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Harry Bertoia's Complete Sonambient Collection

by Harry Bertoia

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    PDF of box set book included with purchase.

    Harry Bertoia's Complete Sonambient Collection features all 11 of Bertoia's original records newly restored from their master tapes and housed in replica jackets. A heavy duty box, printed with metallic inks, holds the 11 discs as well as a 100 page book containing a lengthy historic essay, Smithsonian interview with Harry Bertoia, exclusive Sonambient era material from the Bertoia archive, modern and archival photos of the Bertoia barn as well as reflections on Bertoia from David Sefton, Tom Welsh, David Harrington (Kronos Quartet) and all three of Bertoia's children. The Complete Sonambient Collection celebrates 100 years of Harry Bertoia in 2015, the centennial of his birth.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $70 USD  or more

     

  • 11 CD Box Set
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    "I don't hold onto terms like music and sculpture anymore. Those old distinctions have lost all their meaning." ~ Harry Bertoia, 1976

    Harry Bertoia's Complete Sonambient Collection features all 11 of Bertoia's original records newly restored from their master tapes and housed in replica jackets. A heavy duty box, printed with metallic inks, holds the 11 discs as well as a 100 page book containing a lengthy historic essay, Smithsonian interview with Harry Bertoia, exclusive Sonambient era material from the Bertoia archive, modern and archival photos of the Bertoia barn as well as reflections on Bertoia from David Sefton, Tom Welsh, David Harrington (Kronos Quartet) and all three of Bertoia's children. The Complete Sonambient Collection celebrates 100 years of Harry Bertoia in 2015, the centennial of his birth.

    In the late 1950s Harry Bertoia (1915-1978), already a renowned American sculptor, began creating long-form, improvised pieces of music utilizing pure acoustic tones evoked from his sound sculptures. Around this time Bertoia came up with the term "Sonambient" to describe the music and environment created by his tonal sculptures and their lush harmonic overtones. In a renovated barn on his property deep in the Pennsylvania woods Harry curated a harmonious selection of his sculptures and gongs, often recording his frequent, intuitive sound experiments using fout overhead microphones and a 1/4" tape recorder. Bertoia dedicated the last twenty years of his life to his Sonambient work and in 1970 he released the first Sonambient LP. In 1978, in the final months of his life, he selected recordings from his archive and produced ten more Sonambient records. He would not live long enough to see or hear these records himself. Bertoia died in 1978, at age 63, and was buried beneath a giant gong behind his Sonambient barn.

    Bertoia's recordings are as much a celebration of sustained tones, slow decay, healing vibrations and shimmering harmonics as Indian Classical music, singing bowls, The Well Tuned Piano or Benjamin Franklin's glass armonica. Through these rich harmonics, pulsing tones and pure gongs Bertoia was able to more clearly articulate his inner spirit than he could with sculpture alone – a point he made himself many times in interview. Harry's single greatest piece of art is the totality of his life which is nearly impossible to measure but easy to feel. It's our hope that somehow this box set evokes some of the same sacred, personal feeling that one has in Bertoia's barn.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Harry Bertoia's Complete Sonambient Collection via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more

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1.
Nova 13:43
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Space Voyage 15:11
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Swift Sounds 09:17
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Unfolding 18:27
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Gong Gong 16:01
10.
Elemental 17:46
11.
All And More 17:48
12.
Passage 14:13
13.
Energyzing 22:04
14.
Mellow Tops 21:19
15.
Continuum 20:07
16.
Near And Far 21:47
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Here And Now 20:53
22.
Unknown 13:01

about

Harry Bertoia's Complete Sonambient Collection features all 11 of Bertoia's original records newly restored from their master tapes and housed in replica jackets. A heavy duty box, printed with metallic inks, holds the 11 discs as well as a 100 page book containing a lengthy historic essay, Smithsonian interview with Harry Bertoia, exclusive Sonambient era material from the Bertoia archive, modern and archival photos of the Bertoia barn as well as reflections on Bertoia from David Sefton, Tom Welsh, David Harrington (Kronos Quartet) and all three of Bertoia's children. The Complete Sonambient Collection celebrates 100 years of Harry Bertoia in 2015, the centennial of his birth.

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released October 10, 2018

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Harry Bertoia's Sonambient Archive

Harry Bertoia, already a renowned American sculptor, heard the resonant possibilities in the fine metals he used and began building sound sculpture in the 1950's. He dedicated the last 20 years of his life to his Sonambient work.

Bertoia's recordings are a celebration of sustained tones, long decay, drone, intervalic relationships, healing vibrations, deep listening and shimmering harmonics.
... more

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