Nicolas Slonimsky, born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy, was a Russian-born American musicologist, conductor, pianist, and composer. Best known for his writing and musical reference work, he wrote the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and the Lexicon of Musical Invective, and edited Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians.
Samuel Conlon Nancarrow was an American-Mexican composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. Nancarrow is best remembered for his Studies for Player Piano, being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realizing their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation and did not become widely known until the 1980s.
Alvin Augustus Lucier Jr. was an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma. Much of his work is influenced by science and explores the physical properties of sound itself: resonance of spaces, phase interference between closely tuned pitches, and the transmission of sound through physical media.
Pauline Oliveros was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music.
KPFA is an American listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed on the air April 15, 1949, as the first Pacifica Radio station and remains the flagship station of the Pacifica Radio Network.
Charles Benjamin Amirkhanian is an American composer. He is a percussionist, sound poet, and radio producer of Armenian origin. He is mostly known for his electroacoustic and text-sound music. Performance artist Laurie Anderson praises his work: "The art of audio collage has been reinvented here... A brilliant sense of imaginary space."
James Conlon is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of Los Angeles Opera, principal conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, and artistic advisor to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Trimpin is a German born kinetic sculptor, sound artist, and musician currently living in Seattle and Tieton, Washington.
Gerald Oshita (1942–1992) was an American musician, composer, and sound recordist.
The San Francisco Girls Chorus, established in 1978 by Elizabeth Appling, is a regional center for music education and performance for girls and young women, ages 4–18, based in San Francisco. Each year, more than 300 singers from 45 Bay Area cities participate in SFGC's programs. The organization consists of a professional-level performance, recording, and touring ensemble and a six-level Chorus School training program.
The Del Sol Quartet is a string quartet based in San Francisco, California that was founded in 1992 by violist Charlton Lee.
Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member chamber orchestra that focuses on recordings and performances of contemporary classical music. Its performances have been described as "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity" by the Financial Times and as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the San Francisco Chronicle. The New York Times said that Alarm Will Sound is "one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene."
Pamela Z is an American composer, performer, and media artist best known for her solo works for voice with electronic processing. In performance, she combines various vocal sounds including operatic bel canto, experimental extended techniques and spoken word, with samples and sounds generated by manipulating found objects. Z's musical aesthetic is one of sonic accretion, and she typically processes her voice in real time through the software program Max on a MacBook Pro as a means of layering, looping, and altering her live vocal sound. Her performance work often includes video projections and special controllers with sensors that allow her to use physical gestures to manipulate the sound and projected media.
Raven Chacon is a Diné composer, musician and artist. Born in Fort Defiance, Arizona within the Navajo Nation, Chacon became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his Voiceless Mass in 2022.
Jim Newman is a film and television producer, contemporary art curator, gallerist and musician.
Sarah Cahill is an American pianist based in the Bay Area. She has also worked as a writer on music and as a radio show host.
American Standard is an early ensemble work by noted American composer John Adams. The work is named for American Standard Brand appliances although Adams says that the title also reflects that the constituent movements are "indigenous musical forms" of the United States.
The Djerassi Artists Residency, also known as the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, is an artists and writers residency in Woodside, California. The residency sits on a 583-acre ranch with a 12-sided cattle barn converted into artist studios. Djerassi hosts 10 to 12 artists at a time for its month-long residencies, from March to November. The facilities include lodging with chef-prepared weekday dinners, living quarters, the Artists’ Barn and Old Barn. Djerassi is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains less than 40 miles south of San Francisco and overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Since Djerassi began, it has provided over 2500 residencies to visual artists, composers, choreographers, media artists, writers and scientists from all 50 states and 54 countries. In addition Djerassi Hiking Program provides public access to the property and has expanded to include private hikes and specialty excursions, such as the five-hour Walking Meditation & Sound Immersion Experience. The annual Open House/Open Studios allowed visitors to explore the facilities, go on sculpture tours, meet the artists and enjoy performances. The mission statement for the program has a dual mission: to enhance the creativity of artists through the residency program and to preserve the land on which the program is situated.
1750 Arch Records was an independent record label that focused on experimental and avant garde music, jazz, and classical music.
Robert Grove Hughes (1933–2022) was an American composer, conductor, bassoonist and music scholar based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was known for his wide-ranging artistic interests—extending to poetry, performance art and social commentary—and advocacy of contemporary, often experimental music. San Francisco Chronicle critic Joshua Kosman described Hughes as a visionary and "musical Zelig" who "played a key role in a vast range of ambitious and influential musical projects." In the 1960s, Hughes co-founded the long-running Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and co-founded and led the award-winning Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra. In subsequent decades he co-founded and led the Arch Ensemble for Experimental Music with baritone vocalist Thomas Buckner and co-directed the performance group MA FISH CO with his wife, artist Margaret Fisher.
