----/ The Squid List /-------------------------------------------------- Cheryl Leonard and Aaron Ximm
Friday, June 23rd 8pm-11pm Free ----/ Event Description /----------------------------------------------- Echo de Pensees Sound Series & The Museum Of Viral Memory present Cheryl Leonard's "Music For Rocks" Aaron Ximm's "Guantanamo Express" at PLAySPACE Gallery Cheryl E. Leonard's Music for Rocks is a series of compositions and improvisations that use amplified rocks as instruments in pieces influenced by gestures, shapes and motions from the natural world. Three performers play a spectrum of types and sizes of rocks: from sandstone to granite, 10-pounders to sand. Playing techniques include rolling, rocking, brushing, rubbing, stacking and even tickling. Inspiration for individual works comes from sources such as: ocean waves and eddies, the mysterious racing rocks of Death Valley, pendulums and wobbling boulders, the patterns of wind on grass, water flow through falls and rapids, and the shifting of tectonic plates. Guantánamo Express (for Jesús Ávila Gainza y su hermano Julio) is a forty minute piece commissioned by Matt Smith for his Radio Roadmovie project on Kunstradio in Austria, and was first broadcast on May 14, 2006. This performance will be its American premier. Of the composition Mr. Ximm writes: "Guantánamo Express is a portrait first and foremost of the Cuban musician Jesús Ávila Gainza and his brother Julio. It was fabricated from the sounds I recorded around them: with the sounds of their lives, their families, their homes, of time we spent together - and most of all, with the sounds of their music. It is not only about them; I made it for them. "My wife and I met the Ávilas, both exceptional musicians, while visiting Havana in early 2004. We met them as we would come to know them best: through their music and infectious good spirits. After we got to know one another, Jesús and Julio invited us to travel with them by overnight train to meet their families and see their home town of Guantánamo. The Ávilas' gracious company in general, and that trip in specific, were the highlights of our too-brief six weeks in Cuba. "Like most portraits this one strives to capture more than will readilly fit in its frame. In addition to rendering the talents, relations, and humor of the Ávilas, I wanted Guantánamo Express to evoke the peculiar experience of traveling by train through an unknown country at night. To be half asleep but never fully, to find the rhythm of the rails never far from the ear's attention, to have half-understood half-lit visions pass before a temporarily uncritical mind... this for me is the peculiar but addictive promise of the road. "There is nothing in that promise that is comfortable, quite, or safe, quite; but there is at least that elusive premonition that life will be for a while fully in you. That question-mark horizon underpins the American myth (and imperative) of living most completely on the move. "As an American, lastly, I wanted to give back to Guantánamo a small reflection of what it is (or at least, of what I found it to be) - a town with specific charms and specific problems, filled with specific sounds. This is not much but I offer it in intentional confrontation to what my country has otherwise made of it - a mostly-forgotten footnote to a now-infamous naval base. "I consider Guantánamo Express to be a contrapuntal duet. It is a collaboration beween my own recordings and composition, and the music of the Ávilas who are its primary subject. Just as the Ávilas' repetoire as working musicians includes traditional and contemporary songs from many sources, my own extends to embrace their work in turn. I have endeavored to leave that embrace open: several times I step aside to let the Ávilas speak for themselves. "I brought this piece to Echo de Pensees because while the great majority of my work takes place in the studio, the results are rarely heard in public. I would like to share this work in particular because in addition to being the focus of my recent concentration, it's my longest composition to date and as such it represents both a risk and a milestone for me." CHERYL E. LEONARD - Pinecones and rocks, glass shards, glaciers, a flock of accordions, circular saw blades, viola, foghorns and whales and elk- Cheryl E. Leonard's music finds its raw materials just about anywhere. From these diverse sources come works that embrace the spectrum of musical possibilities: improvised to composed, acoustic to electronic, diaphanous to bombastic, notes to noise. Many of Leonard's works explore subtle textures and intricacies in sounds not generally considered musical. Over the past several years she has focused on creating works for instruments she has found or constructed, primarily using natural materials. Her other major interests include collaborating across artistic disciplines and creating site-specific work. Leonard holds a B.A. from Hampshire College and an M.A. from Mills College, both in music composition. Her work with natural instruments has been featured on KQED TV's local arts show Spark, the Hallmark Channel's New Morning show, and CBS's Evening Magazine, as well as in Tim Perkis's forthcoming documentary about the Bay Area creative music scene, Noisy People. Leonard is the recipient of an ASCAP Foundation Grant to Young Composers, the Elizabeth Mills Crothers Composition Prize, New Langton Art's Bay Area Award, a Meet the Composer Grant, and residencies at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Engine 27, and Villa Montalvo. Recordings of her music are available from Great Hoary Marmot Records, Pax Recordings, 23five Incorporated, Apraxia Records, Old Gold Records and The Lab. When not playing with sound, she might be found climbing in the mountains, studying aikido and Chinese landscape painting, or collecting pinecones with handles. http://www.allwaysnorth.com A.L. DENTEL is a composer, performer and improviser. Her compositional bents include traditionally scored choral works, structured improvisation, performance art, guerilla theatre and conceptual music. Her most obsessive project to date is "365", a collection of pieces written one a day for a year. A.L. is a member of 1000 pieces music collective and holds an MFA from Mills College. She is currently working on a series of "tape" pieces made from field recordings made in the NYC subway system. PATTY LIU is a performer, improviser, and composer of electronic and acoustic music. She works with several ensembles, including the Armageddon String Ensemble (violin), Neung Phak (violin), and RAJAR (radio and electronics). Aaron Ximm (b. 1970) is a San Francisco-based field recordist and sound artist. He is best known for his composition, installation, and performance work as Quiet American, much of which can be found at quietamerican.org. From 2001 to 2005 he curated and hosted the Field Effects concert series, which like his own work sought to showcase quiet, fragile, and lovely soundscapes. Along with his wife Bronwyn, Aaron also produces the popular One Minute Vacation podcast every week at oneminutevacation.org. Echo de Pensees Sound Series is an ongoing series of sound performances and installations at California College of the Arts. The series strives to offer a venue for experimental and contemporary musicians and sound artists. Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] for more information. Visit our page on www.vime.org The Museum of Viral Memory is the showplace for the North American wing of the International Armchair Scientists Collaborative. www.vime.org ----/ Venue Info /------------------------------------------------------ PLAySPACE Gallery 1111 8th St San Francisco 2nd floor of California College of the Arts ----/ Additional Info /------------------------------------------------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----/ The Squid List Admin /--------------------------------------------- The Squid List, a tentacle of Laughing Squid http://laughingsquid.org/squidlist/ subscribe, unsubscribe, change your email address or change your subscription options: http://lists.laughingsquid.org/mailman/listinfo/squidlist/ Frequently Asked Questions & Submission Guidelines Squid List FAQ: http://laughingsquid.org/squidlist/faq.html The Squid List Online Calendar: http://laughingsquid.org/squidlist/calendar/ The Squid List RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/squidlist ----/ Laughing Squid /-------------------------------------------------- Laughing Squid http://laughingsquid.com art, culture and technology from San Francisco and beyond Laughing Squid Web Hosting http://laughingsquid.net friendly, dependable and secure web hosting services for artists, individuals, bloggers, non-profits and small organizations The Squid List is licensed under a Creative Commons License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/
