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Music for Spaceports: Brian Eno to Keynote STARMUS 2016

Updated: May 27, 2020

By the time the 21st Century arrived, I had thought that Brian Eno would have written Music for Spaceports, and that I would be listening to it while waiting for a shuttle to Mars. While the Earth has muddled along—progressing in some sectors and not so much in others—Brian Eno has been evolving his art. I’m thrilled to see that he is a keynote presenter at STARMUS 2016.

When it was first released, Brian Eno’s Music for Airports was one of the most talked about albums in my music circles. Classical musicians didn’t want to recognize that album as music, while others thought it was brilliant. I enjoyed the debate about the music-worthiness of the album as much as the album itself. Good art stretches the boundaries of definition.


Now that I am researching Mr. Eno’s music in preparation for my trip to STARMUS in the Canary Islands, I realize how much I’ve missed his and other experimental music. It’s a treat to be reunited once again and to listen to his more recent work, like The Ship. This, in turn, inspired me to see what’s up with people like Ellen Furman, Pauline Oliveros, and Alvin Lucier, all of whom I’ve heard perform in person, and who, along with Brian Eno, taught me to listen deeply and appreciate the nuance of tones and textures.


Why did I fall of out touch with experimental music? I moved to Silicon Valley in the late 1990’s where the culture is fast paced and high-tech with a bias towards pop. Ambient and slow change music could not exist here, where the space between words and the pause at the end of a sentence are opportunities for someone to interject more words. The start-up culture doesn’t have the word sustain in its vocabulary, much less patience for any tone that would last more than 250 milliseconds or a song longer than 4 minutes. Yet albums like The Ship are just what we in high tech need as an antidote to our hyperdrive living.


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The Ship, Brian Eno

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