This RTV episode features new excerpts from “Shimmer,” an opera in progress, composed and performed by Joan La Barbara.
Performance date: 11/03/2007
Episode release date: 04/21/2010
Host: Phoebe Legere
Joan La Barbara’s career as a composer, performer, and sound artist has been devoted to exploring the human voice as a multi-faceted instrument. She created works for multiple voices, chamber ensembles, music theater, orchestras, and interactive technology. As an acknowledged pioneer in the field of contemporary classical music and sound art, she developed a unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques, including multiphonics (the simultaneous sounding of two or more pitches), circular singing, ululation and glottal clicks that have become her “signature” sounds.