Homages

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07 Intro

11 Curator’s Statement

15 A sound exhibition

19 Philip Glass by Patrick Pulsinger

23 Yoko Ono by Andrea Sodomka

27 Morton Feldman by Peter Ablinger

31 Charles Mingus by Peter Herbert

35 Pauline Oliveros by Mia Zabelka

39 John Zorn by Max Nagl

43 Cyndi Lauper by Christian Fennesz

47 Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five by dieb13

51 Maryanne Amacher by Bernd Klug

55 Robert Ashley by Bernhard Lang

59 Patti Smith by Olga Neuwirth

63 David Tudor by Demi Broxa

67 Jeanne Lee by Elisabeth Harnik

71 Laurie Anderson by Mira Lu Kovacs

75 Max Brand by Elisabeth Schimana

78 About musikprotokoll and the ACFNY

81 Opening night concert / Talea Ensemble

84 Credits

HomagesAustrian artists pay tribute to New York music

a project by:

in cooperation with:

headphone sponsor:

musikprotokoll.ORF.at/homages

acfny.org/homages

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15 Years Austrian Cultural Forum New York Reloaded

HomagesSound exhibition

April 20–24, 2017Austrian Cultural Forum New York11 East 52nd Street, New York

April 19, 2017 | 4–11 pm: Opening night Rooftop reception and concert featuring the Talea Ensemble

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In celebration of the 15th anniversary of the

Austrian Cultural Forum New York’s iconic

building, director Christine Moser, in collaboration

with Austria’s oldest contemporary music

festival ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst,

presents the sound exhibition Homages.

Curated by Christian Scheib and designed by Fränk

Zimmer of musikprotokoll, Homages features 15

newly composed or arranged recorded pieces

by contemporary Austrian musicians, each pay-

ing tribute to one particular pivotal artist whose

work was influenced by New York. The 15 com-

missions are spread throughout the unique archi-

tectural structure of the Austrian Cultural Forum

New York, inviting visitors to explore all public

spaces of the building designed by Austrian architect

Raimund Abraham in 1992 and completed in 2002.

Aided by sensory receivers and LED light boxes,

the sound pieces are installed to be experienced

privately through audio devices and headphones.

Between each installation, soundscapes from NYC

and Graz, Austria will be audible.

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On the opening night, visitors have the rare

opportunity to access the ACFNY’s private rooftop

terrace, where the Talea Ensemble with esteemed

guest soprano Juliet Fraser perform a six-hour

marathon concert. Symbolizing the heart of the

ACFNY’s mission of continuous cultural

exchange, the powerful program features works

by influential American composers John Zorn

and Steve Reich as well as pieces by two of

Austria’s living titans, Olga Neuwirth and Beat

Furrer.

After its run at the ACFNY, the sound exhibition

Homages travels to the Stadtwerke-Haus in Graz,

Austria as part of musikprotokoll, organized in

collaboration with the contemporary art festival

steirischer herbst. At musikprotokoll it will be

part of yet another jubilee: musikprotokoll cele-

brates its 50th edition with a ball featuring a dozen

danceable world premieres in addition to other

concerts on the festival program. musikprotokoll

takes place from October 4 to 8, 2017, Homag-

es can be experienced at Stadtwerke-Haus from

September 24 to October 8, 2017.

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tA quiet display of fireworks will mark the fifteenth year since the Austrian Cultural Forum New York took residence in its Manhattan home base, an unmistakable structure that achieved legendary status from the very outset.  We all know that New York has been associated with a plethora of attributes in the last few de-cades. Loud and dangerous, tame and domesti-cated, broke and rich, beautiful and absurd, chat-ty and communicative, ready to go and prone to withdraw: you can find all these qualities from street to street, avenue to avenue, and neighbor-hood to neighborhood — sometimes all at once. All these qualities resound in just about any music that comes out of this city. We’ve heard them in the protopunk club CBGBs, in Robert Ashley’s Loft, in Phill Niblock’s experimental Downtown concert series, and in clubs that might already be old, but still excite, like the Village Vanguard and Sweet Basil.

a quiet display of fireworks

And since the music born in this city is perceived far and wide, its qualities are equally endemic in the music of lands that seem to be far removed from New York. Precisely for this reason, and because director Christine Moser considers it the ACFNY’s task to establish a fruitful relationship between Austrian art and art from New York, our goal for this anniversary project is to bring the two worlds as close to each other as possible. When 15 Austrian composers create an homage to New York’s most influential artists, a kaleidoscope of references emerges, relating as much about the Austrian artists as about the artists to whom the reference is dedicated.

