Philip Makanna

Music with Roots in the Aether: Opera for Television by Robert Ashley

Robert Ashley, Philip Makanna

Robert Ashley, Pauline Oliveros

In 1975 the composer Robert Ashley embarked on an ambitious work titled Music With Roots in the Aether. He called it an Opera (or piece of theater depending on the case) for television. The work is comprised of seven, two hours sections. Each “episode” is dedicated to investigations, interviews, and performances of his one of his peers – David Behrman, Philip Glass, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros, and Terry Riley respectively, with the final reserved for himself.

The Empire of Things

Philip Makanna

Haikuesque impressions of things observed, events remembered, nightmares experienced. . . the sky bursts in spectral madness.

Shoot the Whale

Philip Makanna

A delirious pageant about violence and the decline of the West.