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Istvan Anhalt

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Istvan Anhalt --- undefined

Excerpt from the rear cover: “FOCI, a work in nine sections for singer, instruments and tape, was composed in 1969 for the members of the center of the Creative Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo. It is a series of views on life; glimpses of contemporary existence, and glimpses of past situations. Some of these suggest the perception of exterior events, spaces, aural and visual images, most of them, however, are concerned with the inner spaces of the mind/heart. The piece is primarily about people, about individuals, and about small groups, in diverse contexts. […] CENTO was composed in 1966 under a grant from the Centennial Commission, and its premiere performance took place in 1967, Canada's Cennennial Year. The composer describes his work thus: ‘It is a work for a twelve-part mixed choir and two channels of tape-recorded sounds. Most of the sounds on the tape are also vocal, and it was my intention to blend, as much as possible, the live and the recorded voices. The effect I was seeking is that of a single choir performing in an acoustical space the character of which is partly real, partly unreal’. "Much of the electronic equipment in both works was invented and built by Dr. Hugh Le Caine at the National Research Council of Canada.” Liner notes written in English and French