CHARLES AMIRKHANIAN
Pas de Voix (Portrait of Samuel Beckett, 1987) (1986-87) "An impressionistic, cyclical, narrative sound portrait, touching on various aspects of Samuel Beckett's life." (Amirkhanian) Created from ambient recordings of the lobby of Beckett's apartment building, the open-air Metro stop across the street, the bells of Notre Dame, a sound sculpture, plus some extended-technique electric guitar sounds and a selection of sonic bodily functions. Commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, Germany.
Available on CD from Deep Listening™. $20.00.
JOHN J. H. PHILLIPS
The things one has to listen to . . . (1990) (10:00) In his novel, The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett's characters hear many intriguing sounds in the bleak landscape: "the sound of pierced air," and "a little cry like a wounded wistiti," to name just two. Occasionally he even describes the placement of sounds in space. Composed of acoustic and synthesized sounds etched into a background ambiance, The things one has to listen to . . . is a tribute to Beckett's vision in a world too busy to listen. Commissioned by NEW AMERICAN RADIO.
1994- "Things.." is a piece commissioned by
New American Radio
- a nationally syndicated program which offers air time to people outside
the "radio world." I started the piece by dividing the allotted 10 minutes
by the number of pages in Samuel Beckett's novel The Unnamable.
Then I created a score by noting each sound mentioned by Beckett and placing
it on the timeline. This "sound reading" was created using various samplers,
effect devices and synthesizers.
LISTEN to 30 seconds of it.
Quicktime audio movie, 82 Kbytes
John Phillips's Email address is on his Home Page.