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San Francisco
International Orange: Art for the Golden Gate Bridge at 75
Today we look at the ongoing International Orange exhibition here in San Francisco. As part of the celebrations for the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, sixteen artists were invited to create new works in response to the bridge. The results ranged from very concrete interpretations to more conceptual, and focused a variety of aspects from the iconic color to the architecture to the surrounding environment. All of the works were brought together at Fort Point in the shadow of the bridge for the show.
The bridge itself is a work of art on display at Fort Point, with unique views of the architectural detail that one does not see in the standard postcard shots.
The first formal piece to catch my attention was the sound-and-video installation by renowned multimedia artist Bill Fontana. It was in a dark alcove off the main courtyard of the fort, and focused primarily on sound derived from sensors and microphones that Fontana placed at various points on the bridge and Fort Point along with a live video of the underside of an expansion joint of the bridge. The result was an immersive aural experience anchored by the percussive rhythm of traffic over the expansion joins, the bridge’s cables and the waves at the shore. These elements worked together into a polyrhythmic “composition”, while the video helped orient the listener to the context of the bridge. I found Fontana’s piece to be both technically impressive (e.g., microphones on the bridge) and a captivating listening experience.
Several of the artists made literal use of the international orange color. Artist Stephanie Syjuco‘s installation simulates the typical souvenir store with mass-produced objects in that color, arranged in displays on tables and shelves.
The objects appear as those one might expect in the souvenir shop of an art museum (or next to the Golden Gate Bridge, for that matter), but the uniform color and lack of labeling gives it a strange quality, reminding the viewer that this is not an ordinary shop. It leaves space for the viewer to question the role of shops and commoditization in art without participating in it. Nothing was for sale – though visitors were encouraged to take a free postcard, which showed a solid international orange color field.
Anandamayi Arnold created seven paper dresses in the style of the Fiesta Queens from the original 1937 opening of the bridge – while most of them had the traditional colors and patterns associated with the style, the most striking one was entirely colored in international orange.
I am pretty sure the life-size dresses were in fact wearable, as I saw Arnold wearing either the piece shown above or one like it at ArtMRKT a few weeks before the opening of the exhibition.
Another project that directly featured the international orange color covered the railings overlooking the inner courtyard with swags of orange bunting that were created by female veterans in collaboration with artist Allison Smith. Orange textiles were also a part of Pae White’s “digitally woven tapestries” based on photographs of the fog that is more often than not part of the environment in and around the bridge.
The environment was a major theme of several other projects as well, as artists turned their attention away from the bridge itself to the surrounding water, air and land. Photographer David Liittschwager created an installation that examined the life within one cubic foot sections of water below the bridge. The result is a series of detailed images of life large and small mounted on cubes.
The images themselves could have easily been at home in a science museum rather than an art exhibit, but it is the way the dark pedestals are arranged and their contrast with the brick hallway that makes it art.
Camille Utterback presented an ambitious piece that used digital displays and custom software to create dynamic visual models of the patterns of water flow in the San Francisco Bay. Like Fontana’s work, it was presented in a dark alcove where the displays shown brightly with undulating patterns, but small portals in the wall allowed the viewer to contrast the actual flow of water under the bridge with the historical model. Abelardo Morell explored light and shadow with his camera-obscura installation. A pinhole is used to expand light from outside the fort in a large but grainy image characteristic of this old form of photography.
Other projects were more conceptual, drawing inspiration and organization from history and social context surrounding the bridge and the surrounding area. Cornelia Parker’s sculpture Reveille featured two bugles, one flattened and no longer playable. The piece is a a comment on Fort Point’s history – it was never called into action. Rather than hearing the sound of the bugles, we hear the acoustics of the vault with the wind and echoes of other visitors. The light also plays off the shapes creating more flattened copies of the instruments.
“Artist, historian, and urban strategist” Jeannene Przyblyski produced a virtual radio station K-BRIDGE that presents numerous stories, ideas and sound experiences suggested by the bridge, some of which are factual and some of which are not. The station is broadcast acoustically from a live installation as well as over WiFi to mobile devices and streaming on the internet. You can read and listen to samples here.
The installation is an interesting blend of old an new, with vintage “On Air” sign and wooden details as well as modern electronics for digital storage and wireless networking.
