Scope and arrangement
The Alvin Lucier papers, dating from 1920 to 2022, strongly represent all aspects of Lucier's career as a composer, conceptualist, and pedagogue over five decades. His music and sound installations are documented extensively in sound and video recordings, as well as in scores and performance instructions. The sound and video recordings also include performances, works-in-progress, interviews, lectures, and seminars. See the container list for a fuller description of the sound and video recordings in the collection. Other portions of the collection consist of subject files, writings, photographs, correspondence, programs, datebooks, diaries, posters, notebooks, and clippings.
The Alvin Lucier papers are arranged in five series:
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1950-202221.01 linear feet (49 boxes, 1 oversize folder, 3 tubes). 162.0 megabytes (554 computer files). 1 audio recording
The Subject Files document topics or events such as compositions, installations, performances, collaborations, people, recordings, and other projects. The files contain correspondence; technical notes; music analyses; program notes; contracts; writings and lectures; interview and lecture transcripts; an engagement file holding programs, clippings, and other information; databases of concerts and reviews; Lucier's curricula vitae; and awards. Some subject files also have photographs.
Two of the largest components of the subject files document the books Chambers: Scores by Alvin Lucier and Music 109: Notes on Experimental Music, both of which contain multiple drafts, interview transcripts, or class transcripts. The files for Chambers consist primarily of raw and edited transcripts of Lucier's conversations with Douglas Simon that formed the bulk of the book. Also present are transcripts of interviews and conversations between Lucier and John Cage, William Duckworth, and James Tenney; correspondence and other notes regarding the Sonic Arts Union; special projects such as Solar Sounder I; and files regarding Lucier's careers at Brandeis and Wesleyan Universities. The latter document courses he taught there, the 1994 Collaborations festival of his work, and his retirement celebration.
The folders on the Sonic Arts Union contain primarily correspondence regarding performances and tours, as well as letters from the composers Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley. The files on John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Feldman, La Monte Young, and Robert Wilson hold correspondence, notes, programs, and, in some cases, Lucier's essays on them.
Information about some people, compositions, or events can also be found in the correspondence files in Series V: Personal Files.
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1950-20219.59 linear feet (33 boxes, 1 oversize folder). 66.6 megabytes (78 computer files)
The scores, dating from 1952 to 2021, document nearly all of Lucier's work, including compositions, installations, and music created for theater and dance. The earliest and later scores are in traditional notated format, but most of the others are "prose scores," consisting of directions on how to realize the piece in question. Notated scores can include sketches, full scores, and parts. A few works also have large cloth versions, which were presumably used in an exhibit or installation of multiple pieces, possibly during one of the celebrations of Lucier at Wesleyan University.
Many of the scores include contextual material such as notes, stage diagrams, correspondence, programs, technical information, or brief sound files. Some compositions contain further documentation in the Subject Files in Series I.
Among Lucier's many notable and influential works found in this series are Almost New York; Bird and Person Dyning; Cassiopeia: Five Stars in the Shape of a "W"; Chambers; Crossings; Diamonds, for One, Two, or Three Orchestras; The Exploration of the House; Fideliotrio; I am Sitting in a Room; Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators; Music for Pure Waves, Bass Drums, and Acoustic Pendulums; Music for Solo Performer; Navigations for Strings; Nothing Is Real (Strawberry Fields); The Queen of the South; Serenade for Thirteen Winds and Pure Wave Oscillators; Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra; Sound on Paper; Sferics; Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas; Vespers; and Wave Songs.
Many of the prose scores are duplicated in digital form (but may differ from the print versions if they were revised at a later date). A list of Lucier's works from his website, which includes instrumentation for each, is viewable as an additional resource through the archival portal. That list is incomplete, and does not contain any work composed after 2015. Notes in the container list supply instrumentation for compositions not on that list.
The series also contains a few scores gifted to Lucier by the composers Trevor Saint, George Crumb, Hauke Harder, and La Monte Young.
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1940-20131,905 audio recordings. 152 video recordings. 27.8 gigabytes (3210 computer files)
This series offers a comprehensive view of Lucier's music over five decades, containing around sixty Lucier compositions and sound installations. Other recordings document performances, interviews, lectures, and other projects, some unidentified. The series is arranged in the following subdivisions: compositions; performances; sound installations; radio broadcasts; commercial recordings and recording sessions; interviews; lectures; teaching; other projects; works by other composers; Native American music recordings; natural or ambient sounds; and Lucier family home sound recordings and films. There is some overlap between the subdivisions for compositions, commercial recording sessions, and performances. Researchers should check all three for particular works.
