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Set 1, 8pm: Mountains In Space
Mountains in Space perform live ambient electronic music made with analog synths, custom algorithms, and field recordings.
Their music is a time-dilated dive into fractal cosmic jello.
Mountains in Space is Luke Dahl and Colin Sullivan who met at Stanford's CCRMA computer music lab and began collaborating musically in 2013.
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Set 2, 9pm: Luciano Chessa & Benjamin Kreith: Garrett — Confusing Salon Music & Noise since 2013
Bay Area New Music champions Luciano Chessa & Benjamin Kreith perform pieces from their suite Garrett — Confusing Salon Music & Noise since 2013, for violin, piano, Vietnamese đàn bầu, bullhorn, saw, Aardvark synth app, harmonica & voice. A program consisting of Futurist sound poetry, original pieces, Erik Satie transcriptions, a Fluxus piece, delicate improvisations, and much more.
Especially noteworthy are:
— Piedigrotta (1913): "Considered to be the pinnacle of Futurist sound poetry, Francesco Cangiullo’s epic poem about the yearly Neapolitan street party dedicated to the Madonna di Piedigrotta. The explosions of firecrackers, the cries of street venders, the tenori battling at the annual song competition and, more in general, the sound of an entire city presented as a living organism, all reach a sudden jolt when the procession of the Black Madonna takes over the stage. By brilliantly hijacking onomatopoeic techniques typically found in Futurist poetry to mimic the explosions of mortars and shrapnels, and by forcing them to recreate the complexly articulated noise of a wild street party, Cangiullo truly succeeds here in celebrating-and synthesizing-life.” (text by Luciano Chessa)
— Analfabeta ("Illiterate", 1989/2013), by Luciano Chessa: "Capo Caccia is a promontory punctuated by dramatic limestone cliffs. Under it, only a few miles from my hometown Sassari, caves run for miles by the Mediterranean coastline. As I utter the words “Capo Caccia,” something specific resonates in the cavity. The exploration begins. With the marine sonar of the mind I locate a place at the heart of the deepest cave, and thus I name it: because it is a primordial, pre-cultural, pre-linguistic place. A retired Aleph-like situation where language is just as unnecessary as it is irrelevant. There, in my childish mind, I picture everything being unchanged since the Creation. Illiterate"
As a composer, conductor, pianist, & musical saw/Vietnamese đàn bầu soloist, Luciano Chessa has been active in Europe, the US, Australia, & S. America. Recent compositions include LIGHTEST, a SFMOMA commission presented 2013 at the SF Columbarium & A Heavenly Act, an opera with original video by Kalup Linzy commissioned by SFMOMA & premiered by Nicole Paiement & the Opera Parallèle. Chessa’s Futurist expertise resulted in an invitation by the NY-based PERFORMA Biennial to direct the first reconstruction project of Luigi Russolo’s earliest intonarumori (mechanical analog synthesizers) orchestra, and to curate concerts of music specifically commissioned for this project. This was hailed by The New York Times as one of the best arts events of 2009. A double LP dedicated to the Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners and documenting the phase of-1 this project was released on the Belgian label Sub Rosa in 2013 & quickly sold out. In Dec 2013 Chessa conducted the Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners to a sold-out crowd at the RedCat in L.A. Additionally, Chessa has performed futurist sound poetry for well over 10 years. In June 2014 Chessa performed 3 concerts with Futurist Sound Poetry at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, as part of the Italian Futurism retrospective; his voice reading Marinietti’s Manifesto & poetry, to accompany Jen Sachs’ videos, is to be experienced by all exhibit visitors, from Feb-Sep 2014. Chessa has been interviewed twice by the BBC as the foremost scholar of Luigi Russolo. His work has been recently featured in Artforum, Architectural Digest, Art in America, in the Italian edition of Marie Claire, and in Vogue Italia; a short documentary on his work has been broadcasted by RAI World in April 2014.
Violinist Benjamin Kreith has performed as a chamber musician, soloist and orchestra player throughout the US and Europe. He has premiered solo works at the Strasbourg and Marseille festivals and performed as a guest artist with the Ying and Muir Quartets. Ben helped to found the Ensemble CGAC in Santiago de Compostela, and has also performed with sfSound, Barcelona 216, and the Harvard Group for New Music. Recently he spent several years in Montana as a member of the Cascade Quartet and concertmaster of the Great Falls Symphony. He has had the privilege of working directly with composers including Francisco Guerrero, Gunther Schuller, and Magnus Lindberg. His live recording of Christian Lauba’s Kwintus for violin solo is available on the Accord/Universal CD Morphing. Ben also plays the harmonica and experienced a brief moment of renown when his improvisations with Leonard Bernstein were broadcast on international television. He has taught at the Escola de Música de Barcelona, and served as artist-in-residence at the University of California, Davis.
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