Serralves dedicates three-days to Maryanne Amacher

The moment of "homage, sharing and contribution" aims at a "greater understanding and visibility" of the work of the American, known for immersive works, created specifically for a location, and an ongoing investigation into the materiality of sound. "The program of 'Additional Tones: A Tribute to Maryanne Amacher' comes in line with the recent and growing international recognition of the importance and uniqueness of Amacher's work," a statement from the foundation read.

Researchers Amy Cimini and Bill Dietz stage a seminar dedicated to two of the most outstanding series they created, "Music for Sound Joined Rooms" and "Mini Sound Series," on Friday, kicking off the dedicated lineup. There are two national premieres, the first of the film "Sisters with Transistors", about "the pioneering work of several women who marked the history of electronic music, directed by Lisa Rovner, at 11:00 on Saturday. Marianne Schroeder and Joana Gama perform at the piano, "Petra", performing together for the first time on Sunday at 10:30.

Debuted in Switzerland in 1991, it was written for two pianos and is inspired by a science fiction tale with the same title, by Greg Bears, in which the conaggulas of Notre Dame breed with humans in a post-apocalyptic setting. Half an hour later, the work "Perceptual Geographies", inspired and dedicated to Amacher, by the Dutch composer Thomas Ankersmit, will also be performed for the first time in Portugal by himself. Ankersmit, a former student of the composer, has dedicated research to the composer, exploring, in "Perceptual Geographies", the "different modes of listening: not only that sounds and when they are heard, but also how and where the sounds are experienced", from the room to the interior of each one's body. The otoacoustic emissions, or sounds generated within the body itself, by the ear, have here "an important role", recalling the pioneering role of the American in the investigation of the use of these phenomena.

Until March, and through the Internet, several discussions and reading sessions will also take place in the book "Maryanne Amacher: Selected Writings and Interviews", in partnership with the New York Public Library. In 2002, Amacher presented "The Sounding of Casa de Serralves: Supreme Connections", a sound, visual and performative installation integrated into a series of works titled "Music for Sound Joined Rooms", which began in 1980. "The House of Serralves has been transformed into a place of multidimensional and immersive experiences. The sound spread through the architectural structure, through the rooms, rooms, columns and antechambers. The architecture shaped the propagation of sound and its hearing," the note recalls. The installation included several videos, in different spaces, scenographic objects and "strange creatures inhabiting the gardens", in a work also inserted in an investigation that the composer carried out on the "phenomenology of perception".

Amacher's body of work spans several decades, from the United States to Europe and Asia, and collaborates with dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham (1974–1976) and composer John Cage (in "Lecture on the Weather" and "Empty Words/Close Up"). "Her work was a pioneer and visionary in various areas of musical and artistic creation such as sound spatialization, new media, acoustic ecology, artificial intelligence or psychoacoustics," the foundation said.

Born in 1938, she learned piano in Pennsylvania, where she studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and George Rochberg, before studying composition in Austria and England, and then computer science and acoustics in Illinois, back in the United States. In 1967, she inaugurated the series "City Links", which would have a total of 22 pieces, the first in Buffalo, where she was in residence, a 28-hour work from five microphones capturing sound in different parts of the city, and broadcast live on the radio. The work with architecture and the notion of staging and perception of sound marked much of his career, whose last decade was dedicated to teaching at Bard College, with increasing recognition from his death in 2009.