The recordings include works such as Music for Solo Performer, I am Sitting in a Room, Bird and Person Dyning, Music on a Long Thin Wire, Solar Sounder I, Sferics, Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas, Vespers, Small Waves, and many others. Some of the sound recordings are of electronic or tape-manipulated components of works, works-in-progress, and experiments that may never have been used in a finished piece. Studio recordings from the early-2000s onward often have ProTools recording session files as well as playable recordings.
The radio broadcasts contain programs from Germany and the Netherlands. The commercial recordings contain in-progress and final mixes and masters of releases, such as Crossings (1990), Navigations for Strings-Small Waves (2003), Almost New York (2006), Ever Present (2007), and Orchestra Works (2013).
The interviews include conversations over a decade between Lucier and Douglas Simon that were the basis for their book Chambers: Scores by Alvin Lucier. Also present are solo interviews with Lucier from the 1960s through 2008; an interview with Lucier and the other members of the Sonic Arts Union; and Lucier's conversations with figures such as Viola Farber, James Tenney, Christian Wolff, Hugh Aitken, and La Monte Young.
The lectures include one from 1969, but most are from the 1980s to 1990s. They include symposia and a seminar as well. The Other Project recordings contain titles that do not appear on lists of Lucier's compositions, such as Afternoon of a Faun, Empty Spaces, and many unidentified projects. The Other Projects also include the documentary film No Ideas But in Things: The Composer Alvin Lucier, recordings of the Brandeis Choral Union under Lucier's direction, and the three "Dr. Chicago" films in which Lucier appeared, directed by George Manupelli.
Many of the audio and moving image items have, in addition to the six-digit identification code assigned by the library, a two or three-digit code which was assigned by Lucier.
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1920-20144.88 linear feet (13 boxes). 2.0 gigabytes (1393 computer files)
The photographs document much of Lucier's life and career. Arranged alphabetically by topic, event, or composition, they show rehearsals; performances; recording sessions; installations; lectures; seminars; formal and informal portraits of Lucier; Lucier with his teachers Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Milton Babbitt; collaborators and colleagues such as John Cage, Christian Wolff, Robert Ashley, Robert Wilson, and Steve Reich; and Lucier with family and friends. The series consists of prints, negatives, contact sheets, and digital images Some of the digital images are scans of analog originals, some of which are not present in the collection. The print photograph files may also hold letters, programs, notes, or clippings.
Lucier's early career is represented by images of his time in Europe in the early 1960s on a Fulbright scholarship, and his time at Brandeis University. Many files document contemporary music concerts and festivals around the world.
Some compositions, installations, or events have photographs from multiple performances and locations. These include Bird and Person Dyning, Chambers, Music for Pure Waves, Bass Drums, and Acoustic Pendulums, Music for Solo Performer, Music on a Long Thin Wire, Music for Snare Drum, Pure Wave Oscillators, and One or More Reflective Surfaces, Queen of the South, Solar Sounder I, Sound On Paper, and meetings and performances of the Sonic Arts Union.
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1939-20218.0 linear feet (20 boxes). 118.0 kilobytes (34 computer files)
This series documents Lucier's history, personal and professional friendships, and his family life through correspondence; an autobiographical manuscript; notebooks; datebooks, calendars, and diaries; and school yearbooks, diplomas, and memorabilia. The series is arranged alphabetically by subject or format.
The correspondence mixes personal and professional matters and is mostly organized chronologically, with a small amount filed by name. These include letters from David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, and Frederic Rzewski. A separate file titled "Composer Letters" includes letters from Morton Feldman, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Dallapiccola, John Cage, John Adams, Anthony Braxton, James Tenney, Roger Reynolds, John Tilbury, Christian Wolff, Quincy Porter, Pierre Boulez, and Niccolò Castiglioni. Some letters from these individuals can also be found in the chronological correspondence, as well as in the Subject Files in Series I. The chronologically-arranged correspondence is with presenters, funders, musicians, and friends, and relates to particular works, installations, concerts, exhibitions, or other events. Some contracts can also be found in the correspondence, though most are in Series I. Researchers should consult both the correspondence here and the subject files for information on particular topics or people.