The internationally renowned American composer, performer, and multi-media installation artist – who died in 2009 – was a 20th century maverick of music and sound, working extensively to develop her »ear tone music, with the physiological phenomenon called otoacoustic emission – in which the ears themselves act as aurally active generating devices.

Photo: California College of the Arts

Acclaimed for her dramatic architectural staging of music and sound, Amacher was a highly original thinker who trained in Philadelphia, Austria, and England, studying with George Rochberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Widely regarded as a pioneer of sound art, one of her early works was the 1967 piece »City Links: Buffalo,« which situated five microphones in different parts of the city, lasted 28 hours, and was broadcast live by radio station WBFO. Later pieces often dealt with the acoustics of locations and architectural buildings.

During her long and storied career, she was a member of the improvisation ensemble Musica Elettronica Viva and also worked with a wide range of artists, including John Cage, David Behrman, Scott Fisher, Mark Trayle, Frederic Rzewski, and Alvin Curran. Active as a composer-performer in the field of sound installation with Ars Acustica, she was a fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies as well as SUNY Buffalo, a guest of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin-Program, taught at Bard College, and was awarded the Prix Ars Electronica’s highest honor, the Golden Nica, in 2005

  • Maryanne Amacher: Petra excerpt 1 by Blank Forms

  • Maryanne Amacher: Petra excerpt 1 by Blank Forms