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Located in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont not far from the border of French Canada, the Charlie Morrow Archive consists of Morrow’s sound, music and media works, art objects and installations, collaborative works, productions and publications. Barton curator, designer, musician Jay Walbert is managing the Archive, and provides content to exhibitions and publications, licenses recordings and support for visiting scholars.

Archive Contents:

• Morrow’s works in manuscript, masters and prints, recordings, data files, notebooks and journals.
  
• Database of projects, works, collaborators.
  
• Media, design and work documents of Morrow events and publications (Ear Magazine, New Wilderness Audiographics, New Wilderness Letter, the iMMERSE podcast, various artist books and multiples).
  
• Photos, posters, and press.
  
• Studio hardware from the 1950s to the present (and hard drives).
  
• Books and manuscripts—many by or about collaborators.
  
• Published recordings (LPs, reel-to-reel tapes, cassettes, videos, DATs, CDs).
  

The Charlie Morrow timeline

1. Before 1958: Conceptual sound, action and stamp works.
2. 1960 – 1972: the revolutionary period.
1. 1960. Formation of New York “downtown music” meeting composers Philip Corner, James Tenney, Malcolm Goldstein at Columbia University and their friend John Cage. Also Varese, Wolpe.
2. 1962: Ethnopoetics and multimedia: meeting poet Jerome Rothenberg at Mannes School of Music. New/Old aesthetic.
   Lifelong friendship and collaboration.
   Rothenberg is a driving force in projects until his death in 2024.
3. 1965: Carnegie hall concert, New Music for Trumpet and Ensemble.
4. Working with Gregory Reeve, Norman Seaman, Charlotte Moorman, Nam Jun Paik. Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, George Maciunas, Fluxus.
5. 1967: 365 West End Avenue recording studio: performing and organizing projects with collaborating artists, Rothenberg, Mac Low, Comer. The Rascals, The VanillaFudge, jingle career begins. Charles Morrow Associates, Inc.
6. Chanting and healing works including Bear Cassette, A Healing Piece for the Wooster Group. Chant based vocal works for The Western Wind.
7. Installations at Sidney Janis Gallery, New York and The Louvre, Paris.
8. Sound and music for Francis Thompson’s Moonwalk One.
3. 1973 – 94: New Wilderness Foundation and Music Outside the Concert Hall large scale public eventlbroadcast and concert design as frame making newiold environmental, transformational works with chant, improvisation, animal communication, number counting, shamanism, new technology.
1. NWF Preservation Band, concerts and events including The Solstice Event/Broadcasts. International Sound Poetry Fesfival. Heavyweight Sound Fight, Toot’n Blink, Wave Music series.
2. Publications: EAR Magazine, New Wilderness Letter, Audiographics cassettes.
3. Ocarina Orchestra, Grand Conch Chorus, Wind Band, Horizontal-Vertical Band with Glen Velez.
4. 1979 forward: international activities: performances, productions.
   Collaborations with Sten Hanson, Paol Borum, Trevor Davies and Derek Bailey.
   Copenhagen Waves – city event.
5. Arctic projects with Paol Anders Simma, Åsa Simma.
6. WDR Cologne Radio projects with Klaus Schoening.
7. Music for advertising and film, sound design.
4. 1989 forward: Sound art objects and installations, museum projects. sound furniture, reliquaries, resonance “listening” structures.
5. 1994 forward: Development of the archive in Barton, Vermont home on former Dick Higgins property. Collaborations with the Smithsonian Institution and other major museums.
6. 2000: With Maija-Leena Remes, building business and art projects in Finland, moving base from New York to Barton, Vermont.
7. 2003: Development of 3D sound cube and commissioning project.
8. 2004: Sensor speaker, wind wing bells.
9. 2005: Noise machines, wind shells.
10. 2006 to present: Projects, interventions, correspondence.
11. 2016: Solstice 24 coproduced with Smithsonian Institution Arctic Studies.
12. 2017: Collaboration with Sean McCann begins
13. 2020: Four Winds - A Winter Solstice Concert
14. 2022: podcast iMMERSE! with Charlie Morrow
    Sibelius 50th Anniversary prize.
    Charlie Morrow: A Gathering show. Kohta Arthall, Helsinki, Finland
    Morrow 80th birthday celebration CD “Chanter” on Recital editions
    Chorus: A Sound Poetry Festival performance, Artists Space, NYC
15. 2023: 24 Hours In 48 Minutes opera premiere, Helsinki.
    The Heavy Weight Sound Fight - 2xLP multiple (iDEAL Recordings).
    Bread & Puppet Theater collaboration, Morrow’s Grosse Fuge quartet.
    Charlie Morrow Interviews Sun Ra - LP multiple (Recital editons).
16. 2024: Piano Trios concert, Helinki.
    Vinyl On Demand 11xLP + Book multiple on New Wilderness Audiographics and Letter.
    Soundhead vinyl LP multiple (Recital Editons, California).
    Unlike The Eye, The Ear Does Not Blink - Morrow archive catalog (Goats & Compasses Press).
    Abulafia Visits the Pope - Vienna Blood, Jerome Rothenberg & Morrow collaborative opera premiere, UC Irvine, California.

Archive History

The archive is located on former Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles land. Multi-artist, art theorist and publisher Higgins ran the Something Else Press here, having moved it up from New York City in the mid 60s. John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Pauline Oliveros, Max Neuhaus, Philip Corner, Emmett Williams and many more artist innovators came to Barton to work on their Something Else Press books.

From 1968, Morrow came often to Barton to collaborate on New Wilderness Projects. He bought Higgins’ sugar maple woods in 1979. Shortly after, Dick and Alison Knowles, who had separated, re-married. Dick joined Alison in Barrytown, New York, passing away in 1998. What remains is Higgins Lane.

Barton, Vermont is maple syrup country. In 1981, Morrow and friends built a sugarhouse with a traditional gull winged roof and began Roaring Brook maple products. In 1993, he cleared some of the land and built a house. Over the years, files, tapes, sound sculptures and artifacts from projects were brought to Barton.

In 2006, this became Morrow’s permanent residence. He moved Charles Morrow Productions and studio from New York City to Barton.

Owning a recording studio made all possible: the recordings, broadcasts, audio publications and the amassing of an audio archive. The studio opened in the 1960s in a series of locations:

• 365 West End, NYC home studio in soundproof room, 1967 to 1986
• The Omnipark Central Hotel, NYC with Fred/Alan Company, 1986 to 1988
• 611 Broadway, the Cable Building, NYC, 1988 to 1994
• 2095 Broadway, Rutgers Church, NYC next door to documentarian Ric Burns, 1994 to 1999.
• 307 Seventh Avenue, NYC with Granary Books, 2000 to 2010
• 1961 Roaring Brook Road, Barton VT on former Dick Higgins property, 2012 to present

Over the years, Morrow moved into True3D production.

In 2010, he built his first True3D Listening Room in the studio of Finnish designer Harri Koskinen in order to present and produce in Finland. It became the new business model, a shared space. Other listening room locations followed.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed Morrow’s course. MorrowSound, his commercial business, became a co-venture with Willie Fastenow’s Park-Boulvard Productions. The listening room project ceased. Morrow’s focus shifted to the archive, podcast iMMERSE! and composing.