In two back-to-back screenings in one evening, Laurie Anderson presented many of her films and videos, culminating in a silent film with live music performed by Anderson and Pauline Oliveros. 

Laurie Anderson, EMPAC’s inaugural distinguished artist-in-residence, presented a series of events focusing on topics unique to her practice as an artist. 

5PM PROGRAM

What You Mean We? (1987) What You Mean We? stars Laurie Anderson, who also wrote and directed the piece. It was originally produced as a segment of the PBS arts series Alive from Off Center.

Personal Service Announcements (early 1990s)

Carmen (1991) Anderson’s Carmen, who works in a tobacco factory, is as strong-willed and carefree as the original (she steals cigarettes off the assembly line). The one significant difference in that she is married. The young soldier from Georges Bizet’s original opera (1875) has been transformed into her indifferent husband who sits home idly watching television with the kids while she works.

Puppet Motel (1994) Puppet Motel is a CD-ROM which invites to an imaginary universe made up of the interplay between light and darkness, mystery and poetry. This universe is populated by puppets and, of course, its creator, the artist herself.

Home of the Brave (1986), excerpts Home of the Brave is a concert film directed by and featuring the music of Laurie Anderson. The performances were filmed at the Park Theater in Union City, NJ, during the summer of 1985.

8PM PROGRAM

Hidden Inside Mountains (2005) Hidden Inside Mountains is a film of short stories about nature, artifice, and dreams. Located in a fictitious world of theatrical spaces, the stories unfold through music, gesture, text passages and the poetry of variously juxtaposed, evocative visual images.

Hidden Inside Mountains, commissioned by EXPO 2005 Aichi, Japan, is a high definition film that debuted in Japan at WORLD EXPO 2005 on the largest high definition Astrovision screen in the world. An original score was written and recorded by Laurie Anderson with additional vocals by singer /performer Antony.

Duets with Pauline Oliveros to films by Ken Jacobs and others

Excerpts from Performances

One of America’s most renowned performance artists, Laurie Anderson’s genre-crossing work encompasses performance, film, music, installation, writing, photography, and sculpture. She is widely known for her multimedia presentations and musical recordings and has numerous major works to her credit, including United States I-V (1983), Empty Places (1990), Stories from the Nerve Bible (1993), Songs and Stories for Moby Dick (1999), and Life on a String(2001), among others. She has had countless collaborations with an array of artists, from Jonathan Demme and Brian Eno to Bill T. Jones and Peter Gabriel.

Anderson has invented several technological devices for use in her recordings and performance art shows, including voice filters, a tape-bow violin, and a talking stick. In 2002, she was appointed NASA’s first artist-in-residence, and she was also part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. She has published six books, produced numerous videos, films, radio pieces, and original scores for dance and film. In 2007, she received the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for her outstanding contribution to the arts. She lives in New York City.

Pauline Oliveros’ life as a composer, performer, and humanitarian is about opening her own and others’ senses to the many facets of sound. Since the 1960s, she has profoundly influenced American music through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth, and ritual. Many credit her with being the founder of present day meditative music. All of Oliveros’ work emphasizes musicianship, attention strategies, and improvisational skills.

She has been celebrated worldwide. During the 1960s, John Rockwell named her work Bye Bye Butterfly as one of the most significant of that decade. In the 70s she represented the US at the World’s Fair in Osaka, Japan; during the 80s she was honored with a retrospective at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. The 1990s began with a letter of distinction from the American Music Center presented at Lincoln Center in New York, and in 2000 the 50th anniversary of her work was celebrated with the commissioning and performance of her Lunar Opera: Deep Listening For_tunes. Oliveros’ work is available on numerous recordings produced by companies internationally. Sounding the Margins—a forty-year retrospective, was recently released in a six CD boxed set from Deep Listening.

Icelandic composer Davíð Brynjar Franzson was in residence with ensemble Yarn/Wire to record, edit, and master both audio and video for an upcoming release. Franzson is known for his experimentation with music at the edge of perception, bringing sounds from between the cracks of consciousness to the forefront of perception. Yarn/Wire is a New York City-based ensemble featuring two pianists and two percussionists who interpreted Franzson’s work for the recording. Yarn/Wire frequently presents US premieres by leading international composers, in addition to premieres of music written specifically for the ensemble. Davíð Brynjar Franzson has collaborated with ensembles such as Ensemble Adapter and the Mivos Quartet in addition to Yarn/Wire. His scores are published by Schott Music and his music can be heard on WERGO, Innova, Spektral, Smekkleysa and Carrier Records, a NYC-based record label that he co-runs with Sam Pluta and Jeff Snyder.

