EMPAC remains at forefront of experimental music - Upstate Beat

A pair of earplugs — and an open mind — were needed in equal measure to make the most of the show by sound artists Victoria Shen and Mariam Rezaei last Friday at EMPAC, the performing arts center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy.

The plugs were necessary to temper the massive wall of sound built by Rezaei on piano and turntables and Shen on her assemblage of DIY instruments — including a levitating speaker, combs that radiate static when brushed through hair and acrylic nails with embedded turntable styluses that allow the San Francisco artist to play a handful of record tracks at once.

“I invite you all to sit back and be enveloped in the intense and transcendent experience,” said EMPAC curator Amadeus Julian Regucera before the show in EMPAC’s Studio 1, a large space with walls covered in black acoustic panels. Rezaei kicked off the show with frantic piano playing, but before long was drowned out by Shen’s cacophony of instruments.

The enjoyment in such experimental music, I realized, is not in knowing where the performance is going to take you but instead in allowing yourself to sink into the sound, be mesmerized and ride along on a sonic journey.

“She has a really creative and fascinating way of approaching sound,” Regucera said of Shen’s work in an interview before the show. The curator joined EMPAC in 2022 from the Bay Area, where he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and became familiar with Shen’s highly creative style.

“Of course, the music is very dissonant, noisy and aggressive, but in a way it’s also quite beautiful, especially in the way that her body interacts with the objects and the materials that she uses. It also creates a really exciting live experience. I think that her live presence is one of the most electrifying that I’ve seen in the last 10 years or so,” he said.

Shen chose the UK-based Rezaei as a collaborator for the one-of-a-kind performance at EMPAC, which resulted from the duo’s weeklong residency in Troy.

“It’s this hallucinogenic soundscape and frenetic, high-energy sound world,” Regucera said. “The two of them together just create this sonic assault, for lack of a better word. Watching Mariam spin records and watching Victoria perform is just a sight to behold. Victoria will climb on the furniture and crack whips, and she also plays the cornet, a small trumpet.”

Experimentalism is a hallmark of EMPAC — it’s in the name. But now the RPI arts institution is looking ahead — and planning for greater integration in the community.

“The music might not be for everyone, but I think the energy that the performers exude onstage is just a great time. It’s just really exciting. At EMPAC in recent years we want to be a more welcoming space for people to try out different things and new ideas,” Regucera said.

The finale of EMPAC’s spring season takes place this Friday with the world premiere of “Ontopoiesis,” a commissioned piece of experimental music theater by composer Rama Gottfried, production designer Anna Paniccia, and the experimental music piano and percussion quartet Yarn/Wire.

“ ‘Ontopoiesis’ is a philosophical concept where form and meaning emerge from interacting systems, like daily interactions with each other, with politics, with the weather. All the interactions that we have in our lives create a sense of who we are, a sense of meaning,” Regucera said.

Also, there are puppets involved. And a quartet composed of two pianists and two percussionists, as well as video projection, bubbles and smoke.

“It’s a full-on theatrical production,” he said. “The artists have now been here three times to develop this piece over the course of the last year and a half. It’s really grown and expanded, really ambitious. And it’s just an example of the work that we try to develop here over the course of time, really giving artists a chance to spread their wings over three, two-week residencies.”

EMPAC also puts on much more traditional programming, such as classical music and straight-ahead jazz and rock. But it’s nice to have arts institutions in the area that remain dedicated to pushing boundaries when it comes to more avant-garde or esoteric fare.

“I grew up listening to all kinds of music. I grew up playing classical music. I played in punk bands my entire life,” Regucera said. “It’s really about setting the stage for folks to hear something different, to decide for themselves — or not to decide — but to be curious about things that they don’t know about or experiences they might even enjoy, and to do that with other people.”

Now under the leadership of Executive Director Dena Beard, who previously directed the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College, EMPAC’s focus is shifting to greater involvement in the community, Regucera said.

He’s currently planning a three-day music festival to take place in Troy from Aug. 28-30 involving multiple venues and various kinds of music, including electronic, dance, chamber, country and noise. The lineup will be announced in June along with the fall EMPAC season.

“As imposing as EMPAC is, we’re trying to open it up,” Regucera said. “We realize it’s going to take some time. But I think now that we have new leadership and we’re trying to move toward a festival, community-gathering model, we can take steps toward being a more open place for people to have the opportunity to experience something new and different.”

Congratulations Eddies winners!

I was honored to receive an award for Music Journalist of the Year at the Capital Region Thomas Edison Music Awards on Sunday night. Shout-out to my fellow Nippertown nominees Lucas Garrett and Don Wilcock — and to all the people who make our local music scene so thriving. As I said onstage, I view my role as telling the stories of people in our community who do something brave, which is to make music and art. And we need that bravery now more than ever.

Thanks to everyone who supports local music!