Secret Sound

Welcome to episode #44, A Séance for Strings, featuring Iowa-born child prodigy, psychic violinist, composer, music educator, and author, Florizel von Reuter (1890-1985). Following an immensely successful career touring American and Europe as a child violinist, Reuter and his mother became devout séance practitioners during the 1920s. Through his mother, the medium, Reuter communicated with diverse composers and musicians using a unique séance device called the Hesperus-Additor. Through these spirit messages Reuter's violin performance was psychically enhanced. He also wrote several books on medial communications and music, as well as fiction and a memoire of his experiences in Hitler-era Germany, where he helped German Jews evade the Nazis. Eventually walking away from his psychic interests, Reuter would focus on composing, teaching, and performing well into his 90s. This episode looks into the history of the planchette and ouija board, the “odic force,” and a truly inspired violinist. Welcome to the voice of the Od...

Welcome to episode 43, "The Prayerful Organist," featuring radio celebrity, virtuoso organist, Religious Science minister, and early pioneer of "new age" music, Irma Glen (1908-1982). After successful vaudeville music tours in her adolescence, Glen found a passion for the organ and became a renowned presence on radio and in the silent film theatres of Chicago. She would then become a household name through her role in diverse programs on NBC radio. Having studied comparative religion since childhood, Glen took to the new thought philosophy of Earnest Holmes' Religious Science during the 1950s. She soon became a minister and founded her own churches in California. But she would leave formal ministry in her later years to pioneer her unique "Prayer-Music." This episode explores Glen's life, the philosophy of Religious Science, and the incredible organ and spoken word music she recorded in the 1960s and 70s. Welcome to the Golden Melody...

Welcome to episode 42, "The Coloratura of Celestial Choice," featuring Spanish-Italian American opera singer, Amelita Galli-Curci (1882-1963). Through her opera career she accrued international renown and fortune, but this was cut short by a vocal injury in the 1930s. While her opera recordings have remained a touchstone in the genre up to the present, less remembered is her public embrace of Swedenborgian theology and Kriya Yoga, for both of which she served as a significant representative and devoted instrument. Welcome to the singing heart...

Welcome to Episode 41, "The Ghost Dance," featuring Native American prophet Wovoka (1856-1932). A descendent of the Numu language family and Paiute tribe in Nevada, Wovoka had a vision in 1889 in which he visited heaven and communed with the spirits of his ancestors. The spirits told him that by performing the “Ghost Dance,” the white man's violent oppression would subside and the native tribes would thrive following an apocalyptic resurrection of Native life. The rapid spread of the Ghost Dance across the nation was so threatening to white oppressors that it compelled them to even greater atrocities, resulting in the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Wovoka's prophetic religion, music, and dance, however, still remain today. Through the life of Wovoka and his Paiute heritage this episode explores the meaning and music of the Ghost Dance tradition. Welcome to a prophecy of hope...

Welcome to episode 40, "The Prophet of Swing," featuring Portuguese American pianist, bandleader, numerologist, and metaphysical philosopher Vincent Lopez (1895-1975). Raised in an extreme Roman Catholic home, Lopez left the monastic path for ragtime piano as a child. One of the first jazz bandleaders to make use of America's emerging radio technology, Lopez's radio program, "Lopez Speaking," made him a household name across the country. While the success of his orchestra lead to a million dollar deal. Lopez attributed his success to numerology, astrology, and the "power of thought vibration." He would go on to publish books on prophecy and numerology, practices he often incorporated into his concerts. His song selections frequently emphasized dreams and cosmic imagery; while Lopez's 1944 "Musical Horoscope" is one of the earliest examples of "zodiac jazz." Welcome to the hidden number...* Featuring special guest, Sarah Cahill, on piano. 

