Light On”--Double Ikat--Lou Harrison’s Varied Trio--different facets of Dresher’s career: theater, chamber music, dance, technology, world music--West Coast vs. East Coast--Was Are/Will Be--Slow Fire--Power Failure--Pioneer--Odd Behavior--current group: commissioning other composers--Violin Concerto--Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes.