Los Angeles-based artist Erika Vogt presented a collaborative theatrical production that brought together visual artists and performers who work across media, including Math Bass, Shannon Ebner, Lauren Davis Fisher, Mariah Garnett, MPA, Silke Otto-Knapp & Flora Wiegmann, Adam Putnam, and Mark So. The Artist Theater Program was a choreographed chorus of individual works that moved, collided and overlapped in time, responding to the space and mechanics of EMPAC’s architectural infrastructure by combining performers, artworks, sets, props, and lighting effects that echo the corporeal, erotic, sensual, expressive, and strange. By acting collectively upon physical or sculptural forms, the artists created an alternate framework for an experiential exhibition, one rooted in the desire to build and present an artistic community.

Erika Vogt’s work has been included in major international shows at New Museum, New York City; Hepworth Wakefield, Leeds; Triangle, Marseille; Whitney Museum, New York City; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and SFMOMA, San Francisco. Vogt’s video Darker Imposter was screened on Channel 4 television, co-commissioned by Frieze Foundation, London; and EMPAC.

From the connections between enclosure geometry and sound a potential future for acoustic architecture emerges. In this future, acoustic performance is an integral component of the design process, with surface geometries determined from the largest room scales down to the smallest sound absorbing pores. A continuous spectrum of geometric possibility encompasses traditional applied acoustic treatment, such as absorption and diffusion, and the debate surrounding the function of ornament is partially resolved.

Kristian Bezuidenhout is known for bringing a new dimension to the interpretation of Mozart’s piano music. Trained as a modern pianist, Bezuidenhout fell in love with the fortepiano—forerunner of the contemporary piano that is most commonly heard today. For this solo performance, Bezuidenhout performed music (on a fortepiano made by R. J. Regier) by Mozart and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Bezuidenhout divides his time among concerto, recital, and chamber music engagements, appearing in music festivals in Barcelona, Boston, Bruges, Edinburgh, Innsbruck, St. Petersburg, Venice, Utrecht, Salzburg, Luzern, Schleswig-Holstein, Tanglewood, and Mostly Mozart; and at many of the world’s most important concert halls including the Berlin and Kölner Philharmonie, Suntory Hall, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Symphony Hall, Konzerthaus Vienna, Wigmore Hall, and Carnegie Hall. He was nominated as Gramophone Magazine’s Artist of the Year 2013. 

PROGRAM

C.P.E. Bach

Rondo in C minor, Wq. 59/4, from für Kenner und Liebhaber

W. A. Mozart

Suite in C major, K. 399, with completion of the Sarabande by Robert D. Levin

Minuet in D major, K. 355

Gigue in G major, K. 574

C.P.E. Bach

Sonata in E minor, Wq. 59/1, from für Kenner und Liebhaber

Mozart

Rondo in A minor, K. 511

Mozart

Prelude and Fugue in C major, K 394

Sonata in A major, K. 331, 'Alla Turca' Fortepiano made by R. J. Regier - Freeport, Maine

At the forefront of the classical and jazz worlds respectively, Mariel Roberts (cello) and Nate Wooley (trumpet) each performed solo sets, along with a duo improvisation. Both artists have quickly developed international reputations: Wooley for his iconoclastic, expectation-defying playing, and Roberts for a fearless technical prowess. Roberts is a dedicated interpreter and performer of contemporary music. She holds degrees from the Eastman School and the Manhattan School of Music, where she specialized in contemporary performance practice. She has appeared as a soloist and with ensembles such as Signal, Wet Ink, Dal Niente, S.E.M., the Nouveau Classical Project, and the Wordless Music Orchestra. Wooley is one of the most in-demand trumpet players in the burgeoning Brooklyn jazz, improv, noise, and new music scenes. He has performed with John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, Peter Evans, and Mary Halvorson.

program

Performed by Mariel Roberts:

SIMON STEEN-ANDERSON Study for String Instrument No. 2

ALEX MINCEK Flutter

IANNIS XENAKIS Kottos

Performed and composed by Nate Wooley: 

For Kenneth Gaburo: TCACNO

Peradam was a new audio and visual performance that intertwined voice with synthetic sound and image. Created in residence over three weeks, the artists worked in collaboration; using real-time synthesis, Ratté modified live video while Lowe used his voice as the source of his sonic manipulations. Inspired by René Daumal’s novel Mount Analogue, the first work of literature to use the word peradam to describe “an object that is revealed only to those who seek it,” Lowe’s composition for the modular synthesizer focused on the texture of a consistent equilibrium between the peak and valley of a sound wave to create a heightened experience akin to ecstatic music. 

