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The 1960’s was a new age of musical expression, in which the long-sanctified precepts of classical repertory came tumbling down and California native Don Buchla was in the center of it. He grew up with a passion for music and a passion for engineering. When he combined the two loves, he created electronic musical instruments the world had never dreamed of before.
Selected Dramatis Personae
Don Buchla
Don is an unheralded inventor of one of the most important inventions in the electronic music sphere. His pioneering work laid the basis for what electronic music was to become by creating an absolutely unique analog synthesizer that completely changed the way people think about, compose, and perform music.
Suzanne Ciani
Suzanne is a Grammy nominated composer, performer and pioneer in the field of electronic music and sound design. She was one of the early adopters of the Buchla, and is Don's tennis partner.
Alessandro Cortini
Alessandro is best known as a touring and recording member of bands Nine Inch Nails, blindoldfreak, and SONOIO. He is a dedicated Buchla performer, and his three recent Forse records are all created and performed on the Buchla Music Easel.
David Rosenboom
David is a composer, performer, and pioneer in experimental music. He assisted Don in creating the Touché, and the only released LP of Don as a performer is the Rosenboom and Buchla Collaborations In Performance LP on 1750 Arch Records.
Ramon Sender
Ramon is a composer, visual artist, and writer. He was one of the co-founders of the San Francisco Tape Music Center and a co-producer of the Trips Festival. Along with Morton Subotnick, he worked closely with Don on the conception of the original Buchla Box.
Morton Subotnick
Morton is a composer best known for Silver Apples of the Moon, the first electronic work commissioned by a recording company. He was a co-founder of the San Francisco Music Tape Center. With Ramon Sender, he conscripted Don into creating the first Buchla Box. Silver Apples, and many later works (including Touch and A Sky of Cloudless Sulphur) were created on the Buchla.
Production News
April 2015
We just came back from a shoot down in Southern California; we got the chance to interview musician/mathematician Ami Radunskaya (and see her perform on a one-of-a-kind Buchla-created cello), Don's son Ezra, and go through Buchla collaborator David Rosenboom's archive of material ranging from his work at the Electric Circus in New York in the 60s through his time in Berkeley in the 70s. A treasure-trove of material.
March 2015
Filmed a tour of 1750 Arch Street with the former head honcho Tom Buckner; 1750 Arch Street (which is now the home of UC Berkeley's CNMAT, the Center for New Music and Technology) was a thriving hub during the 70s of all kinds of music, and experimental electronic music in particular. It played host to lots of performances by Don and associated people.
February 2015
An absolute, historic treat. We filmed a visit by as many of the old guard of the San Francisco Tape Music Center as we could gather to go and see the original Buchla Box at Mills College. Ramon Sender, Morton Subotnick, Bill Maginnis, and Don all trooped up the stairs to peer in at the thing that started it all. (No Pauline Oliveros or Tony Martin, alas.) A rare and significant gathering.
