Perceptual Astronomy 

Fifty years ago, the American composer Maryanne Amacher set about the creation of a major new work: not a symphony or a string quartet, but a TV series. Originally titled “Sound Saga,” the piece, even at this early stage, was already remarkably—perhaps unprecedentedly—elaborate. The plot was based on Arthur C. Clarke’s baroque far-future space opera “The City and the Stars”; it was conceived as a multichannel simultaneous broadcast on both cable television and FM radio; it involved the participations of musicians such as Rhys Chatham and Peter Gordon playing along to live sound feeds running from microphones in locations throughout New York City. In a letter to John Cage from September of that year, Amacher acknowledged the practical difficulties inherent to the project, but described herself as “very much dedicated” to its realization.