Gordon Monahan

about

Gordon Monahan's works for piano, loudspeakers, video, kinetic sculpture, and computer-controlled sound environments span various genres from avant-garde concert music to multi-media installation and sound art. As a composer and sound artist, he juxtaposes the quantitative and qualitative aspects of natural acoustical phenomena with elements of media technology, environment, architecture, popular culture, and live performance. Monahan began performing in public as a member of various rock bands in Ottawa, Canada (1968-73). Since 1978, he has performed and exhibited at numerous performance spaces, galleries, and festivals. Early in his career, he specialized as a pianist, performing John Cage's Etudes Australes, premiering pieces by James Tenney and Udo Kasemets, and composing extended works for acoustic piano (Piano Mechanics, 1981) and amplified prepared piano (This Piano Thing, 1989). The renowned composer John Cage once said, "At the piano, Gordon Monahan produces sounds we haven't heard before." Beginning in the late 1970's, he created sound works using elements of natural forces and the environment, eventually constructing long string installations activated by wind (Long Aeolian Piano, 1984-88), by water vortices (Aquaeolian Whirlpool, 1990) and by indoor air draughts (Spontaneously Harmonious in Certain Kinds of Weather, 1996). His work for electronic tone generators and human speaker swingers (Speaker Swinging, 1982), is a hybrid of science, music, and performance

top songs

albums

Theremin in the Rain

Imaginary Landscapes: New Electronic Music

Saskatchewan Sound Installations

Speaker Swinging / Piano Mechanics

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Imaginary Landscapes

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This Piano Thing

Speaker Swinging & Piano Mechanics

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Soundviews Volume 1

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Lift (Curated by Brian Conley & Christoph Cox)

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Speaker Swinging

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The Long Aeolian Piano

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Links Outta Here

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