King Britt is a composer, producer, and performer who integrates contemporary electronic music practices with an industry-informed perspective. Britt has performed around the world at SummerStage, Berghain, and Big Ears Festival and collaborated with artists including De La Soul, Madlib, John Legend, and Tyshawn Sorey. As a Professor in Computer Music at UC San Diego, Britt developed and teaches the popular course Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music, honoring the artists within the African diaspora who pioneered groundbreaking genres within electronic music. In the interview, we talk about the early influence of Sun Ra, Britt’s interest in science fiction and Afrofuturism, and his recent Blacktronika festival in Philadelphia.

Music: Tension Remains (feat. Pia Ercole) by Fhloston Paradigm (Hyperdub); Uzoamaka (King Britt's Scuba Mix) by King Britt presents Obafunke (Something Happening Somewhere); …Hours by Fhloston Paradigm feat. Puerto Rican Space Program (KingBrittArchives); New World In My View by King Britt presents Sister Gertrude Morgan (Ropeadope Records/Rykodisc)

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This episode of the Other Minds Podcast was hosted by Joseph Bohigian and Rachel Schonfeld and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Mahsa Vahdat is an internationally acclaimed Iranian singer and composer. She is an iconic figure in the struggle of Iranian women for artistic freedom in the complex socio-political landscape after the Islamic Revolution. Deeply rooted in the rich tradition of Persian classical music, her work blends classical and regional Iranian music, poetic lyricism, and contemporary idioms. Now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she has engaged in musical partnerships that span a wide range of genres and cultures, including projects with Kronos Quartet, Tord Gustavsen, Mighty Sam McClain, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and Pacific Symphony. In the interview we talk about her early musical influences in Iran, her defiance of government restrictions on female singers, and her intercultural musical collaborations.

Music: My Home by Mahsa Vahdat, performed by Mahsa Vahdat and Ellen Bødtker (Kirkelig Kulturverksted); Braids of Innocence by Mahsa Vahdat and Atabak Elyasi, performed by Mahsa Vahdat and SKRUK (Kirkelig Kulturverksted); The Vow composed and performed by Mahsa Vahdat (Kirkelig Kulturverksted); The Moon-Faced of Our Beloved by Mahsa Vahdat and Marjan Vahdat (Marjan & Mahsa Vahdat live at House of Music Hungary)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Joseph Bohigian is a composer and performer of acoustic and electronic music. His work focuses on issues of memory, cultural reunification, and diaspora. With a strong interest in reestablishing a relationship with lost elements of our past to better envision our future, he makes use of archival materials in his music, such as sound recordings, interviews, and written texts, synthesizing fragments of song lyrics and reviving ancient musical notations.

Khatchadour Khatchadourian is a Lebanese-Armenian vocalist and duduk player based in the Bay Area. Growing up within the Armenian diaspora in Lebanon and Aleppo, Syria, Khatchadour’s voice pays homage to the vocal landscapes of the South Caucasus, Levant, and Anatolia. Khatchadour’s passion for the duduk, an Armenian double reed woodwind, began in 2007, and has since taken him on musical journeys across Armenia and Southern France.

On the opening night of this year’s Other Minds Festival, Khatchadourian will be performing with Ensemble Decipher in the world premiere of Bohigian’s I Am He Whose Life and Soul Are Torment, a symbolic biography of the Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov told through the multilingual poetry of Sayat-Nova. On this episode, guest host Devin King interviews Khatchadouian and Bohigian about the project.

Music: Scenes 7, 1, 8, and 5 from I Am He Whose Life and Soul Are Torment by Joseph Bohigian, performed by Khatchadour Khatchadourian and Ensemble Decipher

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This episode of the Other Minds Podcast was hosted by Devin King and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Charlamagne Palestine is an enigma to say the least. Born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York, he cut his teeth as a sacred singer of Jewish music, a bell ringer for the Episcopal Church, and accompanist to figures as disparate Kenneth Anger, Tiny Tim, and Allen Ginsberg. He is considered to be a founding member of the New York School of Minimalism alongside La Monte Young, Steve Reich, and others; he always found a way to eschew the more conventional means of composition of his contemporaries. His longform—often multimedia and ritual-like—performances utilize repetitive patterns, stuffed animals, cognac, chants, and bright colors. Equal parts visual artist, musician, and performance artist, his playful and deeply emotional performances are something to behold.

