Other Minds Podcast

David Rothenberg is a composer, clarinetist, philosopher, and author of several books on animal songs, including Why Birds Sing, which was turned into a documentary by the BBC in 2006. He has more than forty albums under his own name, and has worked with scientists to decode the mockingbird’s song and written stories on cicada music for the New York Times and whale music for National Geographic. Rothenberg will travel to the Bay Area to talk about playing music with animals at Other Minds’s The Nature of Music series on April 16, 2026 at the David Brower Center in Berkeley. Rothenberg will also give the West Coast premiere of his work Eleven Paths to Animal Music, which features recordings of natural environments from his travels. On the podcast, we talked about what animal song tells us about animal cultures, which animals are the most musical, and making field recordings for his piece Eleven Paths to Animal Music.Music: Sharawji Blues by David Rothenberg, performed by David Rothenberg (Terra Nova); Dreaming Slow by David Rothenberg, performed by David Rothenberg and Lembe Lokk (Terra Nova); On the Journey That Must Be by David Rothenberg, performed by David Rothenberg (Terra Nova); Magicicada Warm Springs by David Rothenberg, performed by David Rothenberg (Gruenrekorder/Terra Nova)Follow David on Instagram.davidrothenberg.wordpress.comListen to David Rothenberg’s Soundwalker podcast.Follow us on Instagram and Facebook.otherminds.orgContact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist working with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live digital looping techniques, she processes her voice in real time to create dense, complex sonic layers. Her works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, sampled sounds, and custom MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound and image with physical gestures. At this year’s Other Minds Festival, Z will perform her piece Simultaneous, an intermedia composition for voice, electronic processing, chamber ensemble, speech samples, gesture control, and projected video. In conjunction with the performance, Other Minds records will release a fixed media version of Simultaneous on LP and CD. In the interview, we talk about Z’s interest in simultaneous translation, finding music in speech, and her use of gesture control instruments.Music: Simultaneous by Pamela Z, performed by Pamela Z, Kyle Bruckmann, Charlton Lee, Clara Kennedy, and Kjell Nordeson live at MoMA; Simultaneous by Pamela Z (Other Minds Records)Follow Pamela Z on Instagram.pamelaz.comFollow us on Instagram and Facebook.otherminds.orgContact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Other Minds’s own Devin King joins us to read an excerpt from our first ever OM book, Peter Garland’s Ingram Marshall: A Personal and Musical Appreciation. Born in 1952 in Portland, Maine, Peter Garland was one of the original students at CalArts in 1970, where his principal teachers were Harold Budd and James Tenney. From 1971 to 1991 he edited and published Soundings magazine and press, where he printed the work of four generations of mostly American composers. As an editor and essayist he played a pivotal role in the rediscovery and re-evaluation of such composers as Conlon Nancarrow, Silvestre Revueltas, Lou Harrison, Paul Bowles, Dane Rudhyar, Harry Partch, and James Tenney. King gives us a first look at what’s in store.Music: Rave by Ingram Marshall (New Albion); Dark Waters by Ingram Marshall, performed by Libby Van Cleve (New Albion); Hymnodic Delays – Low Dutch by Ingram Marshall, performed by Theatre of Voices (Nonesuch)Follow us on Instagram and Facebook.otherminds.orgContact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.This episode of the Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian and Devin King. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Putu Septa is a composer and musician from the village of Padangtegal, Ubud, Bali. To contribute to new music on Balinese gamelan, Septa initiated a new gamelan ensemble–Nata Swara–which performs with, among others, Gamelan Sada Sancaya, an orchestra of extended range bronze instruments designed by Septa, and Kendang Briuk, an instrument set consisting of a varied collection of Balinese kendang drums. On the final day of this year’s Other Minds Festival, Septa, along with fellow Nata Swara member I Kadek Janurangga, will perform with ZOFO, the Bay Area piano duo of Eva-Maria Zimmermann and Keisuke Nakagoshi, and Brian Baumbusch. The supergroup will perform music by Ni Nyoman Srayamurtikanti, Brian Baumbusch, Colin McPhee, and Septa himself. Septa also has a new CD out on Other Minds Records in September called Piwal.Music: Live performance with electronics by Putu Septa; KoSo by Putu Septa, performed by ZOFO; Piwal by Putu Septa, performed by Nata Swara (Other Minds Records)Follow Putu Septa on Instagram.Follow us on Instagram and Facebook.otherminds.orgContact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Samuel Adams (b. 1985) is an American composer. Gramophone Magazine praised Adams as “among the most interesting composers of the millennial generation in his negotiation of the tensions that shape and define his musical