Welcome to episode 39, "The Everlasting Gospel Revelation," featuring preacher, painter, and musician, Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980). Raised in a poor Baptist family in Alabama, a series of divine revelations lead Sister Morgan to paint, sing, and preach in the Baptist-Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. Her visions also lead her to New Orleans, where she founded an orphanage and her own house of worship. Though she became most known for her street performances, where with guitar or tambourine she sang and preached through hand-painted paper megaphones. Her paintings and music were picked up by the Preservation Hall in New Orleans and diverse galleries and museums, gaining widespread attention and fans as notable as Andy Warhol. This episode looks into the musicalization of the holy spirit in the African American church. We'll look at the Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal movements as well as the musical evangelism of early 20th century New Orleans, where Sister Morgan sang, painted, poeticised and prophesied the New Jerusalem to come...

Welcome to episode 39, "The Everlasting Gospel Revelation," featuring preacher, painter, and musician, Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980). Raised in a poor Baptist family in Alabama, a series of divine revelations lead Sister Morgan to paint, sing, and preach in the Baptist-Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. Her visions also lead her to New Orleans, where she founded an orphanage and her own house of worship. Though she became most known for her street performances, where with guitar or tambourine she sang and preached through hand-painted paper megaphones. Her paintings and music were picked up by the Preservation Hall in New Orleans and diverse galleries and museums, gaining widespread attention and fans as notable as Andy Warhol. This episode looks into the musicalization of the holy spirit in the African American church. We'll look at the Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal movements as well as the musical evangelism of early 20th century New Orleans, where Sister Morgan sang, painted, poeticised and prophesied the New Jerusalem to come...

Welcome to episode #38, "The Black Hawk Chant," featuring Mother Leafy Anderson (1887-1927) and Mother Catherine Seals (1874-1930). Coming from Chicago to New Orleans, Anderson founded her own church, which fused spiritualism, Catholicism, and jazz into her services, while seeking to uplift women into leadership roles. Worshipping the spirit of Native American Sauk leader Black Hawk, Anderson initiated the Spiritual church movement, which still exists today. Following her death, trombonist Catherine Seals took over, founding the Temple of the Innocent Blood in the Lower Ninth Ward. She continued Anderson's teachings but incorporated hoodoo folk magic. While her jazz services would feature significant artists like Ernie Cagnalotti and Harold Duke Dejan. This episode explores the African American Spiritual church movement, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, and their musical expressions in New Orleans, Louisiana. Welcome to the Handa Wanda...

Welcome to episode #38, "The Black Hawk Chant," featuring Mother Leafy Anderson (1887-1927) and Mother Catherine Seals (1874-1930). Coming from Chicago to New Orleans, Anderson founded her own church, which fused spiritualism, Catholicism, and jazz into her services, while seeking to uplift women into leadership roles. Worshipping the spirit of Native American chief Black Hawk, Anderson initiated the Spiritual church movement, which still exists today. When Anderson died, trombonist Catherine Seals took over, founding the Temple of the Innocent Blood in the Lower Ninth Ward. She continued Anderson's teachings but incorporated hoodoo folk magic. While her jazz services would feature significant artists like Ernie Cagnalotti and Harold Duke Dejan. This episode explores the African American Spiritual church movement, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, and their musical expressions in New Orleans. Welcome to the Handa Wanda...

Welcome to episode 37, "Singing for the Orishas," featuring Afro-Cuban Santería/Lucumí singer, Merceditas Valdes (1922-1996). Raised in a musical household alongisde Yoruba and Cuban traditions, Valdez took to Afro-Cuban Lucumí music and religious practice as a teenager in Havana. Working alongside leading figures, Valdes became the voice and face for the AfroCubanismo movement, with her recordings ceremonially celebrating the divine and ancestral spirits, or Orishas, of Lucumí and Yoruba tradition. However, the Cuban Communist Party would silence her voice for 20 years. Freed from suppression in 1980s, Valdes would release several Lucumí albums before her death in 1996. This episode explores the world of Afro-Cuban Lucumí religion and its ceremonial music tradition through one of the tradition's most revered song leaders. Welcome to the way of the spirits...

