A concert of classical and contemporary music directed by Michael Century, with Holland Hopson, and featuring Rensselaer student and faculty performers

Program to include compositions ranging across the career of John Cage and a partial re-enactment of Glenn Gould's final piano recital in 1964, combined with a sound collage by Century and Hopson. Works by Cage include Inlets/Improvisation 2, Litany for the Whale, Two(four) for cello and piano, Bacchanale for Prepared Piano.

Presented by the Arts Department and sponsored by the Classical Concert Committee of the Rensselaer Union with support from the Jaffe Fund for Experimental Media and Performing Arts.

An exploration of the music of the African Diaspora, performed by Ensemble Congeros - Prof. Eddie Ade Knowles and students and alumni/ae of Knowles' introductory Afro-Cuban Percussion course.

As part of an artist-in-residence recording project, pianist Yegor Shevtsov presented a work-in-progress performance of solo pieces by two giants of 20th century music. Separated by almost a century, Debussy’s Etudes (1915) and Boulez’s Incises (1994/2001) intersect in both their French heritage and their substantial demands on a pianist’s control and technique. Rounding out the recital was Boulez’s more recent work for solo piano, une page d’éphéméride (2005). During the residency, Shevtsov first made high-quality test recordings, evaluated the recording and performance over several months, and then returned to make a final version. The music was mixed and mastered at EMPAC.

Shevtsov is a Ukrainian-born pianist based in New York City. As a soloist and a collaborative pianist, he has performed widely, including at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Whitney Museum, and Tanglewood.

A sound installation by German artist Thom Kubli, Black Hole Horizon was designed and constructed at Rensselaer in collaboration with the School of Architecture and consultants Zackery Belanger (acoustic design) and David Jaschik (mechatronics). Using the university’s laser-cutting and 3D-milling equipment for the material creation, the production team designed a complex system of air compressors, fluid pumps, and Arduino-controlled mechanisms to create horns that produce tone-generated bubbles. Each bubble is deformed by the energy of the sound produced through the horn, and then bursts onto the room’s white floor. The shapes of the horns, some stretching eight feet long, were based on a model of a black hole geometrodynamic physics. In the installation, spectators could explore the space by walking through the room and witnessing the transformation of sound into ephemeral sculptures.

Jem Cohen’s newest film project is a documentary-based, interdisciplinary hybrid built from footage he gathered in Nova Scotia over the past decade, coupled with live music and texts ranging from poems and folklore to mundane local newspaper fragments to scientific research.

As an artist who has explored and deplored the disappearance of regional character brought on by corporate-driven homogeneity, the discovery of Cape Breton was a revelation for Jem, who describes it as a place as beautiful as any he has ever seen throughout his travels, but one that remains elusive and deeply “itself.”

This commissioned project, premiering here at EMPAC and featuring such stellar musicians as Guy Picciotto (Fugazi), Efrim Menuck (Founder, Godspeed You! Black Emperor), T. Griffin, Jim White (Dirty Three), Jessica Moss (Silver Mt. Zion), and Sophie Trudeau (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, SMZ), will be a visual and sonic exploration that primarily exists as a visceral evocation of place, and for someone known primarily as an urban filmmaker, a rare foray into intensive engagement with the natural landscape.

April 23 — Screening of Gravity Hill Newsreels: Occupy Wall Street (Series One and Two)

Please join resident, Jem Cohen, for a screening and discussion about his recent documentary work around Occupy Wall Street @ 2pm in the Theater. FREE.

Infinite Jest was both an installation and a live handmade film inspired by the complex and remarkable novel of the same name by the late author David Foster Wallace. The evening began with the audience experiencing the performance space as an installation composed of a text-based soundtrack and various miniature sets intended for the audience to walk through and examine. The film was then brought to life through the lens of live cameras that follow the manipulation of photographs, drawings, scale models, and various three dimensional objects by visual artist and performer SUE-C, along with the live lush electronic soundtrack and vocals by AGF and narration from Francis Deehan. Set in a slightly futuristic world, the film is an attempt to create and re-create what character James Orin Incandenza, optics expert and filmmaker, considered his life’s major work. After many unseen failures, his “film” Entertainment is eventually released, which proves to be fatally seductive. With this as a jumping off point, long time audiovisual collaborators SUE-C and AGF explore the expression of seduction in sound and image.

The day prior to the performance, SUE-C also gave a reading of excerpts from Infinite Jest and a discussion of her work. SUE-C has created handmade videos for both the stage and screen, challenging the norms of photography, video, and technology by blending them into an organic and improvisational live performance. AGF (Antye Greie) is a singer and digital songwriter, producer, performer, e-poet, calligrapher, and digital media artist known for her artistic exploration of digital technology through the deconstruction of language and communication. 

