October 27, 2023 | 3:30PM
Fulton Recital Hall, Goodspeed Hall 4th floor
What is an orchestra?
Michael Pisaro-Liu
Director, Music Composition and Experimental Sound Practices, CalArts
Although the orchestra in classical music has a long and interesting history, I propose to use the word to mean more generally, a large group or mass of performers of diverse instrumentation. Seen in this way, there are many groups falling outside the norms of the classical orchestra that can be considered orchestras. One could for instance include the large ensemble works of Filipino composer José Maceda or Rhys Chatham’s pieces for 100 guitars. There is also a history of open instrumentation works by Pauline Oliveros, Cornelius Cardew, George Brecht, Christian Wolff, James Tenney and others that should be understood in this broadened category. After an overview of this repertoire, I will discuss a series of works of my own, for what I consider to be “orchestras” (a few which are for classical symphony orchestras) – including clouds, Ricefall, A wave and waves, fields have ears, Radiolarians, Achilles, Socrates and Diotima and others. I am interested in questions concerning the social dynamics of membership and participation in such groups and in how this dynamic can be modeled in the score and rehearsal process.
About Michael Pisaro-Liu
Michael Pisaro-Liu (born 1961 in Buffalo, New York) is a guitarist and composer and a long-time member of the Wandelweiser collective. While, like other members of Wandelweiser, Pisaro-Liu is known for pieces of long duration with periods of silence, over the past two decades his work has branched out in many directions, including work with field recording, electronics, improvisation and large ensembles of very different kinds of instrumental constitution.
Recordings of his music can be found on Edition Wandelweiser, erstwhile records, elsewhere music, New World Records, Sofa Music, Potlatch, another timbre, ftarri, winds measure and other labels, including his own imprint, Gravity Wave.
Pisaro-Liu is the Director of Composition and Experimental Music at the California Institute of the Arts. He was Fromm Foundation Visiting Professor of Music Composition in the Department of Music at Harvard in the Fall of 2014.