Welcome to episode 36, “The Mahatma of Manhattan,” featuring painter, author, publisher, and composer, Louis M. Eilshemius (1864-1941). Now marginally known for his idiosyncratic paintings of nudes and landscapes, Eilshemius spent most of his life being mocked and ignored, until years after being discovered by Marcel Duchamp. Founding the Dreamers Press, he published countless reams of poetry, fiction, visual art, and music across the turn of the century. Inspired by mesmeric trance, his paintings and music were rooted in subconscious and medial inspiration. While throughout his life undiagnosed mental health issues and egomaniacal ravings plagued his career and well being. Welcome to the self-advertised, “Mesmerist Prophet and Mystic, World-Class Athlete, Spirit-Painter Supreme, Ex-Fancy Amateur Dancer, and Transcendental Eagle of the Arts”: Mahatma Eilshemius

Welcome to episode 35, “The Quantum Heart,” featuring composer, multi-media artist, and tennis player Harley Gaber (1943-2011). Gaber’s music was deeply informed by his study of Buddhism and Taoism, as well as his lifelong interest in quantum physics. He is now most well known for his 1974 string quintet, The Winds Rise in the North. However, he left music in 1978, moved to San Diego and began a short-lived career as a player and teacher of tennis. Ultimately he would spend the next 20 years as a visual artist. His multi-media collage work reached epic proportions in the 1990s with his magnum opus, Die Plage, featuring thousands of photomontaged canvases, each a quantum window into the holocaust. Gaber returned to music in the late 2000s, releasing several new recordings. But shortly after these releases, he took his own life. This episode explores the influence of Taoism and quantum physics underlying Gaber’s epic and under-regarded art. Visit Gaber's site at Innova Recordings...  Hear Robert Reigle's complete interview with Gaber... Visit the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline...  

Welcome to episode 34, "Service Through Sound," featuring composer, author, Theosophist, and music therapist Evelyn Benham-Bull (1897-1983). Almost entirely forgotten, Benham-Bull was an active composer in the 20s and 30s before shifting her focus to practicing and teaching music therapy for the remainder of her life. After helping design the first “music history” syllabus in university study, she published an early scientific study analyzing the intuitive process in music composition. She taught instrumental lessons and music therapy for decades in Pasadena and became the chairwoman of the Music Research Association, therapeutically working through music in hospitals. Founding a music service branch within the Los Angeles chapter of the Theosophical Society, Benham-Bull also wrote prolifically on the relationship between Theosophy and music therapy. And in this regard she would have a strong influence on composers like William Grant Still. This episode looks at the role of Theosophy in the development of music therapy and the awesome efforts of one of its unsung practitioners. Welcome to the art of truth…

Welcome to episode 33, "The Godmother of Music Therapy," featuring opera singer, New Thought philosopher, and pioneering music therapist, Eva Augusta Vescelius (1853-1917). After co-founding the family-run Vescelius Opera Company and touring the world for over a decade, Vescelius’ interest in New Thought philosophy lead to her focus on the role of music in “mental therapy.” She went on to become one of the first teachers of music therapy as well as the founder of the National Society of Musical Therapeutics and the first music therapy periodical. This episode looks at the role of women and New Thought philosophy in the American origins of music therapy. Welcome to the God-Breath…  Musical contributions from Miguel Frasconi (www.frasconimusic.bandcamp.com)

Welcome to episode 32, “The Queen of Number-Vibration” featuring New Jersey author, feminist, and pioneer of American numerology, Sarah Joanna Balliett (1847?-1929)—though she is better known by her husband’s name as Mrs. L. Dow Balliett. Synthesizing occult numerology, Pythagorean and New Thought philosophy, as well as the oratory teachings of François Delsarte, Balliett developed her own “number-vibration” divination system. Applying numerology to one’s name, birthdate, or any other word/number of concern, Balliett’s system offered guidance in marriage, fashion, meditation, and music composition, among innumerable other applications. Corresponding number to diverse phenomena, Balliett single-handedly brought numerology into popular American awareness. Meanwhile, she also invented her own music composition system. Welcome to a music of the spheres…

Welcome to Episode 31, “The Oracle of the East Village,” featuring filmmaker, painter, musical ethnographer, and occult magician, Harry Smith (1923-1991). Smith is best known for his influential 6-LP Anthology of American Folk Music, as well as his experimental films and paintings, all of which he designed according to esoteric correspondence systems. Smith also helped document the musical rites of the indigenous Lummi and Kiowa communities, and the religious chants of New York Rabbi Naftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia, as well as the music of The Fugs and Allen Ginsberg. And connecting these luminous branches was a magically rooted trunk, as Smith was a lifelong practitioner of ceremonial magic. Welcome to the unknown body of Americana…

