Intercontinental Radio Improvisation for/with Pauline Oliveros for her 80th birth year.

On March 25, 2013, at public radio station 3MBS in Melbourne, and at Pauline Oliveros's house in Kingston, New York, we did an intercontinental radio linkup improvisation to celebrate Pauline's 80th birth year - now swiftly merging into her 81st!  The project was originated by Vineta Lagzdina, and we worked for a number of months to work out the best technology, venue and way to do this.  Radio 3MBS producer Penny Manwaring was very enthusiastic about the project, Pauline suggested Google Hangout as the linkup software (which worked wonderfully) and after a few technical rehearsals, and some virtuoso technical figuring out by 3MBS technical director Cameron Paine and engineer Terry McDermott, the setup was finally worked out.  Pauline and Vineta performed on voice, percussion and wind instruments, I performed on electronics, including the John Cage Prepared Piano Android/iOS app.  After the performance, Pauline, Vineta and I did an interview where we discussed improvisation and technological linkups in general.  I am currently in the process of transcribing that interview, but for now, here are two photographs and the mp3 of the improv itself.

The crew at 3MBS, March 25.  L to R top: Warren Burt, Penny Manwaring, producer, Vineta Lagzdina, Terry McDermott, engineer.  L bottom, Vineta Lagzdina in the recording studio.  R bottom, Warren Burt in the control room.  Photos by 3MBS.

Catherine Schieve, Pauline Oliveros and Warren Burt at the Ricketts Point Tea Room, Beaumaris, in 2007 when Pauline visited here.  Photo by Ione.

If you like the improv, you can download it here. I hope you enjoy listening to this improvisation as much as we enjoyed playing in it. If you like the improv, you can download it here.  And I'm delighted to say that with Google Hangout, there finally is a way for people to intercontinentally improvise in a way that is technologically easy, has low (ish) latency, and is a lot of fun.  Hopefully, we'll be doing a lot more of this in the future.  Thanks so much to Pauline, Vineta, Penny, Terry, Cameron and everyone else who helped with this project.  Enjoy!