There are more pieces in the show that are not covered by this article. Overall, I am glad I was able to experience this artistic part of the 75th anniversary celebration, and in particular getting to see the pieces within the immediate environment of the bridge itself. The exhibition continues through October, so there is still plenty of time to see it.
The Fashion World of John Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, De Young Museum
Today we review The Fashion World of John Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk currently on display at the de Young Museum. This is currently one of the more celebrated exhibitions happening in San Francisco, and one that seems to suit the city well and capture its attention. As such, there has already been a lot written about it. In this article, I aim to provide a more personal view through my focus on geometry, architecture and the urban environment while still presenting the major themes of fashion, gender and playfulness from the show.
The exhibition is not a typical fashion retrospective, but rather a unified multimedia art installation and a creative work in its own right. As such, it is even “signed” by Gaultier.
The signature sets the tone for the playfulness and whimsy that permeates Gaultier’s designs and the overall exhibition. There is also a quality of otherworldliness to the pieces and the installation, nowhere more apparent than in the opening room, where beneath blue light the dressed mannequins are animated with eerily realistic video faces that talk and sing.
Simplicity does not seem to be part of Gaultier’s vocabulary. His creations are, to say the least, complex and intricate, even a bit overwhelming at first. But there are still things for those of us who focus on patterns and geometric forms in art, such as the simple flowing lines in the dresses in the image above, or his repeated use of the blue-and-white-striped sailor shirt in different guises.
[Photo by Maw Shein Win.]
The use of the traditionally masculine sailor theme in the above dress-and-hood combination is just one of the many examples throughout the exhibition where Gaultier plays with gender expectations. There are examples of traditionally feminine dress forms that have been recast for male bodies and somehow take on a masculine quality. Conversely, the stereotypical appearance of Hassidic men has been recast into a garment for women. In other cases, gender was more ambiguous. Even the piece that opens the show has an androgynous quality, at once graceful but also very slim and strong.
As in the above example, there was a very architectural quality to many of the pieces, with the interior girder structure visible. This was most apparent in a risqué garment composed of straps that included a long train as well as a geometric headdress. Technological and architectural inspiration was also apparent in some of his film-costume designs.
[Photo by Maw Shein Win.]
The city and the urban environment were major themes of the exhibition with one room titled “Urban Jungle” and arrayed with variety of haute couture in different styles and materials, set against a night-time skyline of San Francisco. My favorite, not surprisingly, was this cat-themed piece:
On closer inspection, one can see that the “cat print” is actually composed of countless beads, making it an incredible work of craftsmanship as well as a fun design.
The urban environment was also explored in a section that contrasted sleek and modern styles one might see in a high-end city boutique with fashion inspired by street art and the London punk scene.
The two fashions depicted above might seem far apart socially, but to me they work together. I could see the punk-inpired gold dress in a high-end store wonder, and would love to see the red-and-block outfit posed in front of graffiti.
One item that stood quite apart from the rest of the show, but was quite endearing and memorable, was the inclusion of Gaultier’s childhood teddy bear, perhaps his first model.
Overall it was a fun and well-executed exhibition, and quite creatively inspiring. Fashion has long been on the periphery of my artistic vision, but seeing it like this is in invitation to bring it more front and center.
[Photo by Maw Shein Win.]
The show will be on display at the de Young in San Francisco through August 19. I recommend checking it out if you can.
Outsound Music Summit: Fire and Energy
The final concert of the 2012 Outsound Music Summit was Fire and Energy, a night of “improvised-jazz-inspired-music.” Labeling a new-music concert as jazz can often be treacherous, with some people all-too-quick to join arguments about what does and does not qualify as “jazz.” But in the case if this evening’s artists, who all had long established histories in the world of improvised free-jazz, there should be no argument.
The concert opened with a solo set by Jack Wright, a long-time veteran and leader of the Bay Area improvised music scene. His performance began on soprano saxophone with discrete notes and short phrases filled with overtone, microtones, percussive sounds. The were some moments that were quite subtle, with long notes that had deliberate microtonal variations or timbral variations on a single pitch- I found this to be quite expressive. There were other more melodic sections that made reminded me of old popular jazz recordings from the 1930s. Wright communicated a lot of emotion in his improvisations, with some parts sounding quite plaintive, almost a lamentation, while others were bright and happy. The first have of his set ended with some exceptionally high notes.
