Composer and multi-media artist Maryanne Amacher is best known for her dramatically-staged installations exploring the perceptual psychology of acoustic space. A composition student of post-serialists George Rochberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the University of Pennsylvania, Amacher continued her post-graduate studies in acoustic and computer science at the University of Illinois. She began developing her craft in the ‘70s, creating site-specific environments whose psychoacoustic properties were determined by the surrounding architecture. Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, Amacher collaborated with likeminded composers such as David Behrman and Alvin Curran, as well as vanguard choreographer Merce Cunningham. In 1999, John Zorn’s Tzadik label released her SOUND CHARACTERS (MAKING THE THIRD EAR), a collection of electronic works that roughly translated the perceptual phenomenon of sounds emanating from within’ one’s own head.