Ann McMillan
Whale - Wail, In Peace, En Paix: For Voice and Tape Structures of Whale and Other Animal Sounds
**2020 stock** Whale - Wail, In Peace, En Paix: For Voice and Tape Structures of Whale and Other Animal Sounds is a 1986 recording by composer Ann McMillan, commissioned by Moses Asch. The piece, first presented on Baffin Island, north of the Arctic Circle, for an Inuit audience, is a plea to humans to be more like whales. Inspired by her study with Edgard Varèse and his work with pre-recorded sounds, the composition features whales and other sound sources (including bull, insect, and Chinese cy…
Gateway Summer Sound: Abstracted Animal and Other Sounds
**2020 stock** Ann McMillan did not record prolifically, but she was at the vanguard of electronic composition in New York in the 1970s. A student of groundbreaking composer Edgard Varèse, McMillan’s primary medium was magnetic tape, which she manipulated to create surreal soundscapes. On Gateway Summer Sounds, her debut album released on Folkways in 1979 and recorded at the legendary Princeton-Columbia Electronic Music Center, she sources sounds from the natural world – frogs, insects, field re…