"Beauty Beast" is a life-long work in progress. At present, it is a 25 minute music video with
graphic storybook slides.
Originally premiered live by the Electric Diamond Ensemble
in 1977, "Beauty Beast" was scored for Soprano (as Beauty), Lyricon Wind Synthesizer (as the
Beast), 2 Crumar keyboards (a modified organ that was a predecessor to today's
modern polyphonic synths) and percussion. The work was presented at Carnegie
Recital Hall, Symphony Space and several new music venues in New York. Click here for a review of the original live
performance.
This audio track heard in this video was recorded in 1983.
All the parts are played with the Lyricon wind controller, Oberheim and Arp
2600 monophonic synths, Arp sequencer and the Crumar Orchestrator. Though,
Sally Jo Anderson (the original Beauty) can be heard in the coda.
The basic text for the narration was written somewhere in
the late 1980's.
The video (as it now stands) was created between November 2012
thru April 2013. The storybook slides with text were created in 2014
The next iteration is a live
multimedia performance bringing together live voice, dance, instruments and
video.
Stuart Diamond
