Sebastian Currier                                           381 b-c                                    OHV

With Jenny Raymond

Harlem (New York City)

May 20, 2008

            TABLE OF CONTENTS

Side b                                                                                      pp. 1-41

[Track 1]  First impressions of music—music in the family—playing in rock bands—his brother’s piece for Emerson, Lake, and Palmer--study of classical guitar—writing his own stuff for rock bands—early effort at composing—influence of parent’s record collection—attending Juilliard, and Manhattan School of Music as a guitarist—composing on the side—influence of other composers: Bartók, Babbitt, Perle—Vocalissimus—Theo’s Sketchbook—titles—cubist approach to a poem—Aftersong—Clockwork—Quartet Set--Quiet Time—Scarlatti Cadences—Brainstorm—Microsymph.

[Track 2] Static—Scelsi—Night Mass—Nightmaze—Thomas Bolt—Remix—Nightmaze—collaboration on Nightmaze—mixing the visual and the musical—use of software for the piece—Marisol Torres and the visual. [Track 3]—Broken Minuets—

Marie-Pierre Langlamet—Currier’s love of the classical repertoire—Piano Concerto—his former wife Emma Tahmizian—how he chooses lyrics—opera—Wallace Stevens poems—T. S. Eliot—Le Tombeau des Naïades—possibility of doing an opera with Mac Wellman—Michael Torke and his opera—why he has composed so much for chamber ensembles—difficulty with orchestral programming.

Side c                                                                                      pp. 41-80

[Track 1] The music or the title, which comes first —writing for the specific performer, or not—high level of performing in contemporary music field—change from one performance to the next—compositional process—working on only one piece at a time—use of microtones—Spectral music—his style—commissions—Static—Departures and Arrivals—Crumb’s Nocturnes—Augusta Read Thomas—reception of his music in Europe—[Track 2]—sources of inspiration for his work—importance of music of the past for him—Bill Viola—electronic music—importance of art colonies—importance of larger cultural context—other music that he listens to—Shivkumar Sharma—his publishers: Fischer and Boosey & Hawkes—self-publishing—Grawemeyer award—departure from Columbia University—teaching—installation at Mass MoCA—desire to use electronics—video artist Pawel Wojtasik—video for the installation—processing sounds of water electronically—Landfill—relationship of music to video.