#5164, Custer and Sitting Bull

For this New Sounds, hear the one-man “pocket opera” by American composer Kyle Gann, a microtonal work about Custer and Sitting Bull, staged and recorded live at The Kitchen in 2000. 

In a year that marks the 150th anniversary of at Battle of Little Big Horn, revisit Gann’s musical reflection on the historic encounter between Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the Lakota leader Sitting Bull, which includes texts (poems, military transcripts, newspaper interviews, and even one psychic transmission.) Some of the work is tonal, as in the Sitting Bull movement, but still has 21 pitches to the octave, and other portions of the opera are in just intonation (some using 31-note-to-the-octave scales), (liner notes, Bandcamp). The work is an exploration of the rhythms and sometimes the melodies found within the spoken word, and of the drama in this reimagined American history. - Caryn Havlik

Program #5164, Custer and Sitting Bull (First aired 7/20/26)

ARTIST: Kyle Gann
WORK: Custer and Sitting Bull: Scene 4, Custer's Ghost to Sitting Bull [1:37]
RECORDING: New Sounds Live, 2000 at The Kitchen
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: A New World Records recording is available at https://newworldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/custer-and-sitting-bull

ARTIST: Kyle Gann
WORK: Custer and Sitting Bull: Scene 1, Custer - "If I Were an Indian . . ." [8:38]
RECORDING: New Sounds Live, 2000 at The Kitchen
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: A New World Records recording is available at https://newworldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/custer-and-sitting-bull

ARTIST: Kyle Gann
WORK: Custer and Sitting Bull: Scene 2, Sitting Bull - "Do You Know Who I Am?" [8:13]
RECORDING: New Sounds Live, 2000 at The Kitchen
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: A New World Records recording is available at https://newworldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/custer-and-sitting-bull

ARTIST: Kyle Gann
WORK: Custer and Sitting Bull: Scene 3, Sun Dance - Battle of the Greasy-Grass River [7:59]
RECORDING: New Sounds Live, 2000 at The Kitchen
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: A New World Records recording is available at https://newworldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/custer-and-sitting-bull

ARTIST: Kyle Gann
WORK: Custer and Sitting Bull: Scene 4, Custer's Ghost to Sitting Bull [10:44]
RECORDING: New Sounds Live, 2000 at The Kitchen
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: A New World Records recording is available at https://newworldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/custer-and-sitting-bull

ARTIST: Kyle Gann
WORK: Star Dance [:38]
RECORDING:hyperchromatica
SOURCE: Other Minds Records
INFO: https://othermindsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hyperchromatica