Welcome to episode 30, The Prince of Darkness, featuring Lithuanian-American composer, film scorer, violin prodigy, and band leader Prince Massard Kurzhene (1900-1989). Having graduated from a Russian conservatory and begun touring Europe at the age of 12, Kurzhene found his voice in New York City’s vaudeville circuit, where he would express the supernatural and demonic through his violin. He went on to score the all-Ojibwe cast film, The Silent Enemy, as well as recording his own arrangements of multi-cultural religious musics for CBS. While little is known of the last 50 years of Kurzhen’s life, this episode offers the most exhaustive information available on this completely forgotten American artist. Welcome to the diabolical string…

Welcome to episode 29, The Magic Rustling, featuring renowned filmmaker, painter, and musician David Lynch (1946-present). From Eraserhead to the latest season of Twin Peaks, Lynch has forged a dream-soaked art so abstractly unique that it spawned the adjective Lynchian to describe anything like it. Known primarily for the visual worlds he creates, Lynch has always approached his sound effects and film soundtracks with equal importance, while releasing numerous albums of his own music. And since 1973 he has been a practitioner and advocate for Transcendental Meditation, or TM, even establishing his own foundation to teach it internationally. This episode looks into the esoteric influences of Lynch’s art—including Transcendental Meditation, Theosophy, and more. And through this esoteric ear we’ll listen in to the metaphysical horror of one of America’s most intuitive masters of sound and image. Welcome to the unified field… 

Welcome to episode 28, A Sound Within, featuring Buddhist musician, poet, translator, and world traveler, Louise Landes Levi. She has translated renowned mystic writers such as Mirabai, René Daumal, and Henri Michaux. She's released over a dozen books of her own poetry, like Guru Punk and The Book L. Having studied with Annapurna Devi, Ali Akbar Khan, La Monte Young and others, Levi is a skilled sarangi player in the North Indian tradition. Now in her 80s, she continues releasing more music than ever before. And always her work has been guided by spiritual discipline, most notably in the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition, studying directly with Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. Through this episode we'll pass through 1960s psychedelia, North Indian raga, Tibetan Buddhism, and more. Welcome to the Sacred Conversation.More: https://coolgrove.com/press/louise-landes-levi/

Welcome to episode 27, “Dance of the Seven Rays,” featuring Armenian priest, author, teacher, and composer/performer Torkom Saraydarian (1915-1997). Raised in Turkey, he survived the Armenian genocide to become a minister in the Armenian Apostolic Church. Immigrating to California, Saraydarian continued work as a minister, but increasingly devoted himself to the ageless wisdom teachings of Theosophy. Out of his garage in Van Nuys, CA, he formed the Aquarian Educational Group, going on to teach his spiritual philosophy to 1,000s over the years. A prolific author, he wrote over 170 books. Believing music to be a sacred and magical power, he used visualization, symbolism, and ritual to compose his numerous albums of sacred songs and solo piano music. Welcome to the ageless wisdom… 

Welcome to episode 26, “The High Priestess of Delphi,” featuring composer, choreographer, master weaver, and Sapphic feminist, Eva Palmer-Sikelianos (1874-1952). After almost founding a lesbian artist colony on the Greek island of Lesbos with fellow Sapphic pioneer, Natalie Barney, Eva wedded renowned Greek poet, Angelos Sikelianos. Fusing their reverence for ancient Greek tradition with the Universal brotherhood of Theosophy, they settled in Greece, and brought about the Delphic movement, for which Eva provided traditional hand-woven costumes, choreography, and music, as well as funding a microtonal organ customized for Byzantine tuning. Through Eva’s fascinating and under-regarded life, we’ll explore sapphic feminism, Theosophy, and the Delphic movement, while this episode offers the most extensive overview of her scarcely available recorded music. Welcome to the upward panic…                                                                       > > > MUSIC - IMAGES - VIDEO < < <  