Christian Scheib 

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Christian Scheib, born in 1961, studied Mu-sic and Musicology in Vienna and Berlin. He was New Music Chief Producer at ORF/ Radio Ö1 from 1993

to 2007, Head of Music Department at Radio Ö1 (2007–2011) and Head of Radio Symphony Orches-tra Vienna (2009–2014). He has been curating the festival ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst since 1995. Scheib was a visiting lecturer at the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts (1998) and lecturer for Music Aesthetics at the Vienna University of Music and Perform-ing Arts. He has edited and written several books such as das rauschen, Transfer – Metapher – Über-tragung, and In the East – New Music Territories.

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An homage is a symbolic gesture of affinity between two people. In Homages this gesture is transferred into the space of acoustic perception.

Exploring the homage pieces is inextricably tied to exploring the spaces of the ACFNY. There are 15 soundpoints, and each homage is only audible in the direct vicinity of the specific soundpoint it was assigned to. 15 blue LED boxes function as markers in space and provide visual orientation for the lis-tening experience.

Between each soundpoint the visitors are im-mersed in a collage of field recordings from Graz and NYC. Jakominiplatz in Graz meets Lower Manhattan or the market activity of Kaiser-Josef- Platz collides with the New York Subway. Binaural field recordings create an extremely natural-sounding spatial effect through head-phones – as if you were standing right in the middle of the scene.

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The result is a kind of mixed reality where the ex-perience of space interrelates with the experience of listening to the homages and the sound collag-es. In this interactive exhibition the visitors can decide for themselves how long and to what they want to listen to.

Visitors are equipped with mobile audio players that have an app installed which was especially designed for this project. The 15 soundpoints are fitted with iBeacons, that is, small Bluetooth trans-mitters that enable the audio player to locate the position of the visitors in the sound exhibition. They also prompt the audio player to play the posi-tion-specific homages and activate the fade in/fade out of the sound collages.

Fränk Zimmer

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Fränk Zimmer, born in Luxembourg in 1972, lives in Graz since 1994. Since the 1990s he has explored the electric guitar and electronic musical instruments.

He studied Telecommunications Engineering at the Lycée des Arts et Métiers in Luxembourg and Musicology at the Universities of Graz and Vienna. Since 2002 he has worked on numerous sound and media installation projects in pub-lic space and in art-designated spaces. He also acts as editor of several publications focusing on interweaving media art and applied social research. Zimmer is the producer and co-curator of the ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst.

Philip Glass (*1937, Baltimore)

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Homage à Philip Glass by Patrick Pulsinger

„Play. Come in, Philip, sit down, relax, while I press play.“ (Patrick Pulsinger)

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Patrick Pulsinger

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Patrick Pulsinger

S8-M3-T1 03:04Written and produced by Patrick Pulsinger. Recorded at Feedback Studio ONE, Vienna.

Patrick Pulsinger (*1970, GDR) has been produc-ing and composing music for more than twenty years and has made a name for himself in many fields. His first solo releases in the early and mid-1990s evolved around the basic, machine and analog synth-driven idea of techno. In 1993, Pulsinger co-founded the label Cheap Records. Ex-tensive research in analog recording techniques and improvised music has led to collaborations with musicians such as Christian Fennesz, Hilary Jeffery, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. Recent activities include working as a producer, engineer, and remixer out of is own recording studio in Vienna. He has worked with Elektro Guzzi, Killed by 9 Volt Batteries, Bulbul, Hercules and Love Affair, David Holmes, Grace Jones, the Pet Shop Boys, and many more. In addition to this, Patrick Pulsinger also composes music for theater, ballet, and film, for instance for Stefan Ruzowitzky.

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Yoko Ono (*1933, Tokyo)

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Homage à Yoko Ono by Andrea Sodomka

“Yoko Ono walks the line between worlds, between art disciplines as well as her realities of life, where she comes from and where she is going. In all this, she moves with independent ideas and on independent paths. Hard to grasp, unclassifiable, thus all the more mesmerizing.” (Andrea Sodomka)

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Andrea Sodomka

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Andrea Sodomka

Andrea Sodomka is a composer, media artist, and curator working in the fields of intermedia art, sound art, radio art, and interactive art. Sodomka studied at the Academy of Applied Arts and the Academy of Music (Institute of Electroacoustics), Vienna. She is co-founder of alien produc-tions, a network of artists established in 1997. Focusing on the theory and practice of technology and new media, alien productions stands especial-ly for cooperative projects with other artists, tech-nicians, theorists, and scientists. Andrea Sodomka lives and works in Vienna.