Neil will be joined by violinist Todd Reynolds and pianist Vicky Chow in works for violin, piano and computer, including Hammer & Hair, Fiddle Faddle and Digits.

This residency supported a collaborative project featuring music by composer Jaroslaw Kapuściński and projections by The OpenEnded Group. The resulting work, Linked Verse, premiered at Stanford Live and was an evening-length concerto for cello (Maya Beiser), Japanese shõ (Ko Ishikawa), voice and surround sound from 24 speakers, and live 3D stereoscopic visual projection. A multimedia evocation of otherness and union that builds on tensions and accords between Japanese and Western cultures, Linked Verse explores ancient and contemporary eras and sensory modalities, both visual and aural. The work’s structure is derived from the ancient Japanese poetic practice of renga (“linked verse”) in which two or more poets take turns adding interlocking links to form a chain of unexpected associations. In Linked Verse, 3D scenes (captured on location in Tokyo, Kyoto, New York City, and the Bay Area) are linked and presented in counterpoint to the music

Austrian artist Kurt Hentschläger was in residence developing his audiovisual work CLUSTER, an evolutionary step in his artistic practice. A work in progress that began in 2004 combining seven complete, independent works, a full-length stereoscopic version of CLUSTER premiered in 2012. Focused on group behavior and the various stages of swarm motion, the 3D characters engage in a weightless slow-motion choreography, with human figures appearing as clouds of blurred matter intermingling with light.

Chicago-based Austrian artist Kurt Hentschläger creates audiovisual performances and installations. Between 1992 and 2003 he worked collaboratively as one half of Granular Synthesis, whose performances and installations confronted viewers on both a physical and emotional level, overwhelming them with sensory stimulation.

Canadian musician and sound artist Tim Hecker was in residence developing a site-specific performance in the Concert Hall at EMPAC and recording new material for an upcoming album. Hecker used a multi-channel surround-sound setup, including speakers located above the Concert Hall’s suspended fabric ceiling, to create an immersive sound experience in near darkness.

Hecker is a Canadian-based musician and sound artist; since 1996, he has produced a range of audio works for Kranky, Alien8, Mille Plateaux, Room40, Force Inc, Staalplaat, and Fat Cat. His works have been described as “structured ambient,” “tectonic color plates,” and “cathedral electronic music.” He has focused on exploring the intersection of noise, dissonance, and melody, fostering an approach to songcraft that is both physical and emotive. His work has also included commissions for contemporary dance, sound-art installations, and various writings.

A concert featuring compositions and performances by Rensselaer Arts Department faculty and alumni—

Program

Ensemble Congeros Directed by Eddie Ade Knowles INTERMISSION Neil Rolnick Digits, for piano, soundtrack, and video Vicky Chow, piano Video by R. Luke DuBois Pauline Oliveros Tree/Peace Michael Century, piano Jonathan Chen, violin Sam Clapp, cello Michael Century Within and Without Michael Century, accordion with electronics Mary Simoni Eulogy Jeanine Tesori The Girl From 14G Kimberley Dolanski, soprano Mary Simoni, piano Curtis Bahn Improvisation Curtis Bahn, rikEsitar, E-sraj and laptop Seth Cluett, shruti box, laptop, and electronics Michael Bullock, analog & digital video instruments