Welcome to Episode 25, “The Dawnbreakers,” featuring Russell & Gina Garcia. Raised in Oakland, CA, Russell Garcia (1916-2011) was a world-renowned composer, arranger, and conductor, working for decades with jazz icons, as well as for major Hollywood film and tv productions. Gina Mauriello Garcia (1931-present) is a singer-songwriter from Brooklyn, NY. Together the Garcias left their lavish Hollywood lifestyle in 1966, after embracing the Baha’i Faith. Called to spread the Baha'i message through song, the Garcias sailed across the islands of the Pacific Rim for the next 6 years doing just that. They ended up in New Zealand, where they directed their musical message to children and founded the charitable music organization, the Build a Better World Foundation. Through the Garcias, we’ll be exploring the Baha’i Faith and its relationship with American jazz. Welcome to the unquenchable flame…

Welcome to Episode 24, “The Song of the Violet Flame,” featuring harpist, composer, and religious leader, Lotus Ray King, aka Edna Ballard (1886-1971). Raised in Chicago, Ballard got into metaphysical literature and harp playing as a teenager. With her husband Guy Ballard, or Godfre Ray King, they founded the “I AM” Movement and the St. Germain Foundation in 1932. Claiming to be messengers of invisible “ascended masters,” the Ballards earned over a million followers and significant wealth through their classes and mail order teachings. Lotus composed much of the music for the movement, often arranged for variations of harp, organ, celesta, chimes, choir, and orchestra. While enduring still today, the movement has also been indicted on fraud charges, which were overturned by the Supreme Court, and has been portrayed as a dangerous form of “psychic dictatorship.” Welcome to the Voice of the I AM…

Welcome to episode 23, Music of the Gods. Rather than focus on a single artist, this episode explores the role of the Five Percent movement in the origins and development of American hip hop. Founded in 1967 by Clarence 13X, having left the Nation of Islam, the Five Percent Nation proclaimed black men to be Gods. It’s teachings offered a new identity and symbolic language for self-empowerment, largely to teenagers caught up in the oppressive cycle of gang life and the prison system. There from the very beginning, the language, style, imagery, and message of the Five Percent took root in hip hop when it arose in the 1970s. And it’s fruits are heard in the recordings of an endless list of world famous and lesser known artists from Big Daddy Kane to Erykah Badu. We’ll explore the evolution from the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam to the philosophy of the Five Percent Nation, and trace the 5% influence throughout hip hop history. Welcome to the zig zag zig…

Welcome to Episode 22, The South Side Shaman, featuring trumpeter, harpist, composer, teacher, community activist, and astronomer Kelan Philip Cohran (1927-2017). Early on, Cohran joined the cosmic discipline of Sun Ra’s Arkestra for two years. Next he worked with Malcolm X and the nation of Islam for a year, before forging his own path. He next co-founded the radical music collective, AACM. And as a major figure in the Chicago Black Arts Movement, Cohran empowered black liberation through his Artistic Heritage Ensemble, beach-side concerts, the founding of the Affro-Arts Theatre, and the traveling Black Music Workshop. Through all of this, Cohran was driven by his own unique spiritual philosophy, rooted in ancient African traditions and astronomy, as well as the cosmic and terrestrial powers of music. Welcome to the African Skies…

Welcome to episode 21, A Wandering Monk, featuring the brilliantly black, queer, composer, dancer, conductor, pianist, and grammy-nominated singer—Julius Eastman (1940-1990). His music often employed his unique “organic method” of composition, while some works, anticipating post-minimalism, fused avant-garde and pop sensibilities for the first time. His sexuality and race were militantly foregrounded in his music, on full display in work titles like “Gay Guerrilla” and “Evil Nigger.” At the same time Eastman’s radically beautiful music was tied to a lifelong religious drive. Behind his transgressive often wild persona, Eastman aspired to wisdom and liberation, striving as he said, to be “black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, and a homosexual to the fullest.” After years of homelessness, drug addiction, starvation, and mental issues, Eastman died in 1990, alone and forgotten. His music wasn’t rediscovered until almost 15 years later. Welcome to a holy presence…  