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The concept of things 02:54Produced by Andrea Sodomka.Recorded at Studio Alien Productions, Vienna.

Morton Feldman (1926, NYC - 1987, Buffalo)

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Homage à Morton Feldman by Peter Ablinger

Morton Feldman was a composer who left the European avant-garde behind, shedding the complexities it was fraught with. Not only did he refuse to go backwards, but he postulated a new kind of theory that stated that there must no longer be a difference between construction and reality, between concealed technique and musical event; in short – and in the words Feldman himself often used – the only thing that matters is the surface itself, not the construction behind it. Peter Ablinger, however, puts the question differently and asks: “What is a surface in music?”

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Peter Ablinger

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Peter Ablinger, born in Schwanenstadt, Austria in 1959, studied graphic design at the Linz Polytechnic School from 1974–76 and jazz piano at the Univer-sity of Music in Graz from 1977–79. From 1979 on he took private lessons in composition from Gösta Neuwirth in Graz. Parallel to this, he also took les-sons from Roman Haubenstock-Ramati in Vienna until 1982. Ablinger has lived in Berlin as a freelance composer since 1982. In 1988 he founded Ensem-ble Zwischentöne. The exploration of unconven-tional instruments, venues, performance practic-es, and notational forms are paradigmatic for the ensemble’s work. Along with his compositional activity he has also initiated and run numer-ous festivals. Together with Bernhard Lang, Klaus Lang, Nader Mashayeki, and Siegwald Ganglmair he founded the publishing house Zeitvertrieb Wien Berlin. From 2012–2017 he was research professor at the University of Huddersfield.

Peter Ablinger

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Weiss/Weisslich o.Nr., Umblättern (2004) 02:56Produced by Peter Ablinger. With support from Henrik von Coler.Recorded in 2017 at Electronic Music Studio TU Berlin.

Charles Mingus (1922, Arizona - 1979, Mexico)

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Homage à Charles Mingus by Peter Herbert

“In ’78 I bought my first fake book. ‘Fables of Faubus’ was one of the first tunes I came across. ’79 Mingus died. I never saw him live. During my New York years I heard countless stories from fellow musicians who performed with him. This unsung hero became one of my biggest inspirations over the years. I experimented with scordatura and came up with ‘my’ Mingus tuning, E-A-eb-ab, which gives the bass a ‘major’ flavor, a quite fitting color for this giant of music.” (Peter Herbert)

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Peter Herbert

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Peter Herbert

The double bass player and composer Peter Herbert plays an average of 100 concerts a year with about 100,000 miles of annual traveling dis-tance. Besides performing solo concerts, he main-tains duos with David Tronzo or Carol Robinson, just to name two. His musical focus in Vienna includes collaborations with the Koehne Quartet or the cello quartet eXtracello. Much in demand as a sideman, he has collaborated with diverse jazz musicians, which has been well documented on over 150 CD recordings. Peter Herbert is also a versatile composer with works for various or-chestras and chamber groups. He established his own internet-based label Aziza Music in 1999. In his native Austria he received the Hans Koller Prize (musician of the year) in 2001. Herbert has been teaching bass, improvisation, and compo-sition at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz since 2007.

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Tribute to Mingus 03:33Peter Herbert, Kontrabass solo ('naked bass').Recorded in 2017 by Chris Laine and Gerhard Klocker, Bildstein. Mixed and mastered in 2017 by Reinhard Buchta and Peter Herbert, Vienna.

Pauline Oliveros (1932, Houston - 2016, NYC)

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Homage à Pauline Oliveros by Mia Zabelka

“Pauline Oliveros is an extremely important pioneer of electronic music and spatial sound art. ‘Elegy for Pauline’ consists of multi-layered, electronically modified, and spatially arranged violin sounds. The piece is a reflection, an echo, a deeply personal homage to a great artist, teacher, friend, and human being, Pauline Oliveros.” (Mia Zabelka)

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Mia Zabelka

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Mia Zabelka

Mia Zabelka is a noise artist, composer, experi-mental violinist, and vocalist from Vienna. She studied the violin with Alexander Arnekov at the Vienna Conservatory and composition and electro-acoustic music at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna. After completing her training with a strong classical emphasis, she continued to explore the limits of sound and music in a language entirely her own, based on the de- and reconstruction of the violin’s sonic possibilities, expanding the range of the instru-ment using live electronic devices, preparing it through the insertion of alien objects and innovative performance techniques. Since 2008, Mia Zabelka has been the artistic director of the Klanghaus Untergreith, an international centre for sound art in the region of Southern Styria, and since 2009 the artistic director of the Phonofemme Festival in Vienna.