narratives: between directness and implication, silence and resonance, emotion and its aftermath.” His work resists the traditional tensions of classical music, blending acoustic and digital sounds in inventive, texturally rich compositions. He has been commissioned by a number of major ensembles, including the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and The Living Earth Show. On the podcast, Adams talks about growing up in the Bay Area, working with the San Francisco Symphony, and the influence of composer Ingram Marshall on his life and work.Music: Études by Samuel Adams, performed by Conor Hanick; Violin Diptych by Samuel Adams, performed by Karen Gomyo and Conor Hanick (Other Minds Records); Shade Studies by Samuel Adams, performed by Sarah Cahill (Irritable Hedgehog)Follow Samuel Adams on Instagram.samuelcarladams.comFollow us on Instagram and Facebook.otherminds.orgContact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

We have another special episode for our subscribers, a recording of the pre-concert talk by musicologist Simon Morrison at our concert of the complete piano sonatas of 20th century Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya, performed by Conor Hanick. Born in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in 1919, Galina Ustvolskaya’s expressive and vigorous music was deemed problematic in the USSR early in her career and did not receive widespread attention in her home country until the 1960s and 70s, and abroad only in the late 1980s. She taught at the Leningrad Rimsky-Korsakov College of Music from 1947-1977 and over the past three decades her music has experienced an increasing amount of performances and acclaim in the West.Simon Morrison is a Professor of Music at Princeton University specializing in 20th-century Russian and Soviet music. In the recording, you’ll hear Morrison discuss Ustvolskaya’s life, her relationships with her contemporaries, and her six piano sonatas, composed between 1947 and 1988. After the episode, head over to otherminds.org, where you can watch a video of Conor Hanick’s performance of Galina Ustvolskaya’s piano sonatas at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, California.Music: Excerpts from Piano Sonatas 1–6 by Galina Ustvolskaya, performed by Conor HanickClick here to watch Conor Hanicks’s performance of Galina Ustvolskaya’s Piano Sonatas 1–6 at Other Minds.simonamorrison.comconorhanick.comFollow us on Instagram and Facebook.otherminds.orgContact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian.

Thea Farhadian is a composer and violinist who creates multi-textured sound worlds which employ an array of elements drawn from her engagement with Western classical music, performance art, Arabic classical music, and live electronic processing. She collaborates with a network of Bay Area, East Coast, and international colleagues and her work has been seen and heard at Galerie Mario Mazzoli in Berlin, the Aram Khachaturian Museum in Yerevan, and Bimhuis in Amsterdam. Today, Other Minds Records releases Farhadian’s newest album, Tattoos and Other Markings, an electronic composition exploring cultural memory and the urge to remember difficult histories. Music: “Mokats Mirza,” “There was and there was not,” and “Eulogy” from Tattoos and Other Markings by Thea Farhadian (Other Minds Records) Follow Thea on Instagram. theafarhadian.com Follow us on Instagram and Facebook. otherminds.org Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org. The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

IMA is the electro-percussion project of electronic sound artist Amma Ateria and percussionist Nava Dunkelman. The duo has been presented in residency at The Stone, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, San Francisco Art Institute, and Stanford University and collaborated with Ikue Mori, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Matmos, and many others. IMA will perform The Flowers Die in Burning Fire on the final night of this year’s Other Minds Festival on September 28, 2024. In the interview, we talk about the duo’s early collaborations, perception of time in music, and the influence of Japanese poetry. Music: “Meshes of the Afternoon” from The Flowers Die in Burning Fire by IMA (Buh Records); “Notion of Time” from The Flowers Die in Burning Fire by IMA (Buh Records); “Ende” from The Flowers Die in Burning Fire by IMA (Buh Records) Follow IMA on Facebook and Instagram. imanoise.me Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. otherminds.org Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org. The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Marshall Trammell is an experimental archivist, percussionist, conductor, and composer. His aesthetics and activism are centered in social change interventions using political aesthetic theory, data creation, mapping, and collective music-and-artmaking in order to relocate the act of co-production from traditional cultural institutions into communities. Hafez Modirzadeh is a saxophonist, composer, and theorist whose music and research focuses on cross-cultural approaches. His research has been published in journals including Music in China, Black Music Research, Leonardo, and Critical Studies in Improvisation. Trammell and Modirzadeh will perform We Say NO To Genocide on the final night of Other Minds Festival 28, Saturday, September 28, 2024. In the interview, we discuss the pair’s history of collaboration, Trammell’s Music Research Strategies, and Modirzadeh’s cross-cultural approach to music. Music: David Boyce, Hafez Modirzadeh, and Marshall Trammell live at Bird & Beckett Books & Records Follow Hafez on Facebook. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. otherminds.org Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org. The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Annea Lockwood’s compositions range from sound art and environmental sound installations to concert music. Water has been a recurring focus of her work and her three installation sound maps of rivers: the Hudson River, the Danube, and the Housatonic River have been widely presented. She is a recipient of the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award 2020 and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2022. In the interview, we discuss two of her recent works which will be performed at the Other Minds Festival: Becoming Air, co-composed with Nate Wooley and Into the Vanishing Point, co-composed with Yarn/Wire. Also covered are Lockwood’s practice of making sound maps and her upcoming project with Wooley sound mapping the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. Music: Becoming Air by Annea Lockwood and Nate Wooley, performed by Nate Wooley (Black Truffle); On Fractured Ground by Annea Lockwood and Yarn/Wire, performed by Yarn/Wire (Black Truffle) annealockwood.com Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. otherminds.org Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org. The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Adam Tendler is a New York-based pianist and author. A pioneer of DIY culture in concert music, in his early twenties Adam performed in all fifty states as part of a grassroots recital tour he called America 88x50, which became the subject of his memoir, 88x50. After his father’s unexpected death in 2019, he used his inheritance to commission a group of composers including Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, and Pamela Z to create new piano works exploring the idea of 'inheritance.' On July 17, 2024, Other Minds will present the Bay Area premiere of Tendler’s Inheritances at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. In the interview, we talk about the origins of Inheritances, looking back at one’s own past, and the unexpected turns the project has taken. Music: Morning Piece by Devonté Hynes, Outsider Song by Scott Wollschleger, Remember, I Created You by Laurie Anderson, Morning Piece by Devonté Hynes, Thank You So Much by Pamela Z; performed by Adam Tendler (New Amsterdam Records) Follow Adam on Facebook and Instagram. adamtendler.com Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. otherminds.org Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org. The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Soosan Lolavar is a British-Iranian composer, researcher, and lecturer living in London. Having studied Iranian classical music, her music draws on ideas from both Western and Iranian traditions with a focus on the diaspora experience. Her album Girl with the London chamber orchestra Ruthless Jabiru was released in March 2024, and her book Embodied Research Through Music Composition and Evocative Life-Writing: Disrupting Diaspora was published in April 2024. Lolavar’s book, the subject of this interview, examines how attending to the lived experience of diaspora can impact our understanding of the term through the lens of her practice as a composer. Music: Tradition-Hybrid-Survival by Soosan Lolavar, performed by Ruthless Jabiru, Kelly Lovelady, conductor, Roxanna Albayati, cello (nonclassical); I Am the Spring, You Are the Earth by Soosan Lolavar, performed by Ruthless Jabiru, Kelly Lovelady, conductor, Faraz Eshghi Sahraei, santoor (nonclassical) soosanlolavar.com Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. otherminds.org Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org. The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Morton Subotnick is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his 1967 composition Silver Apples of the Moon, the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He has worked extensively with interactive electronics and multi-media, co-founding the San Francisco Tape Music Center with Ramón Sender, and is an innovator in works involving instruments and other media, including interactive computer music systems. On the podcast, we talk about his youth growing up in Los Angeles, his co-founding of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, shifting from the clarinet to the electronic music studio to live electronic performance, and his upcoming performance of As I Live & Breathe at Other Minds 27 with video artist Lillevan. mortonsubotnick.com Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. otherminds.org Contact us at otherminds@otherminds.org. The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Intro/outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).