[Jack Wright. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
Wright then switched to alto saxophone. There was something about this piece that just seemed “jazzier” – it’s difficult to pinpoint any one thing, but perhaps it is just the nature and expectations of the alto sax. This piece was also a bit louder and aggressive, with numerous scoops, bends, growls and noises. He employed extended effects with the bell to change the dynamics and timbre of the instrument (including at one point playing with the instrument pointed into his knee), and used key clicks, buzzing and voiced tones.
The next set featured Dave Bryant, first performing solo on acoustic piano and then in a trio with drummer Dax Compise and bassist Bryan Clark. Bryant is best known for his work as a member of Ornette Coleman’s Prime TIme group, and as an expert and teacher of Harmolodic Theory. His solo piano work was an impressive virtuosic display, with a barrage of fast moving chords up and down the keyboard that nonetheless were quite expressive. It felt like the music was constantly moving towards something, a bit frantically. Then all at once the energy was released as if in a sigh. He spent a fair amount of time in the often under-appreciated lower registers of the instrument, and kept the velocity of the performance going. The big loud low chords were followed by softer high chords in a moment that was reminiscent of late Romantic piano music. As he continued, he was joined on stage by Comprise and Clark, and in an instant the solo turned into an acoustic jazz trio.
[Dave Bryant Trio. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
After a short section, Bryant switch to electric keyboard and the character of music changed considerably. It became softer and dreamier, with the bass setting the tone and pace. But there was still forward motion to the performance, and more of Bryant’s virtuosic high-speed chord work that at times seemed superhuman. The pace slowed down again, with a distinctly blues-like line and then pentatonic glissandi. After another reset, a new harmony and rhythm emerged with Bryant leading the group into heavy, almost final-sounding cadences. In between, there were bass and drum solos and more frenetic work, but the cadences remained as the framework. It all came to a sudden by definite stop.
The following set featured Vinny Golia with his sextet, including Gavin Templeton on alto sax, Daniel Rosenboom on trumpet, Alex Noice on guitar, Jon Armstrong on electric bass, and Andrew Lessman on drums. Of all the performances on this evening, this one most embodied the concert title “Fire and Energy.” There was an intensity to the full ensemble in both fast runs, hits, and the driving rhythm that underpinned the set-spanning piece. It began rather quietly, with Golia on pray bowls. Soon, the other members of the group entered with long drone sounds, along with soft symbols, trumpet noise and a chime harmony. Golia always has a collection of saxophones and other wind instruments at his disposal, and he switched to a smaller instrument that looked like a soprano sax but with a bent neck, which he played together with Rosenboom on trumpet. The music gradually became more animated and evolved in a unison rhythm and eventually into a rather funky groove. I can easily get absorbed into music like this.
[Vinny Golia Sextet. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
The rhythm continued for a while, with various interruptions, including some solos – Rosenboom in particular tore it up during his trumpet solo. Then there was a sudden change in rhythm and texture, led by Templeton on alto sax. Rather then the unified driving rhythm, the ensemble played a complex intricate orchestration that still retained a rhythmic structure. There were more extended effects and sounds, such as squeaking and percussive effects, and Noice used a Kaoss Pad with his guitar. Golia switched to bass clarinet for a slower section of music that included a short four-part “chorale”. The ensemble quieted down and the prayer bowls returned, before everyone joined in for a final segment to close the set.
The final set of the evening and of the Summit as a whole was also the largest in terms of personnel. Tony Passarel’s Thin Air Orchestra is a project that brings together a large number of improvising musicians, and on this night the group swelled in number to include several musicians from the previous sets, including Vinny Golia and Dax Comprise, as well as regulars from Outsound. Festival director Rent Romus was able to temporarily remove his directors hat and play saxophones in the ensemble. Other players that evening included Ross Hammond, Randy McKean, Keith Kelly, John Vaughn, Cory Wright, Ken Kawamura, Tom Djll, CJ Borosque, Murray Campbell, Keith Cary, Mike Turgeon, Bill Noertker and Gerry Pineda.
