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Tag: San Francisco

  • Sylvano Bussotti and sfSoundGroup at SFMOMA

    At the beginning of month, I attended a retrospective concert of music by the composer Sylvano Bussotti, performed by members of sfSoundGroup at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Bussotti is an Italian avant-garde composer whose body of work transcends into visual media and film as well. His music itself is very visual, and his graphical scores are works of art that combine standard music notation with graphical symbols, spatial positioning on the page and text instructions that inform the musicians on how to interpret and perform the piece. They are also known for being difficult to play, but sfSoundGroup is up to the challenge.

    The performance took place in the museum’s expansive atrium, which was bathed in red light, with the musicians in the center and the audience orbiting around them. The space was bounded by two pianos, mysteriously set apart.

    In the few minutes before the concert began, I was able to check out a couple of the scores up close.


    [Score for “Phrase a trois” by Sylvano Bussotti.]

    This score is for the piece Phrase a trois for string trio (violin, viola and cello). I also was able to view the score for Geographie Francaise alongside the percussion setup:

    [Score for “Geographie Francaise”, by Sylvano Bussotti, with percussion instruments. (Click image to enlarge.)]

    Unlike many graphical scores, which often allow for wide interpretation of visual elements and improvisation, these seemed more designed to describe precise instructions to the performer.

    Bussotti himself performed in two of the pieces. For Geographie Francaise, he played piano and incanted stark vocal lines in French, alongside featured soloist Laura Bohn and percussionist Kjell Nordeson. I quite liked this piece for its starkness, conceptual simplicity (i.e., centering around the title itself) and the disparate texture of the instrumentation: voice, piano and percussion. One does not really hear traditional rhythms or melodies, even of the early-twentieth century “atonal” sense, but rather directly on the various sound, musical and narrative concepts, more like an abstract theater piece.


    [Laura Bohn and Kjell Nordeson performing “Geographie Francaise” by Sylvano Bussotti. (Click images to enlarge.)]

    Bussotti also performed in In Memoriam Cathy Berberian. Here, his voice was more central to the piece, and he spoke in Italian in more expressive tones. This is not surprising, given the subject of the piece was Cathy Berberian, his longtime “friend and muse”.


    [Sylvano Bussotti performance with members of sfSoundGroup. Photo by Michael Zelner. (Click image to see original.)]

    Different personel from sfSoundGroup were featured in different pieces, ranging from the full nine-member cohort in Autotono to a solo performance by Matt Ingalls on clarinet in one of Bussotti’s more recent pieces, Variazione Berio composed in honor of Luciano Berio who died in 2007. In the performance, Ingalls takes advantage of the portability of his instrument to move freely about the space. In doing so, he was able to employ spatial effects on the timbre of the clarinet within the music, which was filled with lots of empty space punctuated with occasional loud tones.


    [Matt Ingalls performs “Variazione Berio” by Sylvano Bussotti. Photo by Michael Zelner. (Click image to see original.)]

    The sparseness of the music and performer’s motion did in fact remind me a bit of Berio’s Sequenzas, and also made me think of the parallels between the theatricality of Berio’s music as compared to Bussotti’s. They were contemporaries in Italian avant-garde music – and as another link, Cathy Berberian was Berio’s wife in the 1950s and early 1960s.

    The concert concluded with a performance of Tableaux vivants avant La Passion selon Sade (1964) for two prepared pianos. This was probably my favorite of the evening (along with Geographie Francaise). The pianos that were separated up to now were joined together in the center of the space. The two pianists (Christopher Jones and Ann Yi) playing cooperatively on a single piano, operating both the keyboard and elements within the instrument’s body. Their bodies often crossed paths and intertwined as they attempted to perform their respective parts – the motion seemed both chaotic and intimate at the same time. As the piece progressed, they spread out to both pianos – and in the final movement, they close their scores and attempt to play from memory. Throughout, the music was filled with intense, and sometimes violent energy especially when playing the interior of the piano. I contrast this to they very calm and contemplative nature of John Cage’s better known prepared-piano pieces. It fun to watch, and provided for a dramatic finish to the concert.

    The concert was preceded by a screening of Bussotti’s 1967 silent Rara that included live piano accompaniment by Bussotti himself. The music, which was based on live interpretation of a graphical score in which he moved about at will, did not strictly follow the events and actions on the screen, but rather provided more of a backdrop and a counterpoint to images that would have otherwise been rather jarring to watch to watch in silence. [However, the music as performed did have a narrative structure of it’s own, moving between very abstract discrete tones and more idiomatic and even tonal sections.] The film itself consisted mostly of “film portraits” of figures from the Italian avant-garde – mostly images of men (though Cathy Berberian is also featured) in a variety of sexual and emotionally uncomfortable poses, including countless shots of tear-streaked male faces. As such, the film did not really hold my attention, although I did like the abstract imagery and close-ups of the musical score, as well as the play on the letters of the title R-A-R-A itself, that were used alongside the more homoerotic portraits. And certainly it was was interesting to see the composer and filmmaker respond musically to his own work after so many years.