Quote Unquote was an interdisciplinary series presenting work by artists that use an existing text as a departure point for time-based works including installation, film, and performance.

“What could a musikFabrik (music factory) be?” When asked this question, a young child answered, “That’s where they create music that hasn’t been made yet.” Ensemble musikFabrik has been commissioning new works and performing unknown music since 1991. The Cologne-based soloist ensemble plays more than 100 international concerts each year, and has built a close association with prominent conductors and composers. musikFabrik visits us after a Fromm Foundation residency at Harvard University, where they will collaborate with Harvard’s PhD composition students in performing their latest works. The ensemble will select two pieces from the Harvard premiere to perform, providing a unique opportunity to listen in on what these young composers currently are up to. Setting the context for these new pieces are John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra; Interference by British composer Richard Barrett, a piece for contrabass clarinet and kick-drum; and the colorful chamber music piece Paramirabo by Canadian composer Claude Vivier.

Join us for a celebration of Pauline Oliveros’ 80th birthday, complete with Tibetan dungchen, didgerdoo, accordion, meditative percussion, and the Fort Worden Cistern—a two-million-gallon underground water tank made famous by Oliveros’ 1988 Deep Listening album and recreated by Jonas Braasch from Rensselaer’s Architectural Acoustics program. Presented in collaboration with the Rensselaer Arts Department, this event will benefit the Deep Listening Institute.

May 10 — Open Studio

During Local Lunch in the café, peek into the process of Pauline Oliveros and Jonas Braasch, who will be working on their Fort Worden Cistern simulation for an evening performance in the Concert Hall. 

Program Info:

Land of Snows — by Brian Pertl Musicians: Brian Pertl (Dung Chen Tibetan Horn), Stuart Dempster, Pauline Oliveros (Conches); Monique Buzzarté, Peter Zummo, Jen Baker (Digjeridus); Cistern simulation technology by Jonas Braasch, Anne Guthrie, Sam Clapp.

From Now On — by Deep Listening Band (Oliveros/Dempster/Gamper) Musicians: Deep Listening Band (Oliveros, Dempster) and guest artist Brian Pertl.

Returning — by Oliveros/Dempster Musicians: Pauline Oliveros (Voice, Accordion) and Stuart Dempster (Trombone/Didjeridu).

The Single Stroke Roll Meditation — by Pauline Oliveros Musicians: Ade Knowles and the Congeras and Richard Albagli with the Rensselaer Percussion Ensemble.

Exit Sliding — by Stuart Dempster Musicians: Jennifer Baker, Monique Buzzarté, Stuart Dempster, and Peter Zummo (four trombones).

Saxophonist Colin Stetson and percussionist Tyshawn Sorey, each performing a set of their own works, used extraordinary techniques to take their instruments into uncharted territory, creating music that exists in a cross-genre realm, drawing from jazz, classical, and pop with equal measure. Special guest Sarah Neufeld opened with a solo violin set. Colin Stetson has worked with dozens of artists including Tom Waits, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, Feist, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, David Byrne, LCD Soundsystem, The National, Angelique Kidjo, and Anthony Braxton, and is member of the band Bon Iver. 

Tyshawn Sorey is a composer, performer, educator, and scholar who works across an extensive range of musical idioms. As a percussionist, trombonist, and pianist, Sorey has performed with his own ensembles and with those led by Muhal Richard Abrams, Steve Coleman, Butch Morris, Michele Rosewoman, Steve Lehman, Vijay Iyer, Peter Evans, and Ellery Eskelin, among many others. Sarah Neufeld began playing the violin at the age of three; she is best known as a member of the indie rock phenomenon Arcade Fire, as well as the instrumental post-rock ensemble Bell Orchestre. 

A work in progress performance as part of a residency in which Pete Edwards (Casper Electronics, Troy, NY) and Sabisha Friedberg develop a composition influenced by the audience’s movement through space. Using array of loudspeakers distributed in three-dimensional space throughout Studio 1, they explore how frequency waves interact with one another and physical bodies, canceling each other out or making sounds audible.

Edwards and Friedberg will be controlling the piece from stations in the center of the room, reacting to the sonic environment created around them. The score is inspired by various scientific and metaphysical sources, including the writings of Vic Tandy, which suggest that certain sonic equations yield supernatural experiences. This exploration of the aural and the physical—informed scientifically, logistically and intuitively—will be the basis of this experiential performance.