Music Recordings
Furies and Voices, for tape (1990).
Neuma CD "Electro-Acoustic Music VI" (1999), 10:30 min.
TreeLink for speaker & tape (1992). Text: O. Laske.
Neuma CD "Electro-Acoustic Music V" (1996), 14:15 min.
Music Reviews
Jerry N. Tabor, composer. Review of Neuma CD "Electro-Acoustic Music V," Computer Music Journal (1998)
SOUNDWAVES, 2.10:12. The Journal of the Boston Computer Society, Music and Computer Group (12/1987)
"Next on the program was a multi-media (in this case, sound
and light) work by composer Otto Laske, and his collaborator,
visual artist Tom Norton. Laske had been the keynote speaker
for the conference, and is a well-known and respected expert
in the field of Music Cognition. La Forêt Enchantée (or Enchanted
Wood) os a journey through a series of fantastic images,
accompanied by computer-generated music. The music was
a constantly shifting tapestry of almost-instruments, sometimes
sounding like bells, horns, oboes, or hybrids of these. The
images were computer-manipulations primarily of human
figures, often dazzling in their rainbow colours and graceful
shapes. Despite the fact that this was the most complex
and esoteric of the works on the program, it was also very
sensual, both in terms of the sounds and the images.
Following Laske's intense yet coolly detached work ..."
Arts & Technology Symposium, Connecticut College, New London, CT,
Review (1986)
"Although Otto Laske quotes Apollinaire (in French) in his program
note to Voie Lactée (Milky Way), this 1984 work was the "purest"
electronic music on the program on the program, most successfully
resisting analogy to recognizable sonic sources."
Joan Heller, soprano (1985)
"I sang through your score and played some of the parts on the
piano as I went. This is a beautiful work. You are writing very
lyrically! This will be wonderful to sing. ... To sum it up, I thinkVoices of Night is a beautiful work. I hope there will be a
performance possibility for it reasonably soon. I'd love to be one
of the performers."
Guiseppe G. Englert, composer (1983)
I have with great joy studied your composition Reflections, a fabulous achievement of algorithmic composition.
Teresa Rampazzi, composer (1980)
I received your tape of Terpsichore. Permit me to say that I was
deeply moved. It is for me the most perfect music that I know
in the field of computer music. The first creation of a complete
orchestra with differentiated marvellous timbres, and structured
in such a transparent way that I can think only of Webern to find
in the past someone capable of mastering sound material with
such authority and intense meaning. 'Hier wahrhaftig ist alles
durchkomponiert'!
G.M. Koenig, composer (1980)
The most recent of his works which I have heard confirm my earlier
impressions: Message to the Messiah is an improvisation demonstrating his spontaneous creativity in a 25-minute formal context; Terpsichore ... is a fine example of well-planned treatment of formalized structures.
Keith Thorp, composer (1979)
My setting of five of your poems ("Shadow," "Afternoon," "Embrace," "Black Angel," "Smile") was premiered in Pittsburg, Kansas, on June 5. The songs were a tremendous success and received a seven minute standing ovation, this from a school where contemporary music is unheard of.