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This event is presented by the Rensselaer Music Association.

Theater maker Yara Travieso was in residence to create an immersive theatrical experience designed for the EMPAC Concert Hall. Inspired by the idea of transforming the hall into a living, breathing female form, Travieso used monumental staging, experiential cinema, and sound to ignite the ceiling, side galleries, balcony, and stage. Expanding on the venue’s unique capabilities for music and opera, Travieso undertook a film shoot while in residence to create material that was later projected inside the hall, creating a rich theatrical world for the audience to explore and share in making it “breathe.” 

Yara Travieso is an American director, choreographer, and maker of worlds. She creates films, stage works, immersive installations, and live experiences centered around female protagonists. Travieso developed the work over summer 2018 along with composer and sound designer Sam Crawford and lighting designer Seth Reiser.

Our second annual Spatial Audio Summer Seminar, co-presented by the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University and the Paris-based Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM).

This intensive seminar offers musicians, composers, audio engineers, and programmers the rare opportunity to study the fundamentals of multi-channel spatial audio in pristine acoustic environments. Participants will experience multiple large spatial audio systems, including Wave Field Synthesis, High-Order Ambisonics, and Binaural audio.

SEMINAR—July 9–13, 2018

The first week of the seminar is an open forum for participants of all backgrounds and experience levels to dive into general concepts, workflows, and control mechanisms related to spatial audio. Topics will include introductory, intermediate, and advanced patching for IRCAM’s SPAT software, in-depth discussions of Wave Field Synthesis, Ambisonics, Binaural and Transaural audio, 3D audio recording and mixing, and more.

WAVE FIELD SYNTHESIS WORKSHOP—July 16–22, 2018

The wave field synthesis workshop gives participants focused time and hands-on access to the system in order to develop new creative work. This portion of the workshop will be reserved for only a handful of participants who submit project proposals in advance. Submissions will be reviewed by workshop leaders and accepted based on the degree to which they utilize the capabilities of these spatial audio systems and the potential to realize the proposed project within the given time frame.

Media

This Was The End was a multimedia performance inspired by canonical Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. In the play, Vanya asks, “What if I live to be 60?” This Was The End answered that question through a story told by four actors in their 60s. Director Mallory Catlett was in residence at EMPAC with sound designer G. Lucas Crane and video designer Keith Skretch to develop their theatrical production into a multimedia installation about memory and time.

Like the performance, the new installation featured the architectural façade of the original PS 122, an iconic NYC arts building, to physically frame and contextualize Catlett’s adaptation. Catlett, her collaborators, and This Was the End actors were in residence at EMPAC to shoot new footage for their installation. They used this footage to activate the historic façade with interactive video and sound from their theatrical production, drawing viewers into the installation to investigate what came before, what is now, and what might be. On the installation’s opening night, Crane performed live sound inside the space. 

Mallory Catlett is a New York-based creator and director of performance across disciplines. She is the Artistic Director of Restless NYC whose production of This Was The End won an Obie Award. Other works include City Council Meeting, a regional theater experiment in participatory democracy and multimedia music theater piece Red Fly/Blue Bottle that performed at EMPAC in 2010. She has shown her work in New York City at Here, Performance Space 122, Abrons Arts Center, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

G. Lucas Crane is a sound artist and performer from Brooklyn, NY. Major projects include the psych-rock band Woods, the cassette-collage project Nonhorse, and the experimental theater of Performance Thanatology.

Keith Skretch is a New York-based video designer whose work has been shown at the Brooklyn Academic of Music, REDCAT, The Old Globe, MCA Chicago, and Performance Space 122.

This Was The End is a multimedia performance inspired by canonical Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. In the play, Vanya asks, “What if I live to be 60?” This Was The End answered that question through a story told by four actors in their 60s. Director Mallory Catlett was in residence at EMPAC with sound designer G. Lucas Crane and video designer Keith Skretch to develop their theatrical production into a multimedia installation about memory and time.

Like the performance, the new installationfeatured the architectural façade of the original PS 122, an iconic NYC arts building, to physically frame and contextualize Catlett’s adaptation. Catlett, her collaborators, and This Was the End actors were in residence at EMPAC to shoot new footage for their installation. They used this footage to activate the historic façade with interactive video and sound from their theatrical production, drawing viewers into the installation to investigate what came before, what is now, and what might be. On the installation’s opening night, Crane performed live sound inside the space. 

Catlett is a New York-based creator and director of performance across disciplines. She is the artistic director of Restless NYC whose production of This Was The End won an Obie Award. Other works include City Council Meeting, a regional theater experiment in participatory democracy, and multimedia music theater piece Red Fly/Blue Bottle that was performed at EMPAC in 2010. She has shown her work in New York City at Here, Performance Space 122, Abrons Arts Center, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

G. Lucas Crane is a sound artist and performer from Brooklyn, NY. Major projects include the psych-rock band Woods, the cassette-collage project Nonhorse, and the experimental theater of Performance Thanatology.

Keith Skretch is a New York-based video designer whose work has been shown at the Brooklyn Academic of Music, REDCAT, The Old Globe, MCA Chicago, and Performance Space 122.