Interview with alcides lanza

by Ian Chuprun

• In 1965, alcides lanza arrives in New York on a Guggenheim Fellowship to specialize in electronic music at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. In September 1965, he enters the class of Vladimir Ussachevsky, with Jon Appleton and Charles Dodge amongst his classmates.
• He stayed on at the Center for six or seven years in New York, first as a student, then, as the scholarships ran out, he began working in the studios. As technician, his job was to teach new incoming students how to use the machinery.
• For five years, he worked part-time for little pay but in his spare time composed 3–5 pieces per year that employed electronics. At home, of course, no composer had equipment at the time and so the compositions were worked on exclusively in the studios.
• There were in total four or five studios, and lanza was the technician for “Room 106” at 116th and Broadway, next to MacMillan Theatre, where electronic music concerts were presented. The other studios at 125th and Broadway, run by other technicians (including Alice Shields), housed some of the larger equipment, including Babbitt’s RCA Mark II.
• The studio was U-shaped and housed four Ampex (440 or similar) 2- and 4-track machines: perhaps two of the machines had exchangeable heads so they could be made quadraphonic. Additionally, there were sound generators, wave shape generators and filters: there was no voltage control then, everything was done by hand, by manipulating the dials on the various modules. [Some photos showing the equipment can be seen in Andrés Lewin-Richter and alcides lanza’s “Intersecting Planes: A Reminiscence of Vladimir Ussachevsky in the 1960s [pdf]” in this issue of eContact!]. Also, the Bode Klangumwandler (later known as the Frequency Shifter), ring modulators (possibly made by the technicians there).
• Microphones were kept under lock and key; the studios were more geared towards electronic music than musique concrète practices. Despite this, Ussachevsky had an extensive library of recordings of instrument sounds which he was classifying, manipulating and analysing, but newcomers didn’t enjoy such easy access to the microphones.
• lanza was obliged to find other means to explore the musique concrète “noise” sounds he was interested in; he learned how to produce it electronically. In plectros II, for piano and tape, he gave himself the challenge to “write music for the pianist that is going to at times sound like it is musique concrète, but… create the tape part electronically, to confuse the audience as to who is doing what.” In Interferences II, for percussion and tape, he learned how to use the envelopes and sound generators in such a manner as to produce maraca and drum roll sounds electronically, which would sometimes sound on the tape part while the performer is stationary on stage.
• Eventually he acquired a Roberts 4-track tape machine and microphone of his own.

• In 1970, at a festival concert in Madrid where he conducted the Aléa Ensemble (featuring American repertoire, works with electronics, coloured lights, etc.), lanza meets Canadian composer Bruce Mather (McGill), who invites him to apply for a position opening to teach advanced composition (replacing István Anhalt, who founded the studio) with a specialization in electronic music. He gets the position and begins teaching in 1971.
• The McGill Music Faculty was then located in a house on Mountain Street, in a small building. Classes were spread over several buildings. some of which were rented by the faculty for practice and rehearsal spaces. The electronic studio was in an old coach house and was equipped with several Le Caine machines (due to space limitations, not all were installed).
• His first term (September to December 1971) is spent learning the equipment in the studios (Kevin Austin is one of his students and is assigned to teach him how to use the equipment he was unfamiliar with: the Moog and the Le Caine instruments). Brief description of working in the New York studios to produce sound on electronic modules and the arrival of the Buchla synthesizer in 1965.
• Despite being much smaller than the Columbia-Princeton studios, the McGill studio was already outfitted with Le Caine instruments (the first voltage-controlled instruments), a Buchla (since 1965) and a “complete” Moog Synthesizer (Columbia-Princeton only had some modules, no keyboard).
• In December 1971, the Music Faculty is consolidated in the Strathcona building; there are now four studios, one dedicated fitted with the Moog and some tape recorders, the main studio initially only with Le Caine instruments. In January 1972, lanza gives his first courses in electronic music at McGill.
• Description of various pieces of equipment in the various studios.
• Pieces composed by lanza in the McGill studios in the early 1970s include plectros III, eidesis III, acúfenis II and ekphonesis IV; a description of the latter work, based around Picasso’s Guernica.
• McGill Electronic Music Studio remains the studio’s name, despite discussions about the terminology. The director of the studio was then Paul Pederson, who had taken over from Anhalt, now teaching at Queen’s University in Kingston; lanza takes over Anhalt’s teaching load.
• In 1974, Bengt Hambraeus and lanza replace Pederson (now Associate Dean) as Co-Directors; a year later Hambraeus prefers to reduce his administrative workload, leaving lanza as de facto Director, a position he held until Sean Ferguson joins as Co-Director in 2003. A year later, Ferguson is made Director, lanza is promoted to Director Emeritus.
• Kevin Austin attends lanza’s composition seminar; lanza conducts a work by Austin for brass quintet and tape [King Bob’s Fantasy Variations], in which Austin played tuba.
• In the McGill composition programme, electronic music has long been a mandatory course, but it was unfortunately never possible to get a degree in electronic music at McGill.
• Because of the growing interest, lanza proposes and launches a course in electronic music for non-musicians (poets, dancers, etc.) is launched that is very successful with students from McGill as well as Concordia University (students of Austin, who had gone on to found the EMS in the Concordia Music Department).
• In 1972–1975 computer music courses are given by Pederson at midnight on the administrative mainframe because the music faculty had no computers. There were also trips to Ottawa every few months for courses, as Le Caine was already working on computers there.
• The studio acquires a Synclavier II in 1981; lanza first learns how to use a computer at age 51. For Sensors IV (choir and tape), lanza samples Meg Sheppard’s voice from his Trilogy. Description of working on the piece with the Synclavier II, which allowed for 2- and 3-dimensional spectogrammes. Building polyphonic-sounding works from 50k monophonic output.
• There was also an Arp 2600 in the studios.
• Le Caine’s instruments gradually became more difficult to work with, as they aged; around 1986 many of the instruments were passed to a museum. Discussion of the strengths and characteristics of the Le Caine instruments. [See lanza’s article “The Le Caine Instruments: A Disappearing technology” in this issue of eContact! for more discussion of these instruments.]
• What was known about electronic music in Canada outside Canada: Norman McLaren… The problems of “getting the word out” about the Le Caine instruments, despite the fact that Le Caine had produced the world’s first polyphonic synthesizer, upon request by and in collaboration with Paul Pederson. The first “Poly” was installed in the old coach house studio in 1970, eight or nine years before the Moog became polyphonic.
• Le Caine taught the users himself in person how to use his instruments, there was no manual.
• Prior to lanza’s arrival, Le Caine had been Visitor Professor many times.