TRANSMISSION ART ARCHIVE
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Exchange
1989
Harris Skibell
A composition made up of the sounds of the New York Stock Exchange and the violin. For the artist the worlds seemed at the start almost antithetical: the violin a symbol of the world of European art music and the stock exchange, a powerful American symbol of the world whose business is business. But as Skibell uses the materials, distinctions blur and meanings get exchanged. Skibell used the Sun 3 based digital synthesis system at the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music to analyze, process and organize the sounds of the exchange and the violin into a musical dialogues. Renowned violinist Rolf Schulte performed in this work. Commissioned by New American Radio.