#sonambient

Harry Bertoia.

1978

Just for beauty, sound and sight...

GEORGE NAKASHIMA, Nakashima’s New Hope Studio and home, Pennsylvania, USA, 1954-1957, featuring furnitures by Nakashima, Sonambient bronze sculpture by Harry Bertoia (USA, c.1960s), Isamu Noguchi’s Akari ceiling lamp (USA, c.1950s) and a rug prototype Dark Moon I also by Nakashima (1959). / Pinterest

(importantrecords) The Complete Sonambient Collection features all 11 Bertoia Sonambient releases newly restored from the original master reels. A heavy duty box holds 11 CDs each packaged in replica sleeves and a 100 page booklet contains a lengthy historic essay, a Smithsonian interview with Harry Bertoia, exclusive Sonambient era material from the Bertoia archive, photos of the Sonambient barn during Harry's lifetime and updated with many shots of the barn today. Also included are reflections on Bertoia from David Sefton, Tom Welsh, David Harrington (Kronos Quartet) and all three of Bertoia's children.In the late fifties Harry Bertoia began working on long-form improvised compositions by utilizing pure acoustic tones produced using his own pure metal sound sculptures. Bertoia coined the term "Sonambient" to desribe the music of his sculptures and the lush overtones they evoked, renovated a barn on his property deep in the PA woods, and often recorded his nightly sessions in the barn using 4 overhead microphones and a 1/4" tape recorder. Bertoia dedicated the last twenty years of his life to his Sonambient work and in 1970 he released the first Sonambient LP. In 1978, in the final months of his life, he selected recordings from his archive and produced 10 more Sonambient records. He would not live long enough to see these records in person.

In conjunction with the exhibition 'Atmosphere for Enjoyment: Harry Bertoia’s Environment for Sound,' MAD commissioned New York–based musicians Lizzi Bougatsos and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe to create sound and video recordings with Sonambient sculptures. 'Atmosphere for Enjoyment' explores Bertoia's sounding or tonal sculptures. Collectively called Sonambient, these are works made of metal rods that make lush, resonant sounds when struck. Beginning in 1968, Bertoia began setting up an eighteenth-century stone barn on his property in Barto, Pennsylvania, to house and record these works, and this is where Bougatsos and Lowe made their recordings. On April 11, 2016, Lowe performed this piece, "We Echo Now His Love," at the Sonambient Barn. Under the alias Lichens, he creates live, spontaneous compositions often described as otherworldly. Both artists' work, influences, emphases on percussion, ambient music and dedication to improvisation made them compelling performers to relate to and animate the sounding sculptures installed at the barn, an experience reflected here. Video by Johann Rashid.

Mood.