"The sensual nature of sound" portrays these New York based composer/performers in terms of their musical lives. Although all four women are pioneers in American music, each composer pursues a distinct direction of her own. Since the early 1980s, Laurie Anderson has used music and performance as the foundation for her multi-media stage shows which have since become her trademark. Cuban born Tania Leon composes orchestral music that is an intricate weave of Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz elements embedded within a classical Western concerto format. Meredith Monk experiments with new ideas in music theater and has developed a genre of opera very much her own. Pauline Oliveros draws upon the rich resources of ritual, myth, meditation, and improvisation to create a body of work that is truly visionary. Filmed at rehearsals and performances in the United States and abroad, "The sensual nature of sound" examines the contributions of these diverse composers to contemporary American music.