• Atalanta (Acts of God) II (1982–2009) opera for man’s voice and woman’ voice, prerecorded orchestra and electronics

Three of the satellite songs from Ashley's opera Atalanta (Acts of God): “The Etchings”, “Empire” and “Au Pair”. Each one is inspired or revolving around one of the main characters of the opera, Max, Willard and Bud.

Atalanta (Acts of God) was written in the beginning of the 1980s, while Ashley was still in production for the television opera, Perfect Lives. The many hours of material were performed throughout the world in many different configurations, but this is the first time these songs have been available on CD.

• Dust (1998) opera for solo voices, prerecorded orchestra and electronics

Dust, an opera by Robert Ashley and Yukihiro Yoshihara (video direction) whose imaginary setting is a street corner anywhere in the world, where those who live on the fringes of society gather to talk, to each other and to themselves, about life-changing events, missed opportunities, memory, loss and regret.

Five “street people” recount the memories and experiences of one of their group, a man who has lost his legs in some unnamed war. As part of the experience of losing his legs, he began a conversation with God, under the influence of the morphine he was given to ease his pain. Now he wishes that the conversation, which was interrupted when the morphine wore off, could be continued so that he could get the “secret word” that would stop all wars and suffering.

• In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (1972–1973) for tape, voice and electronics

New definitive CD reissue of this original Cramps label album from 1974, an early classic from Robert Ashley (previous CD version on Cramps is now deleted). This deluxe slipcased version features a 110-page book, reproducing the original Wolgamot text along with fascinating liner notes explaining the whole project from Keith Waldrop and Robert Ashley. The CD features one long composition with Ashley reading a text by poet John Barton Wolgamot. The poem has 128 stanzas; each stanza is made up of the same phrase, into which are introduced four variables, three are names or groups of names or constructions of names, and the fourth variable is formed by the adverb of the active verb. The result is considered “one of the most unusual and difficult linguistic textures in the English language”. The underlying music is supplied by Paul DeMarinis on Moog synthesizer. Ashley on DeMarinis: “[Paul] has elaborated seven different modular combinations, each of which can be controlled by programmed impulses. These derive from the sound of the reading of the poem passed through the regeneration high frequency filter and successively translated into a series of command impulses.”

• Celestial Excursions (2003) opera for five solo voices, prerecorded orchestra and electronics

After the ground-breaking work, Dust, godfather of experimental opera Robert Ashley returns with Celestial Excursions. Ashley’s latest endeavor explores remarkably uncharted territory—the kind of language that is common among “old” people who talk all the time or not at all, to anyone passing by or to themselves. The opera premiered at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin, before coming to The Kitchen for it’s U.S. premiere in April 2003.

Celestial Excursions delves into the wild intermingling of reminiscence, regret, love, nightmare, old sayings, and songs on the radio—all seemingly to no purpose, except for the operatic end of relentless speed and precision in ensemble singing and the possible stage magic inherent in illusion, hallucination, and a physically changed state of the senses. The opera’s originality lies in a use of a new vocal technique Ashley has built over the last twenty years, which enables several stories to be heard at the same time. In an intricate vocal system, a principal voice is “chased” by other voices whose parts rotate in sequence in a given order. The result of this technique creates a complex jungle of voices, delivered with an extraordinary rhythmic intensity rarely heard in ensemble singing.

As for all of Ashley’s latest works, the orchestra music of Celestial Excursions was composed in the computer-synthesizer studio. All the voices and the orchestra (on multi-track tape or on disc) are processed again during the concert in order to match the sound of the opera to the performance space. And for this CD release, Ashley went back to the studio with live recordings to rework the piece, extending the orchestra in the final act.

“With the exception of a few condescending and silly movies, “old” people are one of the few “minority” groups basically unrecognized in the arts. Not that they care, but among the “marginalized,” old people are the most marginalized, because, obviously, unlike racial or ethnic groups or the poor, they have no future. Or rather, in the most important sense, their future will never change for the better.” — Robert Ashley

• Foreign Experiences (1994) opera for two solo voices, prerecorded orchestra and electronics

Foreign Experiences was commissioned by Performing Artservices, Inc. (1993) with funds from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. The opera was premiered by the Robert Ashley Ensemble at the Festival d’Avignon in 1994.

This realization is a duet version by Sam Ashley and Jacqueline Humbert. The pre-recorded voices of the Ashley ensemble are the background chorus.

