As I’ve mentioned previously, and is the case with many people, my introduction to electronic music came in the form of Wendy Carlos’s Switched on Bach album, as well as a quirky little record called Everything You Always Wanted to Hear on The Moog. But I quickly discovered other folks using synthesizers to create their music. Most of them were “covering” or recording classical music or latin jazz. But there was also another, more interesting side to electronic music: experimental music. Some would call it avant garde and some would say it was just plain noise. But I found — and find — it fascinating.
One of the artists that started hearing about in that time period was Suzanne Ciani, and I found out about her while reading (and dreaming) about some really unique synthesizers made by Don Buchla. Yesterday, Reverb.com posted a new interview with Suzanne as part of their Patchworks series, and I thought you might be interested in seeing:
I find it interesting that, while her instruments are newer and she has embraced a workflow that incorporates both Buchla modular synths and computer and iPad apps, her core approach to creation remains as it was nearly 50 years ago.
[The more of this I write, the more I know that I wrote about Suzanne at some point in the past, and it must have been one of the posts that was lost when I moved from Squarespace and switched back to using WordPress.]
Self-taught on piano, and with classical theory training, she found her passion in music after meeting Don Buchla and going to work for him building some of the early Buchla synthesizers. She talks about her relationship with Buchla a bit in this video.
These two clips are also part of a greater collection of videos, including complete concerts, by or about here that I am constantly updating on YouTube. That whole playlist is available here:
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