[Tony Passarel’s Thin Air Orchestra. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
The first piece began with unison trumpets, soon joined by viola. The texture was very sparse, but they were soon joined by Hammond on guitar and the other instruments followed in a crescendo made of small bits of sound. There was a brief sax-and-flute duo, and playing inside the piano strings by Passarell. The next piece began with the rhythm section (piano, electric bass and drums) in a fast sparse motion, followed by a huge cloud of sound from the entire ensemble. The music became more rhythmic for a bit and then everyone hit one big chord.
For the next couple of pieces, vocalist Loren Benedict joined the group. After an intro with ponderous piano and then a funky rhythm, Benedict launched into an impressive stream of fast highly rhythmic scat singing. The other musicians joined in the rhythm with him. Rent Romus also had a particularly crazy double-sax solo in this piece.
One of the last pieces was softer and did not have as intense a rhythm. The guitar and viola were rather bluesy and were joined by Tom Djll with extended-technique trumpet noises. Hammond’s hard-driving guitar and minor chords combined with the others made this the ensemble’s “Miles Davis Moment” (with apologies to Raskin and Haryman from the Sonic Poetry Night). Benedict came back and joined the group for a big finale.
This was once again a long concert, but it went by rather fast given the energy and vitality of the music. It was a very strong final concert in what was a particular strong Outsound Music Summit this year.
Wordless Wednesday: 8775 (San Francisco Light Study)
Outsound Music Summit: Thwack! Bome! Chime!
Today we continue our reviews of the Outsound Music Summit with Thwack! Bome! Chime!, an evening of modern percussion performances. There was quite a bit of Thwack! and more than a couple of Chimes. But I am not quite sure about the Bome! part.
The concert opened with a solo set by David Douglas performing with acoustic percussion, MIDI controllers and a laptop running Max/MSP. His approach, visually, physically and musically, is to integrate the traditional drums, cymbals and acoustic noisemakers with the electronics in a single unit.
[David Douglas. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
I had last seen Douglas perform at the Luggage Store Gallery before Reconnaissance Fly. I recalled that performance being richly textured, but his setup and musical performance on this night was more varied and sophisticated. He began with short taps on a drum with granular and pitch effects cascading out of the percussion sounds. These gradually evolved into more complex rhythms and drum rolls augmented with tonal pitches. The acoustic sources expanded from the drum to percussive hits with sticks and other implements, with more pitched elements and eventually faster more rhythmic playing. As the set unfolded, there more complex polyrhythms as well as very subtle quiet sections, and sounds that were further afield from traditional percussion, with long electrical drones. There was an abrupt shift the cymbals with gliding pitch shifts and long tones. He also used lights and a mobile device to control electronic elements. At one point during the set, the music became more like techno/electronica, with repeated rhythmic patterns and in-time delays and hits. His performance continued as a single, continuously changing improvisation for the duration of the set.
The next set featured Falkortet, a local percussion ensemble that composes pieces for itself in a variety of styles. Members of the ensemble include Lydia Martin, Ed Garcia, Timothy Black and Josh Mellinger.
[Falkortet. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
The ensemble entered from the rear in the hall in a slow procession, with metal percussion and led by Martin on a conch shell. The scene and sound reminded me of a wedding or celebration band that one might find in South Asia or the Middle East. The performers took their seats at various points of the stage and the rhythm steadied into a syncopated pattern with a bit of a swing. It grew louder and more complex over time and then all at once soft.
The remainder of Falkortet’s set featured a series of short compositions in a variety of idioms and was quite a contrast to Douglas’ single abstract improvisation. There was a piece with three standard drum sets and a piano that included both loud drumming and a section that was jazz or tango-like. Another piece featured a marimba, a large hand drum and bells that reminded me of gamelan instruments, especially as the music unfolded first a single unison phrase that splinted into more complex polyrhythms and variations. After the piece, they explained that the bell instruments were in fact prototypes for an “American gamelan.”, and that many of their instruments were made from found objects or recycled materials.
[Falkortet. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
A couple of other pieces that particularly caught my attention was a marimba quartet with soft chords and subtle changes at different rates. It was quite meditative. The last couple of pieces with vibraphone, marimba and drums had a more jazzy feel, with familiar minor chords, blues scales and even a bit of a funky vibe at times. It was a fun way to close the set.