Robert Ashley's Now Eleanor's Idea is a quartet of short operas based on the notion of a sequence of events seen from four, different points of view. At the same time, each opera is an allegory, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, for an individual’s self-realization within the context of a major religion found in the United States. Improvement takes its imagery and plot from Judaism, Foreign Experiences from Pentecostal Evangelism, eL/Aficionado from Corporate Mysticism, and Now Eleanor's Idea from (Spanish) Catholicism.

The inspiration for these works came specifically from four sources: the work of the historian, Frances A. Yates (1900–1983), whose specialty of interests included the influence of Kabbalistic mysticism on the birth of modernism and scientific philosophy in Italy in the sixteenthth century (as a result of the expulsion of Jews from Spain during the Inquisition); the writings of Carlos Castaneda (and the arguments about him as a writer and about the intentions of his work); Low Rider Magazine, the fan-cult magazine of the Low Rider movement in the Southwestern United States; and finally, corporate vocabulary, what it sounds like and how it is used in popular publications, like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or Fortune Magazine.

The story, as Robert Ashley tells it —

Don Jr. has come to California with his family—Linda and Jr. Jr.—and his friend, “N,” to take a job at a small college. They have moved from the Midwest of fractured identities to the world of no identities. California is the end of the Earth. That feeling is passed on from generation to generation without anyone recognizing that it is part of them. And it is passed on to the most recent arrivals. Even today in the precious palaces of Malibu, in the vast developments between Los Angeles and San Diego, in the spreading domestic comfort of the San Francisco Bay area it’s there. It poisons our movies and TV shows. It generates the most violent and interesting mystery novels. Even now jet travel doesn’t cure it. It comes down on you hard when you get off the plane and step outside the terminal. It drives some people mad.

• Now Eleanor’s Idea (1993) opera for three solo and four ensemble voices, prerecorded orchestra and electronics

   

Robert Ashley's Now Eleanor’s Idea is a quartet of short operas based on the notion of a sequence of events seen from four, different points of view. At the same time, each opera is an allegory, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress, for an individual’s self-realization within the context of a major religion found in the United States. Improvement takes its imagery and plot from Judaism, Foreign Experiences from Pentecostal Evangelism, eL/Aficionado from Corporate Mysticism, and Now Eleanor's Idea from (Spanish) Catholicism.

The inspiration for these works came specifically from four sources: the work of the historian, Frances A. Yates (1900–1983), whose specialty of interests included the influence of Kabbalistic mysticism on the birth of modernism and scientific philosophy in Italy in the sixteenth century (as a result of the expulsion of Jews from Spain during the Inquisition); the writings of Carlos Castaneda (and the arguments about him as a writer and about the intentions of his work); Low Rider Magazine, the fan-cult magazine of the Low Rider movement in the Southwestern United States; and finally, corporate vocabulary, what it sounds like and how it is used in popular publications, like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or Fortune Magazine.

While working at The Bank, the title character, Now Eleanor, has a sort of “religious experience” that fills her with an “approach of the end of the world feeling.” This feeling compels her to leave her job in the Midwest, move to New Mexico, and become a newscaster to try to discover the point where the religions of America—Judaism, Protestantism, Business and Catholicism—merge. But there is more in store for her than she realizes . . .

• Concrete (2006) opera for solo voices, prerecorded orchestra and electronics

Concrete follows from Robert Ashley’s preoccupation in two previous operas with the kind of speech that has not been explored in opera — in Dust, the speech of the homeless; in Celestial Excursions, the speech of people living together in a home for old people. The three operas are not a “trilogy” in any sense, but they all come from this preoccupation with or fascination with special kinds of speech and special kinds of states of mind.

“The characters I’m interested in,” Ashley explains, “are marginal, because everybody is marginal compared to the stereotypes. I am interested in their profoundly good qualities, and I’m not interested at all in evil. The characters in my work are as bizarre and unreal as the characters in William Faulkner. They just happen to be ordinary people who are spiritually divine.” (The Wire, 2003)

Though in Concrete it is not made explicit in any way, the libretto might be considered to be the “musings” of an old man alone. He thinks about strange questions and even as the questions are asked they are answered in various forms of sarcasm, indifference, questions about the questions and explanations. In other words, he is talking to himself.

The opera takes the form of five “discussions” about matters he wonders about: Why do people keep secrets about themselves? Why do the buildings in the city all line up perfectly (vertically) when the surface of the planet is round? Why is it that so many things that people do as recreation are played counter-clockwise? What has happened to the many women friends (“lovers”) he has had and “left behind” and why were they left behind? And, finally, the fact that he has recently seen a “flying carpet” (in his bedroom.)

