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All Music Guide:
Musica Elettronica Viva could not be easily defined as one band. Instead, MEV was closer to a movement based around the idea of free improvisation in the form of experimental, electronic jazz. In the early '70s, there were three different (but related) bands that went by the name: one in New York that included Richard Teitelbaum and Frederic Rzewski; one in Paris, led by Patricia and Ivan Coaquette (before his Spacecraft days); and one in Rome, founded by Alvin Curran. In 1970, the French label BYG issued two recordings that included members from each of the branches of MEV. The first of these, Sound Pool, is a live 1969 performance -- both this and Leave the City were re-issued in the late '90s by Spalax2. There was also a 1977 release entitled United Patchwork that includes Curran, Rzewski, Teitelbaum, Karl Berger, Garrett List and Steve Lacy.
Wikipedia:
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, 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 the Tanglewood Festival in 2007.