Welcome to Episode 20, The Obeah Man, featuring Bahamian born singer/songwriter, painter, and Obeah practitioner, Tony McKay (1942-1997). Coming to Greenwich Village in the 1960s, McKay took on the identity of Exuma, the Obeah Man. His mystical wardrobe, lyrics, paintings, songs and soundscapes captivated the counter-culture audience of the late 60s. This episode looks back on the history of Obeah, it's roots in Nigeria, and its development by enslaved Africans in the West Indies. While the practice of Obeah has continued to be demonized in The Bahamas, McKay celebrated it on stage and on recording in America, introducing many to Bahamian folk magic and culture for the first time. Welcome to a root from the bush…

Welcome to Episode 19, “The Religion of Dreams,” featuring Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1935-1937). Blind from the age of 2, Kirk became a maverick figure in the jazz world, notably for his ability to play three reed instruments at the same time and his sonic experimentation. Throughout his life, Kirk was guided by his nightly dreams, which inspired him to change his name (twice), title his band, compose programmatic albums, and pioneer his multi-instrument performance practice. Through dreams, Kirk found his identity; and through his music he sought to help others open their minds to find their authentic selves. He was also a vital activist and creative preservationist of black classical music. Welcome to the three-sided dream…

Espiode 18, A Strange Mastery, focuses on Thomas Wiggins, aka, Blind Tom (1849-1908). Wiggins was born blind and sold a slave with his parents to a plantation family in Georgia. From a young age Wiggins was a musical prodigy, and under the management and exploitation of his master’s family, he went on to become one of the most popular and lucrative performance acts of the 19th century. Retrospectively diagnosed as an autistic savant, Wiggins piano performances wowed audiences by his ability to imitate any music after a single listen, to play three songs at the same time, as well as by his own compositions inspired by the sounds of rain storms, sewing machines, and civil war battles. By audiences and the media, he was called an idiot and a genius, a monkey and a medium, as well as an African-American icon and an Uncle Tom. This episode looks into the lore and reality of blindness in African-American music and explores the fascinating and controversial life of a truly gifted artist, whom many call the “last American slave.” Welcome to a blind faith…

Episode 17, the Galaxy of Turiya, focuses on jazz icon, harp pioneer and multi-instrumentalist, and spiritual teacher, Alice Coltrane, aka Turiyasangitananda (1937-2007). Born in Detroit and raised singing in the African-American baptist church, she went on to radicalize jazz music through a mutual spiritual calling with her husband John Coltrane. Following John’s death, she dove deep into her own spiritual practice, inspired by Hindu teachers like Swami Satchidananda and Sathya Sai Baba. Ultimately she abandoned the commercial music industry, moved to California and founded her own ashram where she served as a spiritual teacher. Through this ashram, Alice developed a unique devotional music anchoring her spiritual commune, the Sai Anantam ashram, which still exists today. Welcome to the infinite chant…

Welcome to Episode 16, which focuses on 19th century abolitionist, song-poet, pastor, and herb doctor, Joshua McCarter Simpson (1821-1877). Simpson was born free but an indentured servant until the age of 21, after which he taught himself to read and write. He graduated form Oberlin College and, after being “called” to sing, he became the first African-American to publish original anti-slavery songs, often applying parody, symbolism, and dream visions. He would later claim his lyrics as being prophetic of the civil war. He toured the country with Frederick Douglas, while he and his song-poems played a central role in the Underground Railroad. Beyond his abolitionist song-poetry, and later in life, Simpson became a Baptist pastor and ran a storefront through which he practiced herbal medicine. This episode explores the role of secret sound and music in 19th century American slave culture, and takes a deep listen into Simpson’s radical though largely forgotten life--and with a burning ear towards the injustices today. Welcome to the emancipation car.