Music: Strumming Music composed and performed by Charlemagne Palestine (Felmay); Three Perfect Fifths, A Major Second Apart, Reinforced Twice composed and performed by Charlemagne Palestine (Staalpallt Records); Fifths In The Rhythm Three Against Two For Bösendorfer Piano: Part 2 composed and performed by Charlemagne Palestine (Staalpallt Records); STTTTHOMASSS ‘’’’’’‘’’DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz ferrrr TONYYY’’’’’’’’ composed and performed by Charlemagne Palestine (Blank Forms Editions); The Lower Depths composed and performed by Charlemagne Palestine (Barooni)

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This episode of the Other Minds Podcast was hosted and edited by Liam Herb and produced by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Juri Seo is a Korean-born American composer and Professor of Music at Princeton University. She merges many aspects of music from the past century, in particular its expanded timbral palette and unorthodox approach to structure, with a deep love of functional tonality, counterpoint, and classical form. With its fast-changing tempi and dynamics, her music explores the serious and the humorous, the lyrical and the violent, the tranquil and the obsessive. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, Koussevitzky Commission, and Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and received commissions from the Fromm Foundation, Barlow Endowment, and Tanglewood. In the interview, we talk about Juri’s interest in classical forms, just intonation, and humor in music.

Music: “Ostinato” and “Fugue” from Obsolete Music by Juri Seo, performed by Latitude 49 (New Amsterdam Records); Just Intonation Etudes by Juri Seo, performed by Friction Quartet; “Jack-in-the-Box” from Toy Store by Juri Seo, performed by Jinjoo Cho (Carrier Records)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Foreign/Domestic is the improvisational duo of composer, guitarist, and sound artist Zachary James Watkins and drummer John Diaz. Zachary James Watkins studied composition at Cornish College and received an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College. He has received commissions from documenta 14, the Kronos Quartet, and the Seattle Chamber Players, and releases music on the labels Sige, Cassauna, Confront, The Tapeworm, and Touch. John Diaz is a free-form drummer and improviser whose work is guided by intuition and deep listening. Drawing from free jazz, hardcore, and traditional Venezuelan drums, he approaches the drum set as an open and flexible instrument. Born and raised in Venezuela and now based in Castro Valley, California, Diaz is an active presence in the Bay Area underground music scene. In the interview Zachary and John talk about their early musical influences in Lubbock, Texas and Venezuela, their approach to improvisation or real-time composition, and Watkins’ idea of “high vibration resonance.”

Music: Santo Session I : Motion Study by Foreign Domestic, engineered by Zachary James Watkins at Santo Recording on March 29, 2023, mastered by mixture151 : Xopher Davidson (Sixtyhurts)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Pianist-composer Sylvie Courvoisier is a Brooklyn-based native of Switzerland and winner of the Swiss Grand Prix and The American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Award. She has earned renown for balancing two distinct worlds: the deep, richly detailed chamber music of her European roots and the grooving, hook-laden sounds of the avant-jazz scene in New York City, her home for more than two decades. Courvoisier will perform solo on Night 2 of this year’s Other Minds Festival in San Francisco. In the interview, Courvoisier talks about improvising with radios as a child, her multi-stylistic musical education, and the influence of composer Conlon Nancarrow.

Music: Frisking (for Henry Cowell), La descente des alpages (for Julian Sartorius), Soliloquizing (for Wadada Leo Smith), and Preluding (for Conlon Nancarrow) composed and performed by Sylvie Courvoisier (Intakt Records)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Performer, composer, and improviser Kristin Norderval’s repertoire spans the renaissance to the avant-garde, and her credits as a soprano soloist include performances with the Oslo Sinfonietta, Philip Glass Ensemble, and the San Francisco Symphony. As a composer, she combines her operatic lineage with electronic experimentation, placing emphasis on small-scale opera, cross-disciplinary work, and interactive technology. Norderval will perform with Elizabeth Gaver on Night 3 of this year’s Other Minds Festival in San Francisco. On the podcast, we talk about Norderval’s operatic training, improvising with medieval instruments, and her research into singing and Parkinson's disease.

Music: Kristin Norderval and Elizabeth Gaver improvising; Front the North by Kristin Norderval; The Trials of Patricia Isasa by Kristin Norderval; Kristin Norderval and Elizabeth Gaver improvising

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).