A 365-Day Project
"We Are All Mozart"
A project to create
new works and change
the perception of the
music of our time.
May 20, 2008 
If you were waiting for samples of geographically bounded music, let me disappoint you. A few days more for that. Instead, there are some pictures. A few days ago I slipped into this blog that we would be doing the Kalvos & Damian show again as Kalvos & Damian: In the House! beginning in June. Some people have asked why. Weren't we tired? Burnt out? Bored? Why did we stop? Why are we doing it again?
To lay two myths to rest: We weren't kicked off the air. Beginning in December of 2004 we had decided to go. It felt like time. The second myth is that we weren't bored or burnt out. It was always exciting. The real reasons were the demands of a weekly schedule with so much else to be done -- we did 537 shows plus several unnumbered specials, and missed only two weeks in ten years -- and a fear that we were no longer interesting.
Since September 2005, the requests to be Kalvos and Damian again have not stopped or even dimmed. Oh, sure, money has. Without fresh shows, the contributions on our website have trickled down to a few hundred dollars a year. But that was never the real problem. We loved doing the show and paid for a lot of the costs ourselves. Hundreds of individuals helped out, and it was gratifying.
Ultimately it was the joy of talking about what we do with other people who do what we do, the desire to open ourselves up to new ideas -- K&D was a seminar for us -- meet some people who we had always admired, and ultimately to have more fun than anyone gets in a lifetime. And I can prove it. For the next three days, I'll replace the words with images. In alphabetical order, here are 51 of the more than 270 people who were guests on K&D during its first run from 1995-2005.
Wouldn't you like to have this much fun? I thought so!
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Martin Arnold, recorded at a bed and breakfast in Toronto; Damian noted that he should advertise his "Martin Shoes".
Michael Arnowitt and Clarence Barlow before Michael's performance in Amsterdam.
Christine Baczewska recorded at the American Music Center in New York, where her entire sense of style -- visual and musical -- knocked us out.
Clarence Barlow after our concert with other K&D guests Brian Johnson and Michael Manion in Cologne.
Eve Beglarian recorded at her apartment in New York, where she was engineering an audiobook when we interrupted her.
David Behrman recorded at his apartment in New York. David had been one of our "long-distance mentors" via his recordings..
James Bohn outside the WGDR studios in Plainfield, Vermont, where he brought his electronic music and toy piano..
Robert Bonotto standing outside my home in Northfield Falls, a day after Komposer Kombat closed the K&D show's first 10-year run.
Allison Cameron recorded at a bed and breakfast in Toronto, where she told us to be sure to spell her name with two l's, and introduced us to her astounding Blank Sheet of Metal.
Charles Coleman and Gene Pritsker provoke each other at the WGDR studios a few months before they took the reins from K&D to do Noizepunk and Das Krooner.
Riccardo dal Farra recorded at a studio in Montréal, where he was working on an extensive documentation of Latin American electroacoustic music. The dal Farra interview was not broadcast yet and will be heard on the new Kalvos & Damian: In the House!.
Damian with Laurie Anderson in New Hampshire, where we traded a K&D tee-shirt for a darn good interview..
Damian with Rami Bar-Niv in "Studio Z", the performance studio at WGDR, before his live concert -- one of 25 live performances on the show.
David del Tredici recorded at his apartment in Westbeth in New York, where we sat on the floor while he played an early atonal piece of his on an out-of-tune piano.
David Dramm and his daughter Diamanda recorded at their former flat on Binnenbantammerstraat in Amsterdam.
Judy Dunaway recorded at the American Music Center in New York, where she became the only composer to have a piece whose title couldn't be broadcast over the air..
Reena Esmail, one of the youngest composers on K&D, outside the WGDR studios; she became a huge supporter of the "We Are All Mozart" project.
