Borealis X Plattform: About Maryanne Amacher

Ahead of the Norwegian premiere of Maryanne Amacher’s GLIA, Bergen Kunsthall Director Axel Wieder is joined by the late composer’s collaborator Bill Dietz to discuss her life and work. A monumental figure of the American avant-garde, Amacher’s 2005 GLIA (performed only once in her lifetime) was an exceptional work incorporating live instruments in her primarily installation-based and electronic oeuvre. Following her passing in 2009, composer and writer Dietz set to work on reconstructing the piece for future performance. Re-premiered in 2012 with its original performers from Ensemble Zwischentöne at ZKM in Karlsruhe and Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, and then revived by Ensemble Contrechamps in 2019 for shows in Geneva and London, the work has come back to life, with two recent sold-out performances at Berlin’s CTM festival. Kunsthall director Wieder is no stranger to Amacher’s work, having organised a landmark exhibition about her practice at daad and Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin in 2012 (with the Maryanne Amacher Archive), amongst others. For this conversation Dietz and Wieder reflect on Amacher’s unique ways of working, her radical ideas about listening and perception, and the legacy she leaves through her work and archive.
Borealis and Bergen Kunsthall combine forces to present conversations that span the ideas and methodologies of experimental music and arts. With previous speakers including Tarek Atoui, Shyboi, Roscoe Mitchell, Adelita Husney Bey, Beatrice Gibson and Laurence Crane, watch this space for details of our 2023 collaboration.