Episode 15, “The Nature Singer,” features California-based musical naturalist, environmental activist, anti-gun, vegetarian, fire-extinguishing singer, and Christian Scientist, Charles Kellogg (1868-1949). He was raised for several years in the High Sierras by the Native American and Chinese members of his small mountain mining community. Before long Kellogg became renowned, both in vaudeville entertainment and in childhood education, for his ability to imitate the sounds of birds and insects. Always an advocate of nature, and the redwoods in particular, Kellogg toured the nation in the first RV, which he carved from a Redwood tree. Inspired by scientific experiments of the day, Kellogg also began performing his birdsong with a burning flame, claiming to extinguish the fire with his voice. He retired to a hand-carved wood cabin called “The Mushroom,” where he lived until he died in 1949. Welcome to ever ever land…

Welcome to Episode 14, “Signing of Sounds.” This episode features the enigmatic Texan composer and occultist, Jerry Hunt (1943-1993). Living in his self-made home in rural Texas most of his life, Hunt became a virtuoso avant-garde pianist, a pioneer of live audio-visual electronics, and a composer of cryptic scores. Dressed in a suit and tie, Hunt’s performances used props like wands, rattles, sigils, and flags and were often described as shamanistic by critics. Hunt was a Rosicrucian initiate by the age of 14, and he would apply the esoteric principles of Enochian magic to his radical music throughout his life. Welcome to the Angel Language…

Welcome to Part 2 of Episode 13, "The Magic of Tone." This episode focuses on French-American composer, painter, poet, prolific author, and renowned astrologer, Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985). Coming to America from Paris in 1916, Rudhyar’s intuitively dissonant Theosophically inspired music and philosophy would influence numerous composers, including Ruth Crawford Seeger, Katherine Ruth Heyman, and Henry Cowell. Painting throughout his life, Rudhyar was a member of the Transcendentalist Painting Group in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Meanwhile he would emerge as one of the most influential astrologers in American history and a foundational figure in the New Age movement.

Welcome to Part 1 of Episode 13, "The Magic of Tone." This episode focuses on French-American composer, painter, poet, prolific author, and renowned astrologer, Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985). Coming to America from Paris in 1916, Rudhyar’s intuitively dissonant Theosophically inspired music and philosophy would influence numerous composers, including Ruth Crawford Seeger, Katherine Ruth Heyman, and Henry Cowell. Painting throughout his life, Rudhyar was a member of the Transcendentalist Painting Group in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Meanwhile he would emerge as one of the most influential astrologers in American history and a foundational figure in the New Age movement.

Welcome to Episode 12, Marcotone Meditations. This episode features one of the stranger personas in our history, British-American Edward Maryon (1867-1954). He was a Theosophical composer, a mythical Count, a criminal forger of master paintings, and a man of many names. But he is most known as a self-professed tone-color scientist, the science of which he called Marcotone. Welcome to the colorful life of Daulby…

Welcome to Episode 11, The Cradle of Harmony, on the life of painter, composer, fiddler, inventor, and spiritualist William Sidney Mount (1807-1868). Mount, who lived primarily in Stony Brook, Long Island, pioneered genre painting, giving a strong focus upon African-American musicians and everyday country life around Stony brook. He played the fiddle, collected melodies from those around him and composed his own. He also designed and constructed a unique fiddle, which he called the Cradle of Harmony, which attempted to increase its sonic power to suit foot-stomping country dance music. Mount maintained an avid interest in esoteric spirituality and spiritualism throughout his life. Working with a spiritualist group called the Miracle Circle, he believed he was in direct communication with Rembrandt.

Welcome to Episode 10, “Surrounded By Infinite Space.” With around 500 works to his name, Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) is one of the most prolific American composers of the 20th century. His works are pervaded by an idiosyncratic mysticism and as well as a global and cosmic awareness. Hovhaness’ spiritual identity was uniquely syncretic, rooted in his Armenian heritage, while fusing his love of Indian music and philosophy, his love of nature and mountains in particular, and his interest in Vedantic Buddhism, Theosophy, and spiritualism, to name a few. His spiritual guide, Hermon di Giovanno, was a Greek immigrant who worked at a Boston diner that Hovhaness frequented. It was the psychic visions of Giovanno that would guide Hovhaness throughout his adult life. Welcome to the celestial gate…

