Hal Clark – Electro-Acoustic Works 1974-75
PRISMACD716
Release date: July 1st 2013
Distributed by Musikkoperatørene
Digital: iTunes, Spotify, Wimp
Composer, sound designer and curator/researcher Harold (Hal) Clark moved to Norway from San Francisco in the early 1970s to carry on his musical studies and career. In 1972 he was hired as a producer and tonmeister at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter at Høvikodden, Norway. Here he co-founded the Norwegian Studio for Electronic Music (NSEM) together with the late composer Arne Nordheim (1931-2010).
Meeting with young Norwegian composers in regular salon-workshops and bringing with him the influences of the renowned San Francisco Tape Music Centre (studied with Robert Erickson), Harold commissioned technology artist Don Buchla to incorporate his series 502 digital-analog hybrid electronic instrument design into the completion of the NSEM studio in 1974. It was considered one of the foremost advanced instrument inventions at the time.
Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and Harold Clark have now collaborated to publish his works from this period as a legacy project. Part of Harold’s electro-acoustic repertoire is exhibited with the release of this CD, capturing the essence of NSEM while revealing some of the composer’s musical character.
Harold Clark left Norway after 10 years and now lives in Vancouver, Canada, where he is writing a book on the ecology of contemporary music composition and the possible extinction of the modern composer as a socially relevant phenomenon in a world of corporate media.Prisma Records and HOK are proud to present this unknown hidden gem in the history of Norwegian and Canadian electronic and avant-garde music.