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Elegy for Pauline 03:46Composed and performed by Mia Zabelka. Recorded by Zahra Mani at Stancija Mani, Zminj (Croatia).Mixeded and mastered by Christoph Amann at Amann Studios, Vienna. Special thanks to Al Margolis.

John Zorn (*1953, NYC)

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Homage à John Zorn by Max Nagl

„I met John Zorn for the first time in the late eighties in Vienna, as  one of the musiciansperforming in his game pieces, with John as the prompter. Since then and even earlier, I have admired the music of this extraor-dinary musician. Since it is impossible to cover the extent of John Zorn’s musical output in a three-minute piece, I decided to honour him with a tune from his Masada books, ‘Sariel’.“ (Max Nagl)

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Max Nagl

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Max Nagl

Sariel 03:31John Zorn: compositionMax Nagl: saxophones, guitars, banjoAnne Harvey-Nagl: violin, violaManu Mayr: bass

The saxophonist Max Nagl was born in Upper Austria and took clarinet and piano lessons at an early age. He then studied piano at the Bruckner Conservatory, Linz, and saxophone at the Vienna Conservatory. He has played at many jazz festi-vals in Europe with his own projects and bands, from different trios and duos to quartets and quintets and more recently with a 10-piece band. He has also toured in the USA, Taiwan, Australia, and North Africa. As a composer he has received numerous commissions and he writes music for theater, dance performances, radio plays, film pro-ductions, and chamber ensembles. In Austria he was awarded the Hans Koller Prize (musician of the year) in 1999. He is well-known for his often cinematic-sounding CDs and for his ability to mix different musical styles.

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Cyndi Lauper (*1953, NYC)

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Homage à Cyndi Lauper by Christian Fennesz

In 1998, Mego released a vinyl single with the simple title “Fennesz — Plays”. And Fennesz played his versions of “Paint It Black” and “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)”, that is, Rolling Stones and Beach Boys. Now for our New York Homages project Fennesz plays again in 2017, this time Cyndi Lauper.

“I played/interpreted parts of some songs my way, but in the end I focused mainly on ‘Time After Time’. Cyndi Lauper is a pop icon! I think she was originally more into punk, which I’ve always liked.” (Christian Fennesz)

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Christian Fennesz

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Christian Fennesz

The Austrian guitarist, composer, and electronic musician Christian Fennesz is recognized as the key figure and one of the most distinctive voices of electronic music today. In the beginning of the 1990s Fennesz became involved with the Viennese techno scene. Though formally educated in guitar and ethnomusicology, Fennesz decided to pursue composing. By plugging his guitar into his laptop and transforming and processing it, he created his own sound world in the distinctive electronic idiom. His first full-length solo release, Hotel Paral.lel (1997), won the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Digital Musics. Within the last ten years, Fennesz has collaborated with many musicians, filmmakers, and dancers. These encounters of diverse art forms have resulted in numerous stage performances and several excep-tional studio albums. Fennesz’ most recent releas-es include his last solo album, Bécs (Editions Mego 2014), and a duo recording with Jim O’Rourke, It’s Hard for Me to Say I’m Sorry (2016).

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before and after time 03:23Christian Fennesz: electronics, guitar Recorded in 2017 at Apcoa by Christian Fennesz.

Grandmaster Flash (* 1958)

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Homage à Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five by dieb13

“My grandparents are called Dada, Fluxus, Punk, and Hip-Hop. Without Grandmaster Flash, DJing in its present form wouldn’t exist, and without DJing, experimental turntablism in its present form wouldn’t exist. Although I have to admit that I haven’t explored the roots of Hip-Hop systematically, Grandmaster Flash has definitely influenced my music. The starting point of my homage was a few lines from ‘It’s a Shame’ from the album ‘The Message’ from 1982.” (dieb13)

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13–There is no peace!–Why?–Who wants to know?–We do!–Cause men love money!–Why?–Greed!

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dieb13

The stage name dieb13 stands for Dieter Ko-vacic (born in 1973), who works as a musician, composer, filmmaker, programmer of open source music software, internet service provider, and organizer. He has been active in electronic, noise, and improvised music since the mid-1990s and has played more than 500 shows on four continents. He has released music on more than 30 labels as a soloist as well as a member of various orchestras, big and small ensembles, bands and duos. dieb13 runs the internet platform klingt.org, which focuses on abstract/experimental music.