    Additional credit goes to Luciano Chessa, who organized the evening’s events. We had previously encountered him last year when he organized the event Metal Machine Manifesto, Music for 16 Intonarumori.

  • Weekend Cat Blogging: SF SPCA Holiday Windows

    Every year during the holidays, San Francisco SPCA teams up with Macy’s in San Francisco to feature adoptable pets in the holiday window displays at their main store in Union Square.  For Weekend Cat Blogging, we at CatSynth present some of the cats that are featured in the windows and available for adoption.

    While many of the cats go about their normal routines, this particular youngster was hamming it up for the visitors (and their cameras):

    Like most holiday window displays, there is an overarching theme to the decor. This year was probably my favorite to date, as it featured scenes reminiscent of New York City during the holidays, with patches of snow on tall buildings, sidewalks and bridges. I particularly liked how the display featured this steel bridge converted into a walkway (and comfortable sleeping platform) for the cats:

    At one point during my visit, one of the black kittens came over to play with the sleeping orange kitten:

    The black kitten wanted to play and “make friends”, alternately batting and grooming the other one, who seemed to have no interest whatsoever. A similar scene ensued with the two older cats below the bridge, where the darker one came over and started enthusiastically grooming the lighter cat, who was less than enthusiastic about this. Nonetheless, all the antics provided an added dimension to the visit.

    You can read more about the program at the official Macy’s SF/SPCA Holiday Windows site. This year, they are also provide live streaming video for those who cannot come to see the windows in person, including mobile streaming page for iPad/iPhone/iPod devices:

    The SF SPCA is of course welcoming donations to support this program and all its other efforts.

    Weekend Cat Blogging #289 is hosted by the tireless Nikita Cat at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.

    The Carnival of the Cats will up on Sunday at When Cats Attack!

    And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • Two upcoming performances this week

    Wednesday 12/15 9PM-midnight
    Ivy Room hootelatkenanny
    kingman’s ivy room, 860 san pablo avenue Albany, CA

    Hanukkah may be over, but the Hoot still has its big barrel of boiling oil, thanks to

    The Atchleys [kattt and Kenneth]
    voice and electronics and latkes

    Dean Santomieri [with special guests]
    voice and reeds and percussion and jonathan frazen and latkes

    Amar Chaudhary
    with Dave Coen (djembe), JP (drums), Bill Wolter (guitar) and… applesauce, we need to balance this out

    I am excited about this set. It combines experimental work based on iPad instruments (including Curtis and the Korg iMS-20 app) with my recent work in jazz and jam-session performance. It should be one big rhythmic continuum that elides into the Atchleys performance. Or maybe something else. The Ivy Room shows are always a bit unpredictable 🙂

    And then on Thursday…

    Thursday 12/16 8PM-10PM
    Long Night’s Moon Concert: Droneshift
    Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market Street, San Francisco, CA

    Droneshift is a collaborative concert of improvised drone music. Between 15 and 25 musicians will gather to contribute to a continuous 2 hour drone, each adding their acoustic or electronic instruments here and there, and weaving their sounds together to create gradually shifting tapestries of music. The performance will most likely shift back and forth from completely acoustic music to electric ambiance and post-industrial noise.

    Tom Bickley – wind controller
    CJ Borosque – trumpet
    Bob Boster – processed voice
    Amar Chaudhary – iThings
    Matt Davignon – wine glasses/vessels
    Tony Dryer – bass
    Adam Fong – bass
    Phillip Greenlief – sax/clarinet
    Ron Heglin – trombone/trumpet
    Jeff Hobbs – bass, clarinet or violin
    Travis Johns – electronics
    Andrew Joron – theremin
    Aurora Josephson – voice
    Sebastian Krawczuk – bass
    David Leikam – Moog rogue synthesizer
    Cheryl Leonard – viola
    Brian Lucas – electric bass / tapes
    Melissa Margolis – accordion
    Bob Marsh – voice
    Marianne McDonald – didgeridoo
    Chad McKinney – supercollider/guitar
    Joe McMahon – didgeridoo
    David Michalak – Omnichord
    Kristin Miltner – laptop
    Ann O’Rourke – bowed cymbal
    Ferrara Brain Pan – sopranino saxophone
    Rent Romus – sax/tapes
    Ellery Royston – harp w/effects
    Lx Rudis – electronics
    Mark Soden – trumpet
    Moe! Staiano – guitar
    Errol Stewart – guitar
    Lena Strayhorn – tsaaj plaim / wind wand
    Zachary Watkins – electronics
    Rachel Wood-Rome – french horn
    Michael Zelner – analog monophonic synthesizer, iPod Touch

    This is an impressive list of musicians participating in this version of the Droneshift! I will contribute my small part with “iThings” (iPad and iPhone) and using several apps, including the drone-friendly Smule Magic Fiddle.

