Cheryl Leonard performs at the opening reception of her exhibition "Of Land and Sea: Natural-Object Instruments." Leonard crafts music out of micro sounds by bowing, striking, tickling, wobbling, brushing, and drawing on amplified sand, bone, rock, and wood. Her performance will be inspired by internal and external martial arts gestures and Wu Xing, the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water) central to traditional Chinese philosophy. A short interview and Q & A will follow the peformance.
Cheryl E. Leonard is a San Francisco-based composer, performer, and instrument builder. Over the last decade she has focused on investigating sounds, structures, and objects from the natural world. Many of her recent works cultivate stones, wood, water, ice, sand, shells, feathers, and bones as musical instruments. Leonard is fascinated by the subtle textures and intricacies of sounds, especially very quiet phenomena. She uses microphones to explore micro-aural worlds hidden within her sound sources and develops compositions that highlight the unique voices they contain. Her projects often feature one-of-a-kind sculptural instruments that are played live onstage and field recordings from remote locales.
Leonard holds a BA from Hampshire College and an MA from Mills College. Her music has been performed worldwide and her work with natural-object instruments has been featured on several television programs and in the video documentary Noisy People. Her collaborative works with visual artists Genevieve Swifte and Oona Stern have been exhibited in galleries in California, Norway, Australia, Mexico, and Argentina. Leonard has received grants from the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, ASCAP, American Composers Forum, American Music Center, the Eric Stokes Fund, and Meet the Composer. She has been commissioned to create musical instruments and compositions for Kronos Quartet, Illuminated Corridor, and Michael Straus. Cheryl has been awarded residencies at Oberpfälzer Kunstlerhaus, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Arctic Circle, Villa Montalvo, and Engine 27. Recordings of her music are available from NEXMAP, Unusual Animals, Ubuibi, Pax, Evolving Door, Apraxia, 23 Five, The Lab, and Great Hoary Marmot Music.
Cost: free