Maryanne Amacher

Maryanne Amacher (February 25, 1938 - October 22, 2009) was an American composer and installation artist. She was born in Kane, Pennsylvania, to an American nurse and a Swiss freight train worker. As the only child, she grew up playing the piano. Amacher left Kane to attend the University of Pennsylvania where she received a B.F.A in 1964. While there she studied composition with George Rochberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Subsequently, she did gr... more

Maryanne Amacher (February 25, 1938 - October 22, 2009) was an American composer and installation artist. She was born in Kane, Pennsylvania, to an American nurse and a Swiss freight train worker. As the only child, she grew up playing the piano. Amacher left Kane to attend the University of Pennsylvania where she received a B.F.A in 1964. While there she studied composition with George Rochberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Subsequently, she did graduate work in acoustics and computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While in residence at the University there, in 1967, she created City Links: Buffalo, a 28-hour piece using 5 microphones in different parts of the city, broadcast live by radio station WBFO. There were several other pieces in the "City Links" series, though many details are not yet known. A common feature was the use of telephone lines to connect the sound environments of different sites into the same space, a very early example of what is now... less