  • Wordless Wednesday: Hunters Point Moon

    [Click to enlarge.]

  • Weekend Cat Blogging: Studio Cat

    I came across this cat at Islais Creek Studios during Open Studios back in October:

    The studios are located in a building in a very industrial area that I have featured numerous times on CatSynth – appropriately, many of the artists there do metal sculptures. It was also at this same location last spring that I encountered this “industrial cat”. In contrast to the very skittish stray cat in the spring, this cat was quite domestic and seemed quite healthy and well fed. The nearby food and water dishes attest to that:

    I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone about the cat, but it would seem the denizens of Islais Creek Studios have adopted some of their neighborhood cats. I for one am happy to so this, they bring some life into the industrial spaces, and from my own experience cats can be a source of comfort and support during the artistic process.

    I have actually seen quite a few cats in recent weeks during my wanderings around the industrial sections of the city – I might ultimately put these and other images together into a full set.

    Weekend Cat Blogging #284 will be hosted by Salome at Paulchens FoodBlog?!”.

    The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at One Cat’s Nip.

    And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

  • Wordless Wednesday: Transbay Terminal Demolition Continues

  • The Experimental Side of the Y2K-X Live Looping Festival

    I have participated in the main Live Looping Festival in Santa Cruz in past years, but this is actually the first time I have attended the satellite event co-produced with Outsound at the Luggage Store Gallery. The performance, and the rest of the festival, took place in mid October.

    The evening opened with a solo set by Chris Rainier on guitar. He began with some interesting and rather harsh sounds that through the looping processing grew into minor harmonies. On top of these loops, he layered more percussive, piano-like sounds and then a low bowed tone. The texture gradually got thicker, as often happens in looped music. The next layers of sound featured slide guitar effects reminiscent of old 1960s psychedelic recordings or old sci-fi sound tracks, and a harsh ebow sound that ultimately resolved to a consonance. Overall, Rainier’s performance had a quality reminiscent of a film or an old radio program – but without an overarching plot structure so one could easily get lost in the music (which is a good thing). He was also quite technically adept, switching quickly among several effects as well as guitar techniques.


    [Chris Rainer. Photo: PeterBKaars.com]

    The next set featured Krispen Hartung on guitar with Rent Romus on saxophone. The performance at first focused entirely on the pairing of the instruments acoustically (I sometimes count electric guitar as an “acoustic instrument”). Indeed the presence of the looping was very subtle at first. Romus’ saxophone runs matched and complemented Hartung’s atonal harmonies on the guitar. Then at times, the music switched into a more tonal and relaxed state reminiscent of older “cool jazz” performances. Here, the sampled loops become more apparent, as the jazz-like sounds were played back out of their original meter and sounding as if off in the distance. The music become quite intricate, with lots of percussive and staccato notes, and moving back and forth between extremely active and extremely sparse moments. The was a splattering of electronic sounds, but still mostly the original instruments, moving into more anxious dissonant harmonies before resolving back into more tonal jazz.


    [Rent Romus and Krispen Hartung. Photo: PeterBKaars.com]

    In addition to his own musical pursuits, Hartung runs the Boise Experimental Music Festival, which I should attend next time it comes around!

    The final set featured Andreas Willers on guitar with guest collaborator Phillip Greenlief on saxophone. It interesting how all three sets featured guitar, and two of three featured guitar-and-saxophone duos (and for more symmetry, in each case it was an out-of-town guitarist paired with a local saxophonist). The set began with shaking and spinning strings, and a whistling sound. Greenlief entered by scraping a mouthpiece cover on the side of the side of his saxophone, and then blowing into the instrument itself without a mouthpiece. The sounds from the guitar were very soft, set against percussive wind sounds on the sax. The loops were quite short, and I did not notice them at first and then only as ambient sounds from the speakers. Gradually, the music become more intense, with lots of extended technique sounds on both instruments. Willers moved from playing the strings with objects to more standard but percussive guitar techniques, with a squeaking saxophone mouthpiece set against perfect forths. The next section had a very rhythmic, almost Flemenco, quality to it, followed by moments of unison between the two instruments where they seemed to stay together even through microtones.


    [Andreas Willers and Phillip Greenlief. Photo: PeterBKaars.com]

    The second piece began with Willers’ excellent virtuosic guitar playing against Greenlief’s performance whistle tones on the saxophone. This gave way to heavily distorted guitar set against microtonal saxophone notes. Through the looping process, subtle warbling tones were built up into a much larger and richer texture. Then, in the midst of a rather quiet section, Greenlief startled me (and several other audience members) with a rather loud POP! Indeed, the remainder of the piece was quite playful, with key effects and other techniques, and distortion guitar, all processed and represented via looping.

