Pauline Oliveros, in undated photo, is among the composers profiled in Lisa Rovner’s new documentary, Sisters With Transistors. Photo courtesy Mills College
“A woman stands in the corner of a drawing room performing The Swan by Saint-Saëns, while a group of men look on,” writes Jude Rogers in Friday’s (4/23) Guardian (U.K.). “Although the scene has a sedate Edwardian air to it, this is actually 1976. The woman whirls her red nails around a mysterious black box, making it sigh and lament, whisper and sing. This is Clara Rockmore, the first virtuoso of the theremin, and her audience—all there to learn—includes Robert Moog, inventor of the synthesiser. A year later, aged 66, Rockmore would release her first album, recorded by Moog…. Rockmore is one of 10 electronic music pioneers featured in Sisters With Transistors, Lisa Rovner’s debut documentary, released this weekend….. One of the first performers Rovner became captivated by was Daphne Oram … a pioneer in making music from tape…. There’s also a rare clip of Wendy Carlos from 1969, explaining her modular synthesizer to a French TV network, as well as 8mm footage of [composer] Pauline Oliveros…. Rovner’s big coup for Sisters With Transistors is getting Laurie Anderson to narrate…. One artist featured in Sisters With Transistors, Laurie Spiegel, [said], technology … can be a liberator: ‘It blows up power structures.’ ”
