Since the installation, I've become a regular at the Utrecht art supply store on the corner of Huntington and Massachusetts Avenue. This in part due to my recent experiments in creating my own staff paper (using a 5-toothed pen and ink), but it's also a great way to talk to folks who are working in the visual art world.
Most of the people who work at Utrecht are artists themselves, and I was introduced to one of them before the installation by Ryan Krause (another musician, who gave me the idea to have the Sol LeWitt drawings be part of the 3/1 show). Her name is Hannah Rossi, and we projected some of her animations during the performance. The programs animators use allow them to loop what they are working on, and this feature comes in handy when dealing with music. Hannah's animations, along with the music of Kaz George, Ben Stepner, and RA RA RU ended up closing the event.
Recently, we've been workshopping ideas on how to pair music with animated loops, or live performance, and I like what we're coming up with. We'll be showing some of these works at a Tsunami Benefit concert in JP on March 31st (more info on that very soon), and are planning some kind of event to take place over the summer with (and for) whoever is still here!
In other news, Inter-NEC is planning a concert dedicated to the music of Steve Lacy that will take place at NEC on May 5th. The Steve Lacy project is in need of its own blog post, which will be finished shortly, but do mark your calendars in advance!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Post Sonic Emergency
The installation was last night, and it felt really great. I have to be honest and say that I did not know if this was going to work. That, however is part of the beauty here - We are taking risks, and in doing so, are unafraid of the outcome. My job over the next few days is to collect as much feedback as possible, and soon figure out how to structure the next installation.
Our goal was to break the barrier between performers/audience, and create layers of sound and visuals for an audience to digest that aren't the norm for what goes on in a concert hall at a music school. We left the doors open, and encouraged our audience to move around (just as the performers/performances did).
Each corner of Brown Hall acted as a performance area, with a projector in front of a curtain that masked the elevated stage. There were chairs facing each corner of the hall, and a 5x5 square of seating in the center of the hall, leaving alot of space for movement.
We began with Burdocks by Christian Wolff - a piece for "one or more orchestras" that focuses on the layering of several different movements and ensembles. I love this music, and though some find the sound of the thing itself to be a bit abstract, it gave us a concept to base the rest of the evening on. There were multiple ensembles spread around the hall, each performing in their own time. This allows the audience to listen to a particular group, or the composite whole created by everyone, with new sounds emerging from various corners as the piece unfolds.
The rest of the evening flowed in this way. Various ensembles and soloists performed music ranging from renaissance motets and orchestral excerpts to Messiaen, Berio, Improvisations, and Dubstep. We also had projections of student-made videos, animations, and were realizing a Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing (picture soon).
I estimate that there were about 32 performers involved throughout the evening, and every chair we had set for observers was taken at some point, with many general audience members in motion throughout the event.
Our plan is to organize a laboratory session to document and workshop the installation concept before we present another. This will all take place in the next 2 months. We are also planning smaller events at the Boston Conservatory, and the Lily Pad in Cambridge (in collaboration with Longy School of Music).
We plan on making a recording of the lab sessions, and will make that material available as it is created. As always, if you have any feedback, questions, or ideas, feel free to contact us.
Performers involved in the installation:
Elizabeth Erenberg (Berio - Sequenza I)
Andy Fordyce (Video)
Daniel Hawkins (Video)
Peter Negroponte (Synthesizer Improvisations)
Hannah Rossi (Video/Animations)
Tsotne Tsotskhalashvili (Messiaen - Le Baiser de l'Enfant-Jesus)
Members of the Boston Conservatory Dance Department
The Broken Consort (Longy School of Music)
Sojourner Hodges and John Mehrmann
Kaz George and Ben Stepner
Cale Israel & Kai Sandoval
The Inter-NEC Large Ensemble
RA RA RU (Nick Nueburg, Patrick Kuehn, Jake Baldwin)
Stay tuned for more info!
- Jason Belcher (3/2/11)
Our goal was to break the barrier between performers/audience, and create layers of sound and visuals for an audience to digest that aren't the norm for what goes on in a concert hall at a music school. We left the doors open, and encouraged our audience to move around (just as the performers/performances did).