  • Wordless Wednesday: Aftermath

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  • Election Day (of the Dead)

    Well, it is Election Day in the U.S., the closest thing we have to a national civic ritual. And in California, that means another of our exceptionally long ballots. Here is this November’s sample ballot plus voter guide:


    [Click to enlarge.]

    I have to admit, as voter guides go, this one has a pretty cool cover with a detail of the spiral staircase at San Francisco City Hall. And although it’s not the largest we have had, but still pretty substantial.


    [Click to enlarge.]

    Indeed, elections here can be a bit unwieldy. I find myself voting on all sorts of things, like arcane budget issues or judges that I feel completely unqualified to make a decision on. Of course, there are fun things like having our Proposition 19 (legalization of marijuana for sale in the state) and serious things like Proposition 23, an attempt to suspend our leading climate and energy law – a law that is actually a point of pride for many of us as we watch the much of the country (and our national leaders) fail on the issue. One sign I particularly liked was a dual “Go Giants!” and “No on 23” banner hanging from a building on 3rd Street, with the subtitle “Beat Texas (Oil)”. As often happens, baseball and elections collide. Our celebrations yesterday may end up being short lived depending on how things go today.

    In addition to a sense of civic duty, you get a cool sticker:

    I quite like having English, Spanish and Chinese all represented – there is something that feels right about it, a sense of people from different backgrounds coming together for a collective purpose.  Of course it is not all the languages spoken by residents of the city, but it is still a decent cross section.  It also made me think about a statement I had heard yesterday, thinking more optimistically about the future, that demographics is currently on the side of those with a more cosmopolitan and progressive view of the world as the older generations with their traditional notions of racial, linguistic, religious, national and sexual boundaries fade away.  But that’s a story for another time.

    My current polling place is at SOMArts Cultural Center, so going to vote also means taking in the current exhibition, the annual El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) exhibition. This years theme was “Honoring Revolution with Visions of Healing”  and featured  “altars and installations that will honor the dead and provide offerings to the living.”  It was certainly interesting to have an exhibition with the theme of “revolution” adjacent to the place where I was voting.  And while the theme may be connected to the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, many of the pieces were more general in nature, honoring loved ones who have passed away, or tied to current events, such as disasters and war. For example, I was drawn to this piece because it featured musicians:

    [Judy Johnson-Williams and Judy Shintani. Honoring Construction Workers, Rebuilding of the New Orleans, Revolution with Visions of Healing. (Click image to enlarge.)]

    At first I was not quite sure what the construction workers were about. But once I understood that it honored the workers who were helping to rebuild New Orleans, the combination of music and construction made sense. It has a double resonance, looking back on Hurricane Katrina, but there are also echoes of the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this summer. The piece was a collaboration by Judy Johnson-Williams and Judy Shintani. The also had another piece nearby, “All Cats We Have Loved”:

    [Judy Johnson-Williams and Judy Shintani. All the Cats We Have Loved.  (Click to enlarge.)]

    Their accompanying statement was very touching:

    For all our kitties who have been run over by autos, are missing in action, and disappeared into the ethery to go onto their next lives. Hopefully you are having fun pouncing and are purring up a storm! We miss you! Meow!

    The passing of a loved was also the subject of one of the featured pieces, an alter by artist Adrian Arias to his mother who passed away this year.  The large installation was almost entirely white, but with bits of color in the arranged objects.  Please visit his blog for images of this piece, including a performance by the artist.  Individual remembrances were also part of Susana Aragon’s “Life is a Revolution.”  This piece featured tribute images on transparencies arranged on the wall, a series of moving screens onto which images were projected, and a mirror in which ones own reflection was project (as the artist suggests, it was a bit of a challenge to make the reflection work).  The piece has a very moody but also clean quality to it that kept my attention:

    [Susana Aragon. Life is a Revolution.  (Click image to enlarge.)]

    In their piece “Trapped”, Ytaelena and Bruce Lopez present a narrow and dark cave-like space which viewers can enter.  It seems inviting enough, with a warm earthy aroma.  But inside there is the faint sound of a person calling for help, and a detached hand in the middle of some vegetation.  The piece is inspired by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the earthquake in Chile.

    Finally, on a more positive note, Lanell Dike invites viewers to write messages of love and gratitude, and place them on an array of lights in her interactive piece “Make a Love Offering.”

    [Lanell Dike. Make a Love Offering (close-up view)]

    I did decide to participate and left a message, not far away from where I cast my ballot only a little earlier.

  • Wordless Wednesday: 6506 (Baker Beach)