The final set featured the premier of Seems Like An Eternity, a new composition by Benjamin Ethan Tinker for percussion and electronics. Tinker, who performed in the piece on Arp 2600 and an Echoplex, was joined by Lydia Martin and Tim Black from the Falkortet, as well as Shani Aviram on kalimba, and April-Jeanie Tang and Daniel Steffey from Touch-the-Gear night.
[Benjamin Ethan Tinker and ensemble members. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
I was quite interested in hearing this piece after learning about it during the Composers’ Forum earlier in the week, and was glad to see that most of the audience stayed to support the performance as well even though it was already 11PM. It had a very elemental theme “evoking the desert night sky”. On a more technical level, it subverted the usual character of percussion by avoiding discrete sounds and instead using the instruments to generate drones. It unfolded with long tones with pitch variations, some of which reminded me of whale songs. A cymbal roll added both grown and higher-frequency content, while rubbing on timpani drums and rubber mallets on a wood surface added a thick middle-frequency drone. It was not purely drone, however, as bits of crackly sound came and went,. There were also empty spaces in the sound. I did find myself listening for the Arp within the soundscape, and identified some very noisy sounds and wobbly arpeggios from the instrument. At one point there was a very elemental loud metal shake evocative of a thunderstorm. Again, the overall drone was broken up by the sounds of small metal pitched percussion. The sound grew softer and lower in frequency, with the electronics moving into a subsonic realm where the waveform became a chain of discrete percussive sounds. After an electronic solo, the other instruments returned in, converging on a single tone. The sound became crunchier and more varied in timbre, with granular elements and then grew into a series of loud swells towards the end of the piece.
This was a long concert, and some ways a bit of endurance test. But it was rewarding to fully experience all three sets their entirety, as it is not that often one gets to hear an entire concert dedicated to percussion like this.
Wordless Wednesday: Dollhouse
Outsound Music Summit: The Composers’ Muse
The Outsound Music Summit continued with The Composers Muse, a night of new compositions by three noted Bay Area composers. They were participants in the Composers’ Forum that I moderated earlier in the week, where they gave tantalizing descriptions of their work. On this evening, we finally got to hear what they were talking about.
The concert opened with the Skadi Quartet performing compositions by Christina Stanley, who also is the first violist for the quartet. Her compositions were based on large abstract oil paintings that were placed center stage, with members of ensemble arrayed to either side.
[Christina Stanley and Skadi Quartet. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
As someone interested in visual art as well as music, I was quite intrigued by this piece, and how the composer wanted the performers to interpret the visual work. Stanley had very specific instructions for performers in each piece for how to perform the score. In the first piece, Put it On, performers were to move visually from the focal point just to the lower right of center and move outwards, with different shapes corresponding to very specific sounds and modes of playing. You can see a close-up of the score at Stanley’s website. Within this structure, the music began with short notes and then moved to longer bow strokes, jaggedly moving up and down in pitch. My visual and aural senses focused on the straight-line character of both the score and the music. At one point, the performers diverged into different textures, with staccato notes against longer lines and glissandi that then melted into a single harmony. There were also elements of noise and percussive scraping, harmonics, and quite a bit of empty space in the sound. The piece concluded with a large and more traditional flourish.
The second piece was a duo of Stanley and cellist Crystal Pascucci. The score for this piece was more sparse with curving lines, and these qualities were reflected in the music as well. It started with harmonics and other high, airy tones. Overall, it was more melodic, but with some pizzicato tones as well. Gradually, the cello became lower and filled out the harmony, which seemed almost folk-music-like at times. There other elements such as sliding harmonics, but overall it still fit with the visual imagery of the score.
The next set featured a solo piece written and performed by Matthew Goodheart for piano and metal percussion. Gongs and cymbals were placed at various spots around the hall, including in the balcony. A small transducer was attached to each of the instruments so that it could be excited by electronically generated sounds.
The sounds used to excite the metal percussion were created by analyzing the partials and spectra of such instruments, a process that was part of his research involving “recursive physical object electro-acoustics” at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). The acoustic and spectral properties of these sounds also informed Goodheart’s live piano performance during the piece.
