#4918, With Laurie Anderson, on 'Amelia'

New York-based multimedia composer and artist Laurie Anderson presents her latest – a retelling of Amelia Earhart’s final flight. Amelia is a half-hour work for voices, spoken and sung, recorded with the Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno. Anderson wrote the music and lyrics and recruited notable soloists: Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly, Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota, and Kenny Wollesen. The text of the work comes from both the paper trail and audio trail of the aviation pioneer Earhart: her speeches, her pilot logs, telegrams she wrote to her husband, and reports of her final radio transmission on her 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

“Being unable to communicate is why she crashed” is Laurie Anderson’s take on how she disappeared. Anderson imagines the noise in the cockpit, the heat of no ventilation, the likely mirages that Earhart saw as she grew more and more tired. The vocalist Anohni appears in the work in several key moments, as “she is the wind that blows through,” describes Anderson. Listen to the updated piece Amelia (first performed in 2000 at Carnegie Hall) as Laurie Anderson introduces most of the work and talks about her “ideas of what a woman flying around the world might think about,” (Nonesuch.com).

Laurie Anderson, is a composer, artist, and collaborator who has worked in film, music, installations (both VR and not), writing, photography, and sculpture. She was NASA’s first artist-in-residence, has published several books, invented instruments, and produced numerous videos, films, radio pieces, and original scores for dance and film. Earlier this year, she was awarded the 2024 Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. In a recent 60 Minutes profile, Anderson Cooper said she “is a pioneer of the avant-garde, but ... that doesn’t begin to describe what she creates. Her work isn’t sold in galleries. It’s experienced by audiences who come to see her perform: singing, telling stories, and playing strange violins of her own invention ... she [blends] the beautiful and the bizarre, challenging audiences with homilies and humor. She blurs boundaries across music, theater, dance, and film,” (Nonesuch.com). - Caryn Havlik

Program #4918, With Laurie Anderson, on 'Amelia' (First aired 9/04/2024)

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: O Superman (for Massenet) [:24]
RECORDING: Big Science
SOURCE: Nonesuch 130428
INFO: nonesuch.com

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: From the Air [:25]
RECORDING: Big Science
SOURCE: Nonesuch 130428
INFO: nonesuch.com

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Blue Lagoon [:15]
RECORDING: United States Live
SOURCE: Warner Records
INFO: Available at Spotify, AppleMusic, YouTube, Discogs.com

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: From the Air (originally from “The End of the Moon”)  [:23]
RECORDING: Heart of a Dog
SOURCE: Nonesuch 552027
INFO: nonesuch.com

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: To Circle the World [1:02]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: I See Something Shining [:29]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Takeoff [1:06]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson, Anohni
WORK: Aloft [1:11]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: San Juan [1:50]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Brazil [1:01]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: This Modern World [:34]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: The Badlands [:39]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Waves of Sand [1:52]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson, Anohni
WORK: India And On Down to Australia [3:51]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Broken Chronometers [:46]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Blue Lagoon [:20]
RECORDING: United States Live
SOURCE: Warner Records
INFO: Available at Spotify, AppleMusic, YouTube, Discogs.com

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Fly Into the Sun [:47]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Howland Island [1:08]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson, Anohni
WORK: Radio [1:59]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Lucky Dime [1:13]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Nothing But Silt [:49]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

LARTIST: Laurie Anderson, Anohni
WORK: Nothing But Silt [1:07]
RECORDING: Amelia
SOURCE: Nonesuch 
INFO: https://laurieanderson.lnk.to/amelia

ARTIST: Laurie Anderson
WORK: Blue Lagoon [2:58]
RECORDING: United States Live
SOURCE: Warner Records
INFO: Available at Spotify, AppleMusic, YouTube, Discogs.com