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talk2me 03:28 Based on It’s a shame by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (Album: The Message).

Maryanne Amacher (1938, Pennsylvania - 2009, Kingston)

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Homage à Maryanne Amacher by Bernd Klug

“In 2015 I completed my MFA studies at Bard College, where Maryanne Amacher co-founded the music/sound program. Maryanne continues to be omnipresent, and over the years I have consistently tried to hear the absence of her music and to integrate her approach to technology, creative processes, and private, public as well as architectural listening habits into my own music. I’m fascinated by her life and the rigor of her work processes.” (Bernd Klug)

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Bernd Klug

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Bernd Klug

Bernd Klug is a sound artist and double bass-ist. In sound installations and solo concerts, his music questions our perceptions of sound and social space. His installations make use of acoustic phenomena like feedback, resonances, and electromagnetic waves and explore materials as audiovisual components. Recently Klug has shown his works in solo exhibitions (NYC 2013 and 2015, NJ 2014) as well as in collaboration with Johanna Tiedtke (AT 2015). His double bass work focuses on the world inside and around the dou-ble bass: the bow, the body, and room frequencies lay the groundwork for a radical reduction of both the composer-performer’s role and the traditional musical narrative. Klug was Artist in Residence at IEA, Alfred University and Wave Farm (NY), and the awardee for interdisciplinary arts 2015 from the Carinthian government (AT). His compositions received commissions by New Music USA and the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

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Listening for a Homage à Maryanne Amacher 04:36Produced, recorded and mixed in 2017 by Bernd Klug at 368 Brooklyn Avenue.

Robert Ashley (1930, Michigan - 2014, NYC)

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Homage à Robert Ashley by Bernhard Lang

“I saw Robert Ashley for the first time at the Annenhof cinema in Graz with ‘Perfect Lives’ in the 80s: nowadays, I consider his works to be perhaps the most influential work of new music theater in the 21st century. This little homage is based on a loop, the enigmatic voice of one of Ashely’s artistic relatives and the crazy piano transcription of the selfsame, somehow quoting Blue Gene Tyranny’s playing.”(Bernhard Lang)

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Bernhard Lang

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Bernhard Lang

Bernhard Lang, born in Linz in 1957, has been reg-ularly invited to present his work at the musik-protokoll festival for years. After studying in Graz, he went on to work as a composer, arranger, and pianist with different jazz bands for several years, and has experimented generating software for computer-assisted composition at the Institute of Electronic Music Graz. Today he teaches at the Uni-versity of Music in Graz as well as internationally. Lang’s comprehensive examination of music and dance theater began with the world premiere of his Theater der Wiederholungen (Theater of Repetitions) at the steirischer herbst festival in 2003 and has paved the way for collaboration with Xavier Le Roy, Willi Dorner, Christine Gaigg, and Silke Grabinger (Moving Architecture). Currently Bernhard Lang is continuing his Differenz/ Wiederholung series of compositions based on loops.

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Loops for Ashley 04:48Produced and written by Bernhard Lang.

Patti Smith (*1946, Chicago)

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Homage à Patti Smith by Olga Neuwirth

“My fascination for Patti Smith cannot be summed up in a little homage. It would be presumptuous. My homage is a wall of sound, which is also a wall of words and screams made up of a loose succession of fragments by Patti Smith and myself. Patti Smith was for me – a punk in the Austrian countryside – and still is to me a great inspiration to go my own, non-conformist way. For me, as for many people, she is a role model of female self-empowerment. I admire her freedom and ease in confronting the legacy of rock’n’roll and her use of poetry (interpreting the words from various perspectives and taking on all imaginable roles in her performances) as well as her readiness to always publicly speak out against injustice.” (Olga Neuwirth)

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Olga Neuwirth

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Olga Neuwirth

Olga Neuwirth studied Composition and Mu-sic Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Composition and Electronics in Vien-na. During her stay in the States she also attended the San Francisco Art College, where she studied painting and film. Since the beginning of the 1980s Olga Neuwirth has worked at the interface of literature, music, acoustics, visual arts, electronics, science, and architecture. She has also realised art ex-hibitions, short films, and sound installations, such as the multi-media installation for the documenta 12 in Kassel and a 3D-sound-installation for Centre Pompidou in 2017. Along with her compositional activity which is focused on music-theater-pieces such as Baalambs Feast (1992/1998) after Leonora Carrington and Lost Highway (2002/03) after David Lynch, she has fused live musicians, elec-tronics, and video into genre-crossing audio- visual experiences. Beside having received numerous prizes she was awarded the Austrian State Prize in 2010.