[Matthew Goodheart. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
The music that resulted was unusual and exceptionally beautiful. It began with high ethereal harmonics coming from the cymbals and gong spreading across the hall, and then high notes from the piano to match. The piano and some of the harmonics featured in the metal percussion gave the music an air of anxiety even while it was calming. As the harmonics grew thicker, the timbre grew more metallic and at moments took on the quality of water pouring. The music became more active, deeper harmonics and a few tones that sounded like flutes and clarinets alongside the metallic resonances. Again, Goodheat’s piano matched the changes in timbre as he moved into lower registers. Some of the sounds from the cymbals became more disjointed, sounding like tops, and after a loud gong hit the texture of the music grew thicker and more inharmonic. Then all at once it stopped leaving a single resonance. It looked like Goodheart was playing inside the piano as well with various objects, though it was hard to tell from where I was sitting. There were various percussive sounds and something that reminded me of my cat scratching, and then piano became more harmonic and tonal again with rather plaintive chords. There were more high frequencies and electronic swells broadcast through the cymbals, and a finale with a single repeated note on the piano. Overall, the performance was one of the most memorable experiences of the summit.
The concert concluded with John Shiurba’s large-scale composition 9:9. The number 9 permeated the structure and concept of the piece. There were nine performers and nine movements; and the piece employed a nine-note scale and nine different styles of notation all derived in one way or another from newspapers – there was standard notation along with text and graphics, some of which were taken directly from newspaper clips. Shiurba described his use of newspaper elements as a “celebration and/or elegy for the old-fashioned print medium.”
[John Shiurba 9:9. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
The movements were bounded by vocal interpretations of cryptograms from the New York times. The encrypted text was sung by Polly Moller, who had to work through challenging clusters of consonants. The decrypted solutions, which often featured corny or trite phrases, were sung by Hadley McCarroll in a more melodic style. Within this structure, each movement began with a solo by one of the nine performers, with a couple of other instruments gradually joining in, and finally the entire ensemble. Each of the solo sections had a very different character, representing both the performer and his or her instrument. Ava Mendoza’s strong articulation on acoustic guitar stood out, and Polly Moller’s solo on bass flute sounded quite familiar from Reconnaissance Fly pieces. The piano solo by Hadley McCarroll was quite aggressive, as was the bass clarinet solo by Matt Ingalls. There were interesting moments in the ensemble playing as well, such as a big minor chord and a section that more jazz or cabaret-like. Other sections were extremely quiet. The final movement featured a percussion solo by Gino Robair on a variety of instruments and implements, which mirrored the introduction to the piece. Other members of the ensemble included Philip Greenlief on clarinet, Monica Scott on cello, Scott Walton on bass, and Sarah Wilner on violin.
This was a very successful concert for the Outsound Music Summit, and not only musically. We had a full house at the Community Music Center, and I am pretty sure we set a record for paid attendance. There was certainly a lot of Outsound, curator Polly Moller, the composers and performers to be proud of.
Outsound Music Summit: Sonic Poetry
The concert series of the Outsound Music Summit began this Wednesday with Sonic Poetry, a night combining poetry and live improvised music. This was a first for the summit, with three leading Bay Area poets collaborating with local improvising musicians. Each of the sets featured a different style of poetry, which was reflected in the music and performances.
The first set featured Ronald Sauer, a leading figure in the North Beach poetry scene. His poetry was infused with social satire and provocative imagery, and his reading style had that driving tumbling-forward energy reminiscent of earlier poets of that scene. In this performance he was joined by percussionists Jacob Felix Huele and Jordan Glenn.
[Ronald Sauer, Jacob Felix Huele and Jordan Glenn. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
The music began with deep ambient sounds and resonances as Heule rubbed a cymbal on a bass drum and Glenn struck metal bowls atop a set drum. Sauer then launched in a humorous poem whose lines poked fun at different poet stereotypes. The music moved into rich textures with mallets, stick hits, vocal sounds and buzzing – the latter occurred as the words alluded to mosquitoes. The next poem, a gentler piece about garnering, was accompanied by soft rattling sounds and resonant metallic rods. Tuned percussion and inharmonic timbres supported Sauer’s “romantic” poem that was featured rather intense sexual language and imagery – and which prompted the evening’s lead curator Robert Anbian to exclaim “Now Ron, don’t hold back!” One of final poems of the set featured the memorable line “The life of an artist is an elegant suicide.”
