Rova:Arts presents composer Ellen Fullman : Sympathetic Resonances
as part of the Improv21 series
Ellen Fullman will present a video documentary on her work featuring her music and sounds on the original "long string" instruments that she has created. Then she will discuss the concepts behind the music with Derk Richardson and the audience.
Rova:Arts is pleased to present Improv:21, a series of “informances” on twenty-first century music that explore the connection between predetermined structure (composition) and performer interpretation (improvisation). Led by master improvisers and composers from the Bay Area and beyond, and hosted by critic and KPFA radio host Derk Richardson, Improv:21 programs look at the many ways of organizing improvisation through a shifting (i.e. “improvised”) combination of onstage lecture and dialogue, musical demonstration and performance, and audience question-and-answer forum.
Biography
In 1981 Ellen Fullman began developing the "Long String Instrument", an installation of dozens of wires fifty feet or more in length that are 'bowed' with rosin coated fingers. Fullman has recorded extensively with this unusual instrument and has collaborated with such luminary figures as composer Pauline Oliveros, choreographer Deborah Hay, the Kronos Quartet, Keiji Haino and Francis-Marie Uitti. In 2000 she was awarded the prestigious DAAD Artists-in-Berlin residency. Her music was represented in The American Century; Art and Culture, 1950-2000 at The Whitney Museum, and she has performed in venues and festivals in Europe, Japan and North America including: Instal, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, Other Minds, the Walker Art Center and Donaueschinger Musiktage. Her CD release "Ort", with Berlin-based collaborator Jörg Hiller, was selected as one of the top 50 recordings of 2004 by The Wire (London). She has delivered lectures and written articles on her work including: the Songlines Series, Mills College, MusikTexte (Cologne 2002), and MusicWorks (Toronto 2003). Her collaboration with percussionist Sean Meehan at Instal 2006 was the number one downloaded track from the festival and was released on Cut (Switzerland). In 2007 she was awarded a 5-month Japan/U.S. Friendship Commission/NEA Fellowship for Japan. Fullman is currently an Artist in Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, where she has installed her instrument in what was once the old gymnasium.
For more on Ms. Fullman:
www.ellenfullman.com
Ellen Fullman on MySpace
Artist Statement
My intention in my music is to consider not only the fundamental tonal content, but also the resulting overtone configurations. A spectrum analysis of my instrument revealed that every overtone is represented at nearly equal levels through the entire range of hearing. I am exploring the influences of sympathetic resonance and sonic events that occur at specific nodal point locations along the string-length of my instrument and I have developed a unique notation system to choreograph the performer's movements. I feel that the room itself becomes my instrument and is receptive to what is put into it. Added frequencies can drive my instrument through sympathetic resonance and I am looking for ways to have more access to this triggering effect. A visual analogy for me is a candle flame blown by puffs of wind from different directions that responds fluidly.
Cost: $10