The five “internal” discussions alternate with four reminiscences about people the old man has worked with and loved. The reminiscences are short and detailed biographies of seemingly ordinary people who in the past did extraordinary things—sometimes criminal, sometimes just brave in an unusual way—but will never be recognized for what they did. The stories will never be known, except to the audience. No one is named. These are secret lives.

The singers in the opera are not “characters” in any traditional way. They take part in the very fast “discussions” sections as voices in the old man’s musings. Then each of the singers is given one of the “biographies” as a solo aria.

„Desert Plants“ war in den Siebzigerjahren ein Kultbuch, weil es die ersten Informationen über die US-amerikanische Composer-Performer-Szene nach Europa brachte. Zahlreiche Notenbeispiele und ganze Partituren bereichern diesen Einblick in eine Zeit des Experimentierens, die es nun gilt, wieder ins Bewusstsein zu holen.

Das unverändert nachgedruckte Buch ist Carol Byl gewidmet, die damals die Tonbänder weitgehend wörtlich transkribiert hat, um den „stream of consciousness“ beizubehalten. Das Titelbild hat Michael von Biel gezeichnet.

Der Ausgabe liegt eine CD bei, die alle erhaltenen Tondokumente in restaurierter Form als mp3-Dateien zugänglich macht, darunter auch das berühmt gewordene Telefonat mit La Monte Young. So sind die Originalstimmen aus dem Jahre 1975 zu hören – ein Zeitdokument.

Gesprächspartner von Walter Zimmermann sind Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, John Cage, Philip Corner, Jim Burton, Phil Glass, Steve Reich, Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, Joan La Barbara, Pauline Oliveros, David Rosenboom, Richard Teitelbaum, Larry Austin, James Tenney, J. B. Floyd (über Conlon Nancarrow), La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine, Charles Morrow, Garrett List, John Mc Guire und Ben Johnston (über Harry Partch).

23 Sätze aus DESERT PLANTS

MORTON FELDMAN: Something that is beautiful is made in isolation.

CHRISTIAN WOLFF: I try wherever possible to discourage competitive sort of careerism.

JOHN CAGE: So that it takes an old fogey like myself to suggest again as Thoreau did all of his life, revolution.

PHILIP CORNER: A lot of people hang up to restrictions which are not only in the external institutions. They are in your own mind.

PHIL GLASS: The quintessence of harmonic music is in cadence for me.

STEVE REICH: You must love music or be a duck.

ROBERT ASHLEY: If you record a conversation with fifty people in the United States about their ideas, and if you get into each conversation really deeply, that when you get to the end, you will have one of me, one of Steve Reich, but you will have fifty of yourself.

ALVIN LUCIER: But when you stutter, you scan the language. You are scanning your past.

JOAN LA BARBARA: You know, instead of trying to direct the voice, I try to let the voice direct me.

PAULINE OLIVEROS: I’m aware of my own physiology. And then I’m hearing it as a whole, and I’m aware of the various rates that are going on, the kinds of breaks in concentration that occur and how they are corrected.

DAVID ROSENBOOM: What I’m looking at really is the existence of regularly pulsing energy.

RICHARD TEITELBAUM: I played the same synthesizer for ten years. Me and it are very close to each other.

LARRY AUSTIN: Ives’ main thing, I feel, was the concept of layering and getting us out of the idea that the sounds always had to come from the same place; that is, right in front of you.

JAMES TENNEY: I realized in writing these pieces that this was one way to avoid drama, which I’m still trying to find ways to avoid.

J. B. FLOYD about NANCARROW: Somebody actually brought up what was going to happen to the piano roles after he died; and he said, “Why? Do you want one?”

LA MONTE YOUNG: You can always say that you wanted La Monte Young, but it was impossible. He was so mercenary, he wanted money.

CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE: I’m searching for sort of this golden sonority.

CHARLES MORROW: The high art itself is a form of power consciousness, that in a way one listens to the high art in the same way that one walks around being a flirt.

GARRETT LIST: The only way for a one-world kind of feeling is where each nationality, each locality, has its own strength; so that people don’t need to have to take from another place.

FREDERIC RZEWSKI: It’s still true that most Americans care more about the price of meat than they do about the exploitation of Bolivian miners.

JOHN MC GUIRE: But sooner or later I am sure that I will return to America.

BEN JOHNSTON about HARRY PARTCH: He was really willing to be as direct and as simple and as corny as you like, as people are when they aren’t trying to be concert artists.