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“In a landscape” was originally composed in 1948 to accompany a choreography by dancer Louise Lippold. John Cage instructed the performer to sustain both the damper and the sustain pedals together for the entire duration of the piece – only to release them at the very last measure: “Play without sounding, release pedals (thus obtaining harmonics”).

While following a strict symmetrical structure at a quiet meandering pace, “In a landscape” is a timeless and mesmerizing invitation to reflection and contemplation. With its cyclical repetition of note patterns and absence of dynamics within the piece, “In a landscape” is a “divine” theme which prefigures minimal music and remains a constant reference for contemporary modern classical pianists. - Guillaume Janssen/Spellbinding Music

From the 2000 CRI release liner notes:

"The title refers to Trift, a magic spot situated high above Zermatt, Switzerland, to which Kaminsky has hiked every year since 1987. "Triftmuski" writes Kaminsky, "is my attemt to reveal my memories of this very special place. Sanctuary and various lyrical sections of Wanderweg (which means "hiking trail") are my evocation of Trift's serenity, whereas the primary material of Wanderweg represents the enormous power of the mountains, glaciers and water."

“The piece was composed between May and August, 1977, in Nantucket and Saratoga Springs. My sole intent was to invent a work that would graciously exploit both flute and guitar as individuals, and as a pair.

Because people chide me for what they call 'pretentious' program notes, let me only add that the subtitles, which are of course drawn from Shakespeare's tragedy, will be made clear by the music." - Ned Rorem

"I've composed for the great majority of my life and consider it to be my highest calling. While I have primarily composed for piano, my works so far include music for film and theater as well as music for a wide variety of solo instruments and ensembles, small and large. I very much prefer to compose music with the intention of it being performed by live musicians, rather than being produced by a computer." - Arthur Breur

The Jack Curtis Dubowsky Ensemble is an internationally recognized new music group that combines acoustic instruments, electronic hardware, composed material, and structured improvisation. Hear analog synthesizer as an unpredictable vintage performance instrument. The Ensemble's electro-acoustic music is performed and recorded live, with no overdubs or sequencing.

32 CRYPTOGRAMS FOR DEREK JARMAN was composed in 1994, written at the request of and for Charlie Barber and his Sound Affairs Band, Cardiff, Wales. When Charlie asked for this new work, Jarman had just appeared at the New York International Film Festival where his film BLUE was being presented, and I felt that a set of ‘cryptograms’ — or, according to the dictionary, messages in code; occult symbols — should somehow determine the structure of the piece. With 1995 being a ‘big’ year for Henry Purcell, I took and stretched the bass line of the Dido’s famous lament, and then built aggregates of pitches over each note. The thickness of each ‘cryptogram’ was determined by the I Ching. Because each short section may be repeated at the discretion of the conductor, the work is open ended.”

from liner notes: "Janice Giteck’s “Tara’s Love Will Melt the Sword” keeps with the heartfelt mystical tone of this record. The piece is dedicated to two female manifestations of Buddha and is purposely constructed as modest and intimate meditations."

"My work with electronic music began in 1959. When the San Francisco Tape Music Center was established together with Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnik there was a pool of equipment to use and I began to work with electronic sound. Rather than cut and splice small pieces of tape together to make a composition I chose to work in real time. I used two tape machines with the tape running across both machines to make a delay system. I used two or more oscillators at high frequencies to produce difference tones. These tones would also interact with the bias frequencies of the tape recorders. I would play the oscillators into the tape recorders improvising my way through the piece. My system of composing in this manner was my own invention." - Pauline Oliveros

"I started writing the Drones pieces as a method of developing harmonic ideas over a static structure. The idea is something not unlike singing along with one’s vacuum cleaner, or with the subtle but constant humming found in most dwelling-places. We surround ourselves with constant noise, and the Drones pieces are an attempt to honor these drones and stylize them." -Nico Muhly

"In some ways Afterlife is more intellectually frightening than the melodrama of Clockwork Black, as it takes its own visceral plunge into a different netherworld. There appear suggestions of ominous sighs and moans, which while sounding almost human, are synth sounds I invented (including the most distorted sound I've ever used!) The synth quality only serves to make them more unnerving to listen to, since something is definitely askew timbrally. The structure of Afterlife is most surprising-it's a rondo. Somehow that sober form provided the glue for several contrasting sections. Most themes are in 15 note Equal Temperament, one of the most fascinating and exotic scales around. It's also a thorny tuning to sing and play in." - Wendy Carlos

On Time Out of Time is a suite of works originally commissioned for the 2017 installations ‘ER=EPR’ and 'Orbihedron' by artists Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand (in collaboration with Jean-Marc Chomaz and LIGO) for the exhibition, ‘Limits of Knowing’ at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin by curator, Isabel de Sena.

These works utilize, among other things, exclusive source recordings from the interferometers of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) capturing the sounds of the merging of two distant massive black holes, 1.3 billion years ago.

Plastic Anniversary is derived from a single sound source: plastic.

At once hyper-familiar in its omnipresence and deeply inhuman in its measured-in-centuries longevity and endurance, plastic supplies, surrounds and scares. Seemingly negligible, plastic is always ready to hand but also always somewhat suspect, casting toxic shadows onto the everyday. True to form, the band have assembled a promiscuous array of examples of this sturdy-yet-ersatz family of materials: Bakelite dominos, Styrofoam coolers, polyethylene waste containers, PVC panpipes, pinpricks of bubble wrap, silicone gel breast implants and synthetic human fat. Plastic Anniversary has a distinctive sound because of the foregrounding of plastic horns and plastic drums played by human beings.

Harrison wanted the guitar to be tuned in just intonation, in particular a six-tone mode tuned to pitches six through twelve in the harmonic series. This requirement presented more of a problem, since no such resonator guitar with just-intonation fretting existed. Harrison’s friend and student Bill Slye, a guitarist who had written a thesis at UCSC on microtonal guitars, contacted Don Young, the CEO of National Reso-Phonic Guitars, the makers of the National Steel Guitar, the successor to the original Reso-Phonic instrument of the 1920s. .

Its factory just happened to lie only a few hours south in San Luis Obispo. Young agreed to build an instrument (actually five copies) with frets especially for this project. Slye and others worked out a tuning that expanded Harrison’s hexatonic scale to twelve pitches, so that the “Harrison model” National steel would be available to other composers and performers after the work’s premiere. - Bill Alves & Brett Campbell / Lou Harrison: American Musical Maverick blog