I have known of this composer since I first became obsessed with woman composers in the 70;s. Her daughter sent me a cassette of "The Heroic Poem" years ago and of course nothing else was available to hear back then. My interest in Britain and other woman composers has never flagged and it is  so great that more and more women are composing today and some interest has even been shown in composers of the past. Thank you for this post. I am sure you already know that there is a very big archive of Britain recordings at Indiana University which I was gien access to several years ago. Thanks again. Jim

Hailing from a small Texas ranch, Radie Britain (1899-1994) settled in the Hollywood Hills where a cosmic calling helped her become one of the most successful female composers of her generation. Anticipating the Deep Listening work of fellow Texas native Pauline Oliveros, Radie lectured about the role of meditation in the composer's creative process. And, like Sun Ra, she sought to portray the cosmos in symphonic form. Among the many accolades of her successful career, Radie's incantatory "Prison" (1936) was one of the first original compositions by a female composer ever performed at the White House. But with no commercial recordings, no living relatives, and few championing her work today, she has been largely forgotten in the 21st century. This audio portrait produced by Matt Marble for the California Festival shines long overdue light on this prolific, pioneering composer.

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Radie Britain: The Cosmic Cowgirl of the Hollywood Hills - by Matt Marble

Composer Morton Subotnick revisits the early days of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, sharing candid stories about the freewheeling, first phase of this influential hub for experimental music and culture that he co-founded with Ramon Sender in 1962. Although relatively short lived, the SFTMC had an oversized impact on the burgeoning fields of electronic music and interdisciplinary arts happenings. The collective, which grew to include visionary composer Pauline Oliveros, filmmaker Tony Martin, and electronics technician William Maginnis hosted the first public performance of Terry Riley’s seminal In C, premiered Steve Reich’s legendary early tape compositions, and developed the world’s first analog synthesizer in the form of the Buchla 100 series Modular Electronic Music System.

Radie Britain: The Cosmic Cowgirl of the Hollywood Hills - by Matt Marble

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