The next set was a duo featuring poet and performer rAmu Aki with musician Karl Evangelista on guitar and electronics. rAmu Aki’s poetry is deeply rooted in the landscape and culture of San Francisco’s Tenderloin (“TL”) neighborhood where he lives, and by his own declaration was inspired “by the voices inside his head.” He also wore an impressive blue feathered headdress.
[rAmu Aki. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
Alongside Aki’s fast rhythmic words, Evangelista began with an anxious chromatic guitar line. Phrases like “City of Light” and “English Harassment” were followed by sounds with distortion and other effects, and looping to produce contrapuntal textures. The poetry was full of references to the Tenderloin, some of which like the street names, were familiar, others less so. There were light chords against angrier words, surf tone and more distorted guitar moaning. During a break, there was a rather pretty guitar solo on top of which followed a gentler and prettier poem. A jazzier and more rhythmic section of music accompanied the poem “Grove and Laguna Sunset.” Overall, the duo has a strong musical rapport, with rhythmically tight starts and stops to phrases, and pauses that allowed the music to come through clearly.
The final set featured poet Carla Haryman and musician John Raskin on saxophone and other instruments, joined by Gino Robair on percussion and prepared piano. Unlike the other collaborations in this concert, Haryman and Raskin have worked together for a while, and I was quite looking forward to hearing their performance.
[Carla Haryman. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
The music began with the sound of bowed metal followed by soft staccato tones on the saxophone. Haryman’s words were also quite staccato and worked well with the sparse percussive texture of the music. Indeed, I was quite drawn to her more abstract poetry, and I found myself listening to individual words as if they were percussion instruments mixed in with the other parts of the music. There were more metal ringing sounds against a longer and more melodious saxophone line, and some electronic sounds that reminded me of old video games. Raskin also recited words at various times, either independently or in sync with Haryman. Gino Robair’s Blippo Box provided its usual liquidy percussive sounds that blended with the saxophone and words. One particular line that stuck with me, and stuck together as a full phrase, was “why is it that some afternoons turn into Miles Davis events?”
[Jon Raskin. Photo: PeterBKaars.com.]
The next piece was from a larger work in which the text of a lecture by musicologist and critic Theodor Adorno was processed into a new poetic form and recited by Haryman while Robair performed on prepared piano. Raskin also participated in reciting the text, helping turn parts in a dialogue that included the lament that we “cling to the term new music” unlike visual art which doesn’t hold on to an equivalent overarching term (though one could argue that “modern art” is an equivalent). The overall effect was quite humorous, especially in an audience steeped in experiencing and talking about new music. The piece entitled “Orgasm” was more frenetic, with electronic noises and Raskin employing electronic and electromechanical devices inside a large brass-instrument mute. The final piece featured Raskin playing a squeeze box and Haryman reciting phrases that felt more narrative than the individual words of the earlier pieces, and visual imagery such as “waking hours shiver under glass.”
My experience with poetry is that it tends to be far denser than standard language. As such, it can be a challenge to listen to in sets that are 30 minutes long or more. The rhythmic musicality and phrasing employed by rAmu Aki and the sparse abstract texture of Carla Haryman’s poetry made them work particularly well in the longer setting of a musical performance.
The evening was well attended, with many unfamiliar faces who followed the work of the featured poets but may have been experiencing new-music concerts for the first time. Overall, it was a very strong and dynamic opening concert for the Summit.
The 11th Annual Outsound Music Summit starts next week
We are exactly one week away from the start of the 11th Annual Outsound Music Summit. It opens next Sunday is the perennial Touch The Gear Night and continues throughout the week with a series of concerts. Some of the novel themes in this year’s series includes a poetry and music night, and “Thwack, Bome, Chime”, a concert dedicated exclusively to modern percussion. You can see the full schedule here, along with ticket information. All events are taking place at the Community Music Center (544 Capp Street) in San Francisco.
As a community partner, CatSynth will be provided live updates at all events via our Twitter @catsynth, and provide more in-depth after-the-fact coverage here on the blog. I will also be personally participating in Touch the Gear next Sunday, where I will be showing both iPad apps and analog modular synths that have been part of my solo work this year.