This episode of "Experimental Composers" was originally broadcast on WGXC on Mar 17, 2016.

Experimental Composers aired on WGXC from November 2015 to June 2017.

Produced in Beirut by host Joe Namy, his program dives into the electrified shape-shifting history of the synthesizer in contemporary music from the Middle East, from the mid-60s to the present. We'll hear some of the earliest examples of keyboard music and work our way up to the gritty amplified modern shaabi instrumentals of today.

With tracks by Abdallah Chahine, Abdel Halim Hafez, Kakino de Paz, Baligh Hamdi, Omar Korshid, Damascus Musical Group, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Ahmed Fakhroun, Les Freres Megri, and a Shaabi M'shekal

Gen Ken Montgomery tells the story of art and life that was sound pioneer Conrad Schnitzler (1937-2011). A longtime friend and collaborator of the Berlin-based visionary, Montgomery walks us through the early days (with Fluxus, Joseph Beuys), his psychedelic and Krautrock period (Tangerine Dream, Kluster), stubborn individualism and outsider lifestyle, creative use of technology, and the imaginative, influential, foretelling of the emergence of sound as a key component in art. The program is loaded with musical examples including tracks from Tangerine Dream and Kluster, Rot from 1974, The 88 Game of 1984, the CONcert LP of 1985, Conal from 2001, Endtime (his last recording) and a revealing message left on Gen Ken Montgomery's voicemail.

"Experimental Composers" is produced by Clocktower Radio and broadcast in partnership with Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM. Writes Clocktower Radio, "Performances from new and established musical innovators. The unfortunate and unintended messages that come attached to a title like Experimental Composers are many. Still it is one of the few labels to come out of the world of music that has not been co-opted by promoters, corporations, journalists, or lawyers. This one just seems to have anti-market goo on it. Hooray. It's also just bad English (as if to imply that these poor souls are themselves, in their flesh and blood, some kind of experiment and, perhaps, even expendable). And then there is the spectre of defying the wisdom of the great Edgar Varèse who said something like, 'I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards it is the listener who must experiment."

Tune in for selections from the WGXC archives featuring past broadcasts of programs that consisted of community talk, produced interviews, music, and/or radio art that were broadcast on Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM.