The EM4 concert series continues at AdK this month with a showcase of work by Tod Dockstader.
Despite his ground-breaking audio tape compositions from the early 1960s, including Quartermass and Water Music, Tod Dockstader (1932–2015) is a lesser-known protagonist of acousmatic music. Apart from smaller studies, in the late 1990s he took up other digital compositions, some of which were only discovered and released after his death. In this concert, the Electronic Music Studio at Technische Universität Berlin provides an overview of his extraordinary work and his creative periods.
After studying psychology, painting and film, he started an apprenticeship as film editor, cutting picture and sound for animated cartoons. In his off-work hours he experimented with manipulating tape sound, which lead to the release of his first album Eight Electronic Pieces in 1961. Asking for the possibility to use the facilities of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, he was rejected by Vladimir Ussachevsky, claiming the studios were outstrained.
Dockstader, however, suspected his lack of academic training as cause for this
denial. Further compositions, including Quartermass, Water Music and Traveling Music were released in 1966. Compared to other schools of electroacoustic music at that time, Dockstader made use of both synthetic and recorded material.
EM4 presents Tod Dockstader
Wednesday, 09.01.2019 | Starts 20:00 CET
Akademie der Künste| Hanseatenweg 10 | 10557 Berlin
Photo courtesy of: Tom Streenland / Starkland