About the Music

ENSEMBLE CONGEROS Founded in 2004, by Professor Eddie Ade Knowles, Ensemble Congeros is a group of Rensselaer alumni/ae and current students dedicated to the study and performance of Afro-Cuban, African, and New World Percussion. They will perform new work with special guest artists and music from their 2012 DVD, Ensemble Congeros: Chasing the Rhythms. NEIL ROLNICK Digits (2005) for piano, soundtrack, and video. Obviously, digits are what we use both to play the piano and to operate computers. This piece makes some fairly extreme demands on both types of digits. The piano part, written for Kathleen Supové, exploits her incredible technique to play a bit more than is humanly possible. The computer, which plays only sounds that originate from the piano, integrates with the live playing in a way which is seamless and, hopefully, a bit magical. Digits is a composition for solo piano and digital processing. The pianist must bring virtuoso technique to the performance, and the processing is designed to amplify the piano’s sound in ways that are both subtle and arresting. All the processed sound comes from the piano. There can also be a video component of the piece. Designed by R. Luke DuBois, using Jitter, the video track processes live images of the pianist’s fingers (her digits) as she performs the piece, and projects them on a screen inside or above the piano lid. The overall effect of the piece is of a classical, virtuoso piano sonata, in which the piano itself has been bent slightly out of shape, amplified, and multiplied, and the images of the player’s fingers are brought directly to the audience and manipulated to complement the music. PAULINE OLIVEROS Tree/Peace consists of seven sections: The Mystery of Propagation, The Growth of the Seedling, The Full Formation and Maturity of the Tree, The Action of the Seasons, The Magical Nature of the Tree, and The Death of the Tree, Contemplation. The composer notes: The tree metaphor is intended to influence the characteristic dynamics, articulations, and style of the smallest units of Tree/Peace as well as the phrases and sections…[It] is based on attentional strategies which involve listening and reacting acutely in specific ways while shaping the resulting musical performance in relation to the metaphor of an imaginary tree”. MICHAEL CENTURY Within and Without (2012) I began playing the accordion at the invitation of MFA alumna Ryder Cooley (2008) and then became a serious student of the instrument with the encouragement of Pauline Oliveros. Her pioneering work with electronic-processed accordion is part of the backdrop for this new piece of my own, and I dedicate its first performance tonight to her. Initially I only knew I wanted to use the rich timbral palette of the accordion to “drive” a music of rhythmic pulsation. So I used a common software environment for electronic dance music to begin my explorations, found the modules that fit my purposes and engaged MFA alumnus Holland Hopson (1998) to design a patch in Max/MSP that would boil down my musical ideas to a custom instrument I could program myself. The music is in a popular idiom, and its title refers to the Beatles’ song Within You and Without You, which provides some of the melodic motifs. The electronic modules are the classic filters and samplers that have been around since analogue days, and the central instrumental technique used in the piece is the tremolando effect – shaking the accordion in fast rhythmic repetition – usually synced tightly with the electronic pulsation. MARY SIMONI’s Eulogy is a musical interpretation of the eulogy that the children of Lewis E. Simoni, the composer's father, delivered at his funeral. JEANINE TESORI’s The Girl in 14G is a charming stand-alone piece which details the story of a girl moving into New York City and her experiences in her new apartment. The work contains three distinct musical styles; musical theater, opera (with quotes from Mozart’s The Queen of the Night and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.) and jazz. Jeanine Tesori is best known for the musicals Thoroughly Modern Millie, Caroline, Or Change and Shrek the Musical. CURTIS BAHN Improvisation—In the spirit of iEAR, Seth, Michael and Curtis will freely improvise using combinations of analog and digital tools for live video and sound. Having a history of performance together spanning over 20 years since the early 90's at Princeton where Curtis was a graduate student and Michael was an undergraduate student. The three improvised together using very different instruments and techniques for many years in Boston prior to Michael or Seth attending iEAR. After attending Rensselaer, Seth attended Princeton for his PhD where he again worked with Curtis through the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), the two also performed in New York at ISSUE Project Room. Michael was Curtis' advisee as the first PhD awarded by the Arts Department. The three have not performed together before using the particular instruments heard tonight which reflect their current interests and research.

Composer Michael Gordon rehearsed, recorded, and premiered his new work Rushes for seven bassoons. Composed with cascading waves of sound, Gordon’s composition transformed the woodwinds into something improbably electronic. A companion piece to his earlier composition Timber (which applied a similar sound layering technique to the Simantra percussion instrument), Rushes is a haunting convergence of digital and analog ambiance.

Gordon is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York City’s music collective Bang on a Can, and has produced a diverse body of work, ranging from large-scale pieces for ensembles to major orchestral commissions to works conceived specifically for the recording studio. He has been commissioned by Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the BBC Proms, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, among others.