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Homage à Patti Smith by Olga Neuwirth 03:15Produced and recorded by Olga Neuwirth.Audio Mastering: Oliver Brunbauer, Feedbackstudio Vienna.

David Tudor (1926, Philadelphia - 1996, NYC)

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Homage à David Tudor by Demi Broxa

“Vocal cords oscillating near the limits of control – amplified, processed by a table full of electronic devices. Celebrating the relative serendipity that occurs, the microphone is the crossing point between today’s sources of inspiration and the history of experimental electronic music.”(Demi Broxa)

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Demi Broxa

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Demi Broxa

Demi Broxa is Jakob Schneidewind (bass, elec-tronics) and Agnes Hvizdalek (voice). Together they blend electronic soundscapes with abstract vocal sounds and minimalist musical structures with organic improvisations. Operating between the poles of electronic and acoustic music, Demi Broxa creates hypnotic club music combined with bizarre sound events. In 2015, the Vienna-based music label Listen Closely released their debut album Zakeri.

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Homage à David Tudor by Demi Broxa 03:32 Agnes Hvizdalek: voiceJakob Schneidewind: electronicsRecorded at Top Sound Studio, Vienna.

Jeanne Lee (1939, NYC - 2000, Tijuana, Mexico)

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Homage à Jeanne Lee by Elisabeth Harnik

„A tribute to a singer, dancer, poet, composer, improviser, educator, and working mother who embraced avant-garde and took a multidisciplinary and intercultural approach to her work, always listening with the entire body for the miracle.“ (Elisabeth Harnik)

“On 52nd Street I realized Jean [sic] Lee is clothed and fed by her voice. That’s the same street my aunts and uncles were born and black on, so 52nd and 10th means something to me – like a people who come out with what they can carry: love, sweat, blood and song. Though everything we know is wonderful and rich, we, as a people, hide, to keep it safe. Jean Lee don’t. [. . .] We got a woman among us who isn’t afraid of the sound of her own voice.”

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(From Ntozake Shange’s review of a 1981 performance at Soundscape in New York)

Elisabeth Harnik

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Elisabeth Harnik

Homage à Jeanne Lee by Elisabeth Harnik 03:38Piano, voice, text: Elisabeth HarnikPiano recording and mix: Heimo PuschniggVoice recording, final mix: Norbert Stadlhofer (ORF Steiermark)

Elisabeth Harnik, freelance composer and pianist, was born in Graz in 1970. She studied classical piano at the College of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, and started her career with differ-ent forms of improvised music. Later she studied composition with Beat Furrer at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. Now Harnik moves freely between the fields of improvisation and composition, clearly differentiating these two very different disciplines in her personal approach and application. She has received numerous com-missions, and her compositions are performed regularly at concerts and festivals for con- temporary music. In addition to her work as a composer, she appears as a pianist at concerts and festivals for improvised music and has worked with many renowned exponents of the contemporary jazz scene in Europe and abroad.

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Laurie Anderson (*1947, Illinois)

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Homage à Laurie Anderson by Mira Lu Kovacs

“From the beginning I’ve felt attracted by the way Laurie Anderson takes her androgyny for granted and the sober, natural way she embraces it, on and off the stage. In my search for things we share or perhaps things that set us apart, what became apparent was our love of reduction, of a certain simplicity. Apart, from that I realized that Anderson’s music is unrelentingly hypnotizing and comforting at the same time, like someone explaining that life doesn’t last forever, and that that’s a good thing.”(Mira Lu Kovacs)

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Mira Lu Kovacs

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Mira Lu Kovacs

Mira Lu Kovacs is a singer, guitarist, songwriter, and lyricist. Best known for her band Schmieds Puls (winner of the FM4 Award 2016), which released two full-length albums and toured in Europe and North America, the singer also dedi-cates her time to various other projects. The recent collaboration with the critically acclaimed jazz/electro-improv band Kompost 3 is just one of them. Over the past years she has worked with Rich-ard Eigner (aka Ritornell), Bernhard Eder, Lukas Lauermann, Cid Rim, Clemens Wenger, to name a few. Robert Rotifer (FM4) wrote about Mira Lu Kovacs: “This woman knows how to use both her wide-ranging, changeable voice and her stunning classical guitar technique to spectacular effect.”

