29
Aug
2010
From musician and native Houstonian Pauline Oliveros
KTRU is a valuable dispenser of underserved culture in Houston. Contemporary music is vital to the health of culture. Music like language is constantly evolving and changing. It is all important for the public to have access and be exposed to the newest music being composed or improvised and performed as well as music of the past. I would not like to see KTRU change to Classical Music format. There are other stations that serve this constituency very well. The students at Rice Institute deserve to continue their tradition of bringing contemporary music to Houston listeners.
Pauline Oliveros (Native Houstonian)
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About ten years ago, I went to a performance by Pauline Oliveros in Houston. I still remember the experience. Of course, I heard about the show on ktru.
Music has to be understood as part of the intangible culture of people around the world. It is a time-based art form that vanishes and then lives in the mind. This is part of the wonder of the medium. Music brings us back to the felt presence of immediate experience. The felt presence of immediate experience is not greatly valued by our culture because it can’t be bought or sold. It is, however, the very thing that binds us all together as humans. We’re all present in the moment and what we do in that moment is make music and share it with one another.
KTRU holds the living traditions of music out to the world as a garden. The station extends an open invitation to understand or at least experience the minds of other people and other cultures through sound.
I cannot think of another arena or stage of any kind that is home to more diversity. KTRU is the most diverse forum for human thinking that I have ever encountered anywhere.
I started an Indonesian gong-chime orchestra in Houston. The group still performs in Houston today, it’s called Space City Gamelan. I have to credit KTRU with allowing me to continue a music education that was rekindled in college. I had to go to Seattle to learn how to play that music but I continued to learn about it and share it with others as a DJ at KTRU. People learn about the world and themselves with the help of KTRU.
KTRU should continue to stream online but it’s primary apparition must be as a radio station in Houston. There is every chance that we could lose the battle for net neutrality. If that happens KTRU will then be relegated to the internet equivalent of a dark corner. It will be forgotten and dead because of it’s relative size.
We’re all in the same boat waiting to be fleeced and there are only moments in life when we find ourselves truly free. The rapture of music delivers moments of freedom. Please take a stand for the intangible culture of mankind. Please take a stand for the diversity of a truly progressive radio station. KTRU defines the edge. Music is more than just a way for advertisers to find their markets. Remember this with us and help us to remind the world.
Respectfully,
R. Gabriel Villalobos
Founder, Space City Gamelan and Former KTRU DJ