Welcome to Episode 9, “Born With Second Sight.” Through the life of pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, we meet a self-described psychic, a child prodigy pianist, and a renowned composer of zodiac jazz and catholic jazz masses. From her childhood onward, Williams saw spirits, ghosts, animals, angels and demons, and future situations—things that remained invisible to those around her. She ultimately embraced the Catholic faith and pioneered the inclusion of African-American jazz into the Catholic church. Fusing spirituality and music, Williams defined the role of jazz as “healing to the soul.” Being both female and African-American the success she experienced early on and throughout her life cannot be underestimated, both in affirming her talents and artistry as well as what she had to go through to be taken seriously as an artist. Welcome to the visionary world of Mary Lou Williams…

Welcome to Episode 8, “An Unconventional Faith,” in which we explore the radical world of Henry Cowell (1897-1965). Cowell was one of the most prolifically experimental composers in American history. He was one of the first composers to incorporate diverse cultural aesthetics—drawing from the musical traditions of Japan, China, Ireland, and beyond. And he pioneered instrumental and compositional methods and technologies, whose influences continue to this day. His experimental drive found youthful structure and inspiration in Irish mythology as well as a Theosophical commune in California. Until things got… complicated. Welcome to the experimental laboratory of Henry Cowell…

Welcome to Episode 7, "A Veil of Sound." Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) is a pioneering composer from the early 20th century, and the first female composer to win a Guggenheim fellowship. Her early experimental work was inspired by the esoteric philosophies of Theosophy, Transcendentalism, and Hinduism. In these works, dissonance was used to evoke what she called a “spiritual concept.” To do so she radicalized serial techniques, developed her own “prayer language,” and pursued a mystical aesthetic, before embracing American folk music in the late 1930s. She went on to inspire the American folk revival of the 1960s, but will forever be the queen of American ultramodernism.

  Episode 6, the celestial orchestra of new jersey, focuses on a New Jersey-based landscape gardener and visionary instrument maker, Arthur K. Ferris (1871-1943). Inspired by the angelic visitations revered in the Seventh Day Adventist church, in 1924 Ferris had a visionary encounter with the angel Gabriel, who gave him detailed instructions on how to build massive angelic instruments fusing harps and strings. According to angelic designs, Ferris constructed the instruments, and with his wife Bertha and friends, performed Adventist hymns and heavenly improvisations until Ferris died in mid 1940s. Welcome to the angel reams…  

Welcome to Episode 5, “The Answering Intelligence.” This episode features composer and educator Arthur Farwell. Raised in an esoteric household, Farwell would go on to incorporate Native American religion, New Thought meditation, and Jewish Kabbalah into his life and music. Throughout his life he had prophetic visions and viewed himself as a seer to aid human evolution through controlled intuition. Welcome to the Visionary Mind…

Welcome to Episode 4, The Wildwood Troubadour. This episode focuses on composer Anthony Philip Heinrich, aka the Wildwood Troubadour. Through Heinrich, born in 1781, we pass through the visionary theology of Emanuel Swedenborg and Native American religion, to meet Heinrich’s mystical experiences in a Kentucky forest. Welcome to the Spirits of the Wildwoods…

Welcome to Episode 3, “Music From Summerland.” Here our focus is on the renowned “Dean of African-American composers”, William Grant Still. One of the more well known composers in this history, Still’s spiritual biography has largely remained hidden, as well as some of his more compelling works. Through Still’s life we explore the esoteric spiritual traditions of African-Americans in the early 20th century. Still’s music drew not only from African-American folk music, but spirit communications, dream visions, meditation, and more. Now let us close our eyes and enter Summerland…

Welcome to Episode 2, Her Dreaming Fingers. In this episode we focus on composer, pianist, and author Katherine Ruth Heyman. Through Heyman we explore the esoteric tradition of Theosophy and itsrole in American music. For Heyman musical pitches corresponded to colors, vowels, the elements of nature, and the planets of the cosmos—hers was a visionary alchemy of sound. Welcome to the astral plane…

This first episode, The Illusioned Ear, focuses on 19th century mystic philosopher and psychic pianist, Francis Grierson. Through Grierson we dive deep into spiritualism, séances, and the illusions of sound. Ghosts are everywhere…