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Laura Kuhn talks with Emanuel Dimas di Melo Pimenta, a true Renaissance man who has functioned throughout his lengthy career as a composer, architect, urban planner, photographer, and writer. He hails from Sao Paolo, Brazil, and was introduced to John Cage in 1985 by none other than Augusto de Campos, co-founder with his brother Haroldo of the Concrete poetry movement in Brazil, at the Biennale de Sao Paulo, where both were giving concerts. Pimenta became a commissioned composer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, producing compositions that were used for three of Cunningham’s works – Fabrications (1987), Trackers (1991), and Windows (1995). We talk about his various endeavors, including a little-known conversation he had with his good friend Ornette Coleman on the subject of John Cage. The audio excerpt we’ll listen to at the close of tonight’s program is from Emanuel’s last work for Cunningham which he presented as a gift to the choreographer on the occasion of his 90th birthday: Reed (2009), in a version for transverse flute and saxophone and performed by Pimenta on flute and Paul Goldberg on sax.