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That’s What Happiness Is 03:07Words by Fernando Pessoa. Music by Mira Lu Kovacs. Mixed by Mira Lu Kovacs & Manu Mayr.

Max Brand (1896, Lemberg - 1980, Langenzersdorf)

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Homage à Max Brand by Elisabeth Schimana

“To someone who went out into the world to become a pioneer. To someone whose insatiable desire for the theater made him invent machines for the opera. To someone who left me a legacy of visions and machines.” (Elisabeth Schimana)

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Elisabeth Schimana

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Elisabeth Schimana

Elisabeth Schimana has been working as a com-poser, performer, and radio artist since 1983. She studied electro-acoustics and experimental music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, computer music at the Institute of Elec-tronic Music and Acoustics in Graz, and musicol-ogy and ethnology at the University of Vienna. Her artistic work is centred around space/body/ electronics. She has collaborated for years with the Austrian Kunstradio. She also founded the IMA Institute of Media Archaeology and has focused her research on women in art and technology. Elisabeth Schimana gives lectures and holds composition workshops all over the world.

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Homage à Max Brand by Elisabeth Schimana 03:00Text: Max Brand (Interview with a Recorder, around 1960)Sound materials: Max Brand (around 1960)Voice: Christian Scheib (recorded at ORF Funkhaus, Vienna)

About musikprotokoll

musikprotokoll is Austria’s festival platform for contemporary and experimental music. Functio-ning as a kind of laboratory, it invites the audience to embark on an exploratory journey to discover the latest developments and trends in music, with all the artistic risks that this entails. From orchest-ral music with the ORF Radio Symphonieorchester Wien to chamber music, from live performances to sound installations, musikprotokoll highlights a wide range of intriguingly heterogeneous forms and genres and presents works that are for the most part developed and produced specifically for the festival. Dedicated to contemporary and experimental music and intermedia activities, the musikprotokoll program features outstanding protagonists of current artistic trends and has, throughout the festival’s long history, always pla-ced Austrian positions in an international context. Founded by Emil Breisach in 1968, musikprotokoll is organized annually by ORF (Austrian Broadcas-ting). It is a coproduction of its two stations Radio Österreich 1 and Radio Steiermark, which broad-cast the presented works in cooperation with the steirischer herbst festival.

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About the Austrian Cultural Forum New York

With its architectural landmark building in Midtown Manhattan, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York is dedicated to innovati-ve and cutting-edge programming, showca-sing the best of Austrian contemporary art, music, literature, performance, and academic thought in New York and throughout the United States. In addition to presenting three group exhibitions per year in its multi-level gallery space and housing around 10,000 volumes of Austriaca in its state-of-the-art library, it hosts over 100 free events per year in its own audito-rium and supports at least as many projects at partner institutions across the nation. Visit www.acfny.org for more information.

Austrian Cultural Forum New York11 East 52nd St. (btw. Madison & 5th) New York, NY 10022 Open Daily 10 AM – 6 PM Tel.: +1 212-319-5300Admission to exhibitions, concerts, and other events is free.

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Opening night April 19, 2017 Rooftop concert program:

Steve Reich New York Counterpoint (1985)

John Zorn All Hallows Eve (2012)

Olga Neuwirth Weariness Heals Wounds I (2014)

Beat Furrer Lotófagos (2006)

Talea EnsembleRane Moore, clarinetJessie Fellows, violin Hannah Levinson, viola John Popham, celloBrian Ellingsen, double bassJuliet Fraser, soprano 

Sam Torres, electronics

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Bringing New York and Austria together, the program builds a musical bridge by joining four of the most influential composers from both countries. Americans John Zorn and Steve Re-ich will come together with two of Austria’s liv-ing titans, Olga Neuwirth and Beat Furrer. From John Zorn’s Schoenbergian twelve-tone methods to Beat Furrer’s minimalistically repetitive cells linking his Lotófagos to American minimalist Steve Reich, the performance will celebrate the musical bonds of these great artists. Symbolizing the heart of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York’s mission of continuous cultural exchange, the con-cert features the ACFNY’s long-time US partners, the Talea Ensemble with esteemed guest soprano Ju-liet Fraser, and will transport audiences to Austria and back.