Robert Lowe is a Brooklyn-based artist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist working with long-form improvisation utilizing voice and modular synthesis. The creation of ecstatic forms has been the focus of collaborations with Doug Aitken, Tarek Atoui, Lee Ranaldo, Ben Russell, Ben Rivers, Lucky Dragons, and many others.

Sabrina Ratté is a Montréal-based visual artist whose videos create virtual environments where architecture and landscapes fall into abstraction. Her work is also inspired by the relationship between electronic music and the video image, and she often collaborates with musicians.

The contemporary music ensemble ECCE was in residence in EMPAC’s Concert Hall to make video and audio recordings of works by composer Per Bloland. Best known for his compositions using the electromagnetically-prepared piano, Bloland’s music fuses acoustic instruments with electronic sound, creating a richly unified whole that neither element alone could produce. Bloland has received awards and recognition from IRCAM, ICMA, SEAMUS/ASCAP, and ISCM, among others. His music can be heard on the TauKay (Italy), Capstone, Spektral, and SEAMUS labels, and through MIT Press. ECCE has interpreted works by composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Philippe Hurel, Lee Hyla, Helmut Lachenmann, Fabien Levy, Hanspeter Kyburz, Louis Karchin, and many others.

Sound artist Sabisha Friedberg’s work explores perceptual thresholds, focused sub-sonic compositions, and low-frequency levitation. It pulls together concepts from the perceptual, phenomenological, and phantasmagorical to create thought-provoking, mystifying pieces. During her residency, Friedberg offered a talk and a work-in-progress installation/performance. For Chasing the Phantasmagorical: Challenges and Process, Friedberg discussed her past practice as well as the elements investigated during her time at EMPAC. Continuing her explorations into sound and frequency, the performance Strange Cloak–Sub-Flight Infinity investigated the relationship of levitation, suspension, and low-end thresholds through metaphor, pseudo-science, and real physics. The piece was built around bass-frequency sonic levitation with objects made to float and flutter as a ghostly effect of the sound waves themselves.

Born in South Africa and currently based out of Brooklyn and Paris, Friedberg has performed and presented installations widely in Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, Japan, and Northern America.

Peradam was a new audio and visual performance that intertwined voice with synthetic sound and image. Created in residence over three weeks, the artists worked in collaboration; using real-time synthesis, Ratté modified live video while Lowe used his voice as the source of his sonic manipulations. Inspired by René Daumal’s novel Mount Analogue, the first work of literature to use the word peradam to describe “an object that is revealed only to those who seek it,” Lowe’s composition for the modular synthesizer focused on the texture of a consistent equilibrium between the peak and valley of a sound wave to create a heightened experience akin to ecstatic music.

Robert Lowe is a Brooklyn-based artist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist working with long-form improvisation utilizing voice and modular synthesis. The creation of ecstatic forms has been the focus of collaborations with Doug Aitken, Tarek Atoui, Lee Ranaldo, Ben Russell, Ben Rivers, Lucky Dragons, and many others. Sabrina Ratté is a Montréal-based visual artist whose videos create virtual environments where architecture and landscapes fall into abstraction. Her work is also inspired by the relationship between electronic music and the video image, and she often collaborates with musicians.

Canadian pianist Vicky Chow is known for her innovative programming and fearless technique. A member of the New York City-based ensemble the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Chow was in residence to record Surface Image by Tristan Perich. A work for solo piano accompanied by 40 channels of 1-bit electronic sounds, Surface Image is a 60-minute composition that juxtaposes acoustic human performance and the sounds of hand-built electronics.

Chow has performed extensively as a classical and contemporary soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble member; she has worked with leading composers and musicians such as John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Bryce Dessner (the National), Philip Glass, Glenn Kotche (Wilco), David Longstreth (the Dirty Projectors), Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth). In addition to performing, she also produces and curates Contagious Sounds, a music series focusing on adventurous contemporary artists and composers in New York City.

The newly formed Rensselaer Orchestra, under the direction of Nicholas DeMaison, presents its first concert this Saturday, November 23rd, at 4:00 pm in the Concert Hall. The program will feature Beethoven’s Coriolon Overture, pieces by Pauline Oliveros and James Tenney, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 (“The Little Russian”).  Arts Department graduate students Brian Cook & Kelly Michael Fox will also collaborate with the orchestra to develop live surround sound components for two of the works being performed.