Daria Semegen’s chamber, orchestral, vocal and electronic music with dance and film tends toward the experimental. Her first score for instruments and musique concrète tape is from 1965, followed by tour de force electronic music works she crafted with classic analog studio techniques. Her work was featured in articles, books and in E. Hinkle-Turner’s 1991 doctoral dissertation at Univ. of Illinois. In 1995 her music was the subject of an international seminar at King’s College, Univ. of London. Semegen was honored along with digital music trailblazers Jean-Claude Risset and John Chowning at an international electroacoustic music conference in 2015. Alt-music’s Forced Exposure called her electronic works “heterodyning stereo-heavy monsters as vital as any of the GRM/STEIM/SECAM Darmstadt output.” Critic DJ Spooky wrote, “the dynamic range of sounds is absolutely refreshing, flying in the face of what’s been going on in contemporary music culture.”
Music: Vignette by Daria Semegen, performed by Cathy Callis
Recording of Arc, by Daria Semegen
Co-hosts: Joseph Bohigian and Niloufar Nourbakhsh
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Contact us at decipherists@ensembledecipher.com.
Decipher This! is produced by Joseph Bohigian; intro sounds by Eric Lemmon; outro music toy_3 by Eric Lemmon.