About the program

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The Talea Ensemble has been labeled “... a crucial part of the New York cultural ecosphere” by the New York Times. Recipient of the 2014 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Program-ming, the ensemble has given many important world and US premieres of new works by composers including Pierre Boulez, Georges Aperghis, Olga Neuwirth, John Zorn, and many others. Assuming an ongoing role in supporting and collaborating with student composers, Talea is the 2016-17 Ensemble in Residence at Colum-bia University and has been a guest ensemble at Harvard University, Stanford University, Ithaca College, Cornell University and New York Univer-sity. Talea has recorded works on Wergo, Living Artists Label, Gravina Musica, Tzadik, Innova, and New World Records. www.taleaensemble.org

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Talea Ensemble

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Photo credits Andrea Sodomka © Martin BreindlBernd Klug © Joachim KrennBernhard Lang © Harald HoffmannChristian Fennesz © Kevin WestenbergDemi Broxa © Lisi Charwatdieb13 © Micke KeysendalElisabeth Harnik © Carmina EscobarMax Nagl © Johannes NovohradskyMia Zabelka © Petra CvelbarMira Lu Kovacs © Astrid KnieOlga Neuwirth © Harald HoffmannPatrick Pulsinger © Lukas GanstererPeter Ablinger © Siegrid AblingerPeter Herbert © Gerhard KlockerElisabeth Schimana © Georg Lembergh Christian Scheib © ORFORF Funkhaus Diffusor © ORF, Ursula HummelHomages Sujet / LED cubes © ORF, Fränk Zimmer ACFNY © David Plakke

Philip Glass (Florence 1993) © CC BY-SA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Glass#/media/File:Philip_Glass_018.jpg

Yoko Ono © David Plakke Morton Feldman (Amsterdam 1976 ) © CC https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morton_Feldman_1976.jpg

Charles Mingus © CC-by-sa-2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Mingus_1976_cropped.jpg?uselang=de

Pauline Oliveros (Oakland, 2010) © CC BY-SA 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Oliveros#/media/File:POliveros2010.JPG

John Zorn © John Zorn Cyndi Lauper (Australia, 2011 - Memphis Blues Tour. ) © CC https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cyndi_australia_2011_2.png

Grandmaster Flash (1999) © CC BY-SA 3.0

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Virtual Soundscape

1) Graz: Hauptplatz 2) NYC: Central Park 3) Graz: Volksgarten 4) NYC: Battery Park 5) Graz: Schmiedgasse 6) NYC: Lower Manhattan 7) Graz: Südtirolerplatz 8) NYC: Subway 9) Graz: Volksgarten 10) NYC: Columbus Circle 11) Graz: Andreas-Hofer-Platz

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_Flash#/media/File:Dj_Grandmaster_Flash-

01-mika.jpg

Maryanne Amacher © CC-BY-NC https://vault.cca.edu/items/4e5f336c-e860-4f47-8aab-af2a79ce6608/1/ Robert Ashley © Joanne SavioPatti Smith (Provinssirock festival, Seinäjoki, Finland.) © CC https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Patti_Smith_performing_in_Finland,_2007.jpg David Tudor (1988) © Gisela Gronemeyer http://www.reihe-m.de/?p=420

Jeanne Lee (Hamburg, 1984) © CC https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JeanneLee.jpg

Laurie Anderson © Canal Street Communications Max Brand © Max Brand Archiv

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12) NYC: Red Hook Soccer 13) Graz: Kaiser-Josef-Platz 14) NYC: Long Island City 15) Graz: Hauptbahnhof 16) NYC: Prospect Park 17) Graz: Herrengasse 18) NYC Grand Central Terminal 19) Graz: Volksgarten 20) NYC: Astoria, Queens 21) Graz: Volksgarten 22) NYC: Gowanus, Brooklyn

Graz Ambisonics recordings by Fränk Zimmer. NYC Ambisonics recordings by Pro Sound Effects. All field recordings are converted to the binaural audio format.

Virtual Soundscape loop duration: 60:00

The Virtual Soundscape is built with the following field recordings:

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Curator Christian Scheib

Exhibition Design, Virtual Soundscape Fränk Zimmer

ORF musikprotokoll, Director Elke Tschaikner

Editor (biographies)Lisa Kaufmann

TranslationsFriederike Kulcsar

ORF, Audio MasteringNorbert Stadlhofer

ORF, SupportSylvia Rauter Axi Pfundner Hannes Pieber Ursula Hummel Gerd Andreiz

© ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst 2017

ACFNY, Director Christine Moser

ACFNY, Head of Music, Film & PerformanceArianna Fleur Kronreif

ACFNY, Head of Communications Judith Brand

Media guides, App Developmentwww.fluxguide.com

Media Inquiriesdesk@acfny.org

Credits

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