Lesley Flanigan came to EMPAC to record her work Residue for voice and speaker sculptures. The recording residency focused on longer forms, as originally conceived for her performance of this work at the Guggenheim.

Choreographer Yanira Castro is in residence at EMPAC with sound collaborator Stephan Moore to explore possible uses of the Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) Array in participatory dance work.

Volunteer Day—Friday, December 6th at 2:30PM

EMPAC welcomes volunteers to assist the artists in the exploration of Wave Field Synthesis. Volunteers will be welcomed into the WFS Array to hear whispers and movement instructions that they can follow. As the bodies move through the space the sounds might follow them, or begin to sound different as others leave and enter the space.

At the end of participants’ time exploring the sounds, we will have a conversation with the artists about what people heard, perceived, and felt throughout their experience to consider the efficacy of using Wave Field Synthesis in live performance with audience members sharing a stage with performers.

How to Participate

If you are interested in participating, please meet in the EMPAC lobby at 2:30pm on Friday, December 6th. 

Please visit the event announcement for more information about this campus event.

For more information about this campus event please visit http://www.hass.rpi.edu/pl/hass-events/?objectID=100004592

Turkish composer Cenk Ergün will be in residence with the JACK Quartet (Christopher Otto, Austin Wulliman, John Pickford Richards, Jay Campbell) to record a pair of string quartets—Sonare and Celare—for future release on the label New Focus Recordings.

UK-based composer and playwright Klein is in residence at EMPAC developing a new performance to be presented at MoMA PS1’s VW dome. With references ranging from mythology to Pavarotti to defunct UK young-adult TV network Trouble, Klein uses collagist techniques to assemble recordings of her own vocals and instrumentation.

The New York-based Austrian artist Kurt Hentschläger will be in residence to develop a new audio-visual work for a custom-built LED wall and a multichannel surround-sound system. EKO is the third work in his ongoing series staged in complete darkness.

He will perform the premiere of this piece on November 14.

New York-based quartet Yarn/Wire (two percussionists and two pianists) will record contemporary German composer Enno Poppe's EMPAC-commissioned piece Feld, and Tonband, Poppe’s co-composition with Wolfgang Heiniger.

Feld was premiered at EMPAC on September 22, 2017.

For a recent sound work produced in the UK, Mark Fell collaborated with IRCAM/Paris to create a large database of extreme and unusual instrumental recordings. At EMPAC, he will explore the use of these materials and their behavior on the High-Resolution Wave Field Synthesis Array, which offers precise positioning of sound in space. 

Sarah Hennies performs an evening of her work for solo percussion and electronics featuring her works Falsetto and Fleas. Through slowly evolving textures, Hennies’ music opens up a space where small changes become events. Her music often explores the act of performance: whether through showing the amount of energy it takes to maintain a constant appearance in front of others, the exhaustion of maintaining a sound once it has been established, or the vulnerability of having one’s every small move amplified through observation.

Working with both traditional orchestral percussion instruments and found objects, Hennies challenges rigid definitions by relating the structure of her work to themes of queer and trans identity, love and intimacy. Hennies has mentioned in interviews that percussionsts are unique in that they don’t have a specific instrument. Their identity and role changes constantly with the context of different pieces and even within a single piece. The standard definition of a musician identified by their instrument does not hold.

In Hennies’ performance, listeners and performers are encouraged to enter a shared space that reflects everyday life. Hennies’ music begins to expose the exhaustion and virtuosity of maintaining even simple actions. A gentle sound, such as the ringing of a small bell, is sustained beyond virtuosity to expose the exhaustion of maintaining even simple actions that are thought of as societal norms. As these sounds are challenged by the addition of other actions, her performance becomes more and more mesmerizing: an act of determination.