Musica elettronica viva

Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) is a live acoustic/electronic improvisational group formed in Rome, Italy, in 1966. Over the years, its members have included Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, Frederic Rzewski, Allan Bryant, Garrett List, Carol Plantamura, Ivan Vandor, Steve Lacy, and Jon Phetteplace. They were early experimenters with the use of synthesizers to transform sounds: a 1967 concert in Berlin included a performance of John Cage's Solo for Voice 2 with Plantamura's voice transformed through a Moog synthesizer. At the end of the 1960s, they took part in the group Lo Zoo, founded by artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. They also used such "non-musical" objects as amplified panes of glass and olive oil cans, and their performances achieved notoriety in Italy for their ability to generate riots. They are active as a group to this day in addition to their individual work as composers—most recent MEV performance by Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, and Frederic Rzewski at Bard College in 2012.