Laurie Anderson: Transcending Performance

The bio on her site says, aptly, that Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned – and daring – creative pioneers. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. A reasonable account of her vast, beautiful, impactful oeuvre, performances, and achievements would take pages, and so I direct you to laurieanderson.com. I will mention one of her most recent honors and achievements, which was to deliver the prestigious Norton Lectures at Harvard University this year, the occasion for six 90-minute lectures she recorded on video - now available for viewing. There’s so much in her work that I find transformative and indispensable, but you absolutely must view her film of 2015, Heart of a Dog.

As I recount it during our conversation, my first encounter with Laurie was in her guest appearance at an electronic music class I was taking at Wesleyan in 1979. This amazing pixie of a person stood among us, maybe 12 of us, and created a mesmerizing soundscape. The following year, when I was beginning my studies at New England Conservatory, O Superman came and changed everything for us musicians.

The first big concerts produced by the Arvo Pärt Project back in 2014 brought Laurie back into my orbit, and I had the joy of collaborating with her in producing an Arvo Pärt study day for New York Live Arts. Since then she has continued to support our work, participating in our Sounding the Sacred conference in 2017, and we’ve enjoyed conversations over a wide variety of topics. In fact, my breakfast encounters with Laurie Anderson were the first inspiration for the idea of this podcast series. We had to wait a couple years to make this conversation happen, for the 35th episode of Luminous. The previous 34 were all a rehearsal.