"Clearing the Square" (1996) by Cathy Peters is a documentary in memory of the victims of the repression of the democracy movement in Tienanmen Square. An estimated two and a half thousand unarmed civilians were killed there is June 1989; others died later or are still in Chinese prisons because of the belief they could effect democratic political change of a kind occurring elsewhere. Central to the creation of this work is a clandestine tape recording of testimony by student leader Chi Ling. The production uses a rich variety of audio and written documentary materials, including accounts by Amnesty International, original testimony by a Chinese student in the square who is now living in Australia and by Christine Liao, an Australian who was in Beijing at the time. "Clearing the Square" is an edited version of the original 42:00 work produced by the ABC, Australia's "The Listening Room."

"Frenzy in the Night" (1990) by Jacki Apple with Keith Antar Mason is about growing up Black and male in America, finding your own voice and becoming an artist, the pain of racism, and the dream of freedom. It is a spiritual quest for cultural and personal affirmation. A poetic suite in three parts, it traverses the American landscape from the "banks of the muddy Mississippi" of Mason's St. Louis boyhood, through a mythical "free state of Illinois," to his artistic coming of age in the "boom box of L.A." Mason's provocative, emotionally charged text is set in Apple's lush cinematic sonic landscape of West African tribal drums and wailing jazz saxophones, riverboats, police sirens, street rappers, birds, all caught in the ebb and flow of the river that is replaced by the freeway, as it travels from a bittersweet blues in the night to an urban frenzy. With writer, performer Keith Antar Mason. Commissioned by New American Radio.

In its ten years as a weekly national series, 1987-1998, New American Radio (NAR) commissioned and distributed over 300 original works: conceptual new drama, associational documentary, language explorations, sonic meditations, environmental compositions, musical explorations and works that pioneer new dimensions in acoustic space. Wave Farm is thrilled to be partnering with New American Radio to ensure these works remain available to listeners today and into the future.

New American Radio was organized by Helen Thorington, Executive Producer and Regine Beyer, Associate Producer. A special thanks to both Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green for their generous support and collaboration of this partnership, and their contribution to the field at large!

Click here to explore individual artists and works.