Õie Olinda Sacherman
Õie Olinda Sacherman Õie Olinda Sacherman is believed to be Estonia’s first female composer of electronic music. Very little information is available about her. The tape featured in the concert of EMA in Estonian Music Days 2022 was found in the archives of the Estonian Theatre and Music Museum. It is unknown where Sacherman worked, but it is assumed she had access to Estonian Radio’s equipment, as evidenced by the distinctive sound of drossel circuits used at the time. The piece employs surprisingly modern electronic solutions for its era. The work is unfinished.
The tape’s cover lists her birth year as 1915. Her year of death is unknown, and it is presumed that she emigrated abroad, where her trail has been lost.
Source: : https://www.eestimuusikapaevad.ee/2022/bio/oie-olinda-sacherman/
Udo Kasemets
EMA has consistently researched and performed the music of Estonian-Canadian composer Udo Kasemets (link https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/udo-kasemets-emc) (1919–2014). Kasemets has been called Estonia’s most unknown famous composer, the Canadian John Cage, and Canada’s most uncompromising composer of all time. Since 2019, EMA has been regularly performing Udo Kasemets’ electronic music (Lun(h)armonics, Yi Jing Jitterbug Soloctet, David & David & Larry & James, Tt – Tribute to tribute to Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan, John Cage).
The last one, Tt – Tribute to tribute to Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan, John Cage (1968), is truly remarkable and was incredibly ambitious for its time, but still resonates today. According to Kasemets, it is a “cybernetic, audience-controlled, audio-visual performance piece, cybernetic music for eye, ear, and mind.” This multimedia work is shaped by data collected from the audience. It uses electronic sounds, phonograms, text readings, light, film clips, graphs projected onto screens, and even in its 1968 premiere, a computer was used for real-time data analysis!
EMA has performed the work in two versions:
1) In a modern, digital format: The audience participates via a web-based interface, data is collected over a network, and results of the analysis are sent electronically to all performers and displayed on screens. This version can also be presented over the internet, where participants and performers don’t necessarily need to be in the same physical space.
2) Analog, “historically informed” version: The audience receives physical paper punch cards and paperclips and must punch holes in the cards to make their choices. The cards are collected and fed into a computer. Based on the results, a graph is manually drawn and projected onto the wall using an overhead projector. The sound and lighting technology includes analog synthesizers and other equipment typical of the 1960s.
In EMA’s experience, this second version is much slower, somewhat clumsier in its own way, and requires more preparation, but it also has a much stronger social element – people can move around, quietly discuss the choices for upcoming sections, watch and listen to the different performers in the room, and let all the media absorb them.
Duration of the piece: 20–40 minutes (digital version), 60–90 minutes (analog version).