On Air - On Site : 48 Hours of Radio Art

Aired on May 25th 09:45 CEST 2024
A Question of Survival
Genre: Electroacoustic music, Spoken Word
Duration: 30 min
A Question of Survival is a work in progress that Baker and La Berge developed over a period of 8 months. They based the structure and text on Louise Erdrich's The Plague of Doves, a novel that
revolves around an act of racism that took place in the early 20th century and includes a plethora of subplots that still seem so relevant today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague_of_Doves

After reading the novel and delving into the themes that Erdrich uses in most of her books, they found a common aesthetic ground to build a performance set which functions as a piece.
Their musical material is made of flexible guided improvisations that change according to their emotional and aesthetic responses to time and place and audience.
This version was recorded at a performance at Splendor Amsterdam on 18 March and edited slightly to make it 30' long.
During this most current collaboration Baker and La Berge found, within their growing and changing assemblage of instruments, new combinations, and new sounds for their ever-continuing duo project.

Tom:
Electric guitar, theremin, Ableton Live
Anne:
Flute, Kyma, ContinuuMini

Featuring:

Tom Baker & Anne La Berge

Tom Baker is a composer, guitarist, improviser, and electronic musician who has been active in the Seattle music scene since arriving in 1994. He is the artistic director of the Seattle Composers’ Salon, co-founder of the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO), and founder of the new-music recording label Present Sounds Recordings.

Anne La Berge is a composer, flutist, improviser and electronic musician who has been active in the Dutch artistic scene since arriving in 1989. She is the director of the Volsap Foundation, a founder of the music mecca Splendor Amsterdam and a member of the MAZE ensemble.

They work together regularly since Anne’s US family lives in the Seattle area and have toured the US and parts of Europe with guests musicians for at least 10 years.

Their recent release can be found on Bandcamp. https://presentsounds.bandcamp.com/album/sand