Each corner of Brown Hall acted as a performance area, with a projector in front of a curtain that masked the elevated stage. There were chairs facing each corner of the hall, and a 5x5 square of seating in the center of the hall, leaving alot of space for movement.
We began with Burdocks by Christian Wolff - a piece for "one or more orchestras" that focuses on the layering of several different movements and ensembles. I love this music, and though some find the sound of the thing itself to be a bit abstract, it gave us a concept to base the rest of the evening on. There were multiple ensembles spread around the hall, each performing in their own time. This allows the audience to listen to a particular group, or the composite whole created by everyone, with new sounds emerging from various corners as the piece unfolds.
The rest of the evening flowed in this way. Various ensembles and soloists performed music ranging from renaissance motets and orchestral excerpts to Messiaen, Berio, Improvisations, and Dubstep. We also had projections of student-made videos, animations, and were realizing a Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing (picture soon).
I estimate that there were about 32 performers involved throughout the evening, and every chair we had set for observers was taken at some point, with many general audience members in motion throughout the event.
Our plan is to organize a laboratory session to document and workshop the installation concept before we present another. This will all take place in the next 2 months. We are also planning smaller events at the Boston Conservatory, and the Lily Pad in Cambridge (in collaboration with Longy School of Music).
We plan on making a recording of the lab sessions, and will make that material available as it is created. As always, if you have any feedback, questions, or ideas, feel free to contact us.
Performers involved in the installation:
Elizabeth Erenberg (Berio - Sequenza I)
Andy Fordyce (Video)
Daniel Hawkins (Video)
Peter Negroponte (Synthesizer Improvisations)
Hannah Rossi (Video/Animations)
Tsotne Tsotskhalashvili (Messiaen - Le Baiser de l'Enfant-Jesus)
Members of the Boston Conservatory Dance Department
The Broken Consort (Longy School of Music)
Sojourner Hodges and John Mehrmann
Kaz George and Ben Stepner
Cale Israel & Kai Sandoval
The Inter-NEC Large Ensemble
RA RA RU (Nick Nueburg, Patrick Kuehn, Jake Baldwin)
Stay tuned for more info!
- Jason Belcher (3/2/11)
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Installation: CONSERVATORY SONIC EMERGENCY
OK folks - time for a major update here.
On March 1st, we'll be producing a multimedia installation in NEC's Brown Hall. The installation features collaborations between students from Boston Conservatory, Emerson College, Longy School of Music, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, New England Conservatory, and perhaps a few others.
We'll be presenting student-made video/projections, Christian Wolff's "Burdocks," some of Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawings, and a number of pieces authored by Inter-NEC participants. Some of these folks (in no particular order) are:
Daniel Hawkins
Andy Fordyce
Sojourner Hodges/John Mehrmann
Andrew Hock/Peter Negroponte
Cale Israel/Sam Lisabeth
Jacob Rex Zimmerman (B.M '08)
Inter-NEC's compositions 1 (In Search of Eden), 2, and 3 will also be presented.
More info soon - please send us a message if you have any questions!
On March 1st, we'll be producing a multimedia installation in NEC's Brown Hall. The installation features collaborations between students from Boston Conservatory, Emerson College, Longy School of Music, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, New England Conservatory, and perhaps a few others.
We'll be presenting student-made video/projections, Christian Wolff's "Burdocks," some of Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawings, and a number of pieces authored by Inter-NEC participants. Some of these folks (in no particular order) are:
Daniel Hawkins
Andy Fordyce
Sojourner Hodges/John Mehrmann
Andrew Hock/Peter Negroponte
Cale Israel/Sam Lisabeth
Jacob Rex Zimmerman (B.M '08)
Inter-NEC's compositions 1 (In Search of Eden), 2, and 3 will also be presented.
More info soon - please send us a message if you have any questions!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Weekly Link #5 - Dagon II (Earnhart, Ewazen, Taylor)
Truely Three as One! I think both the music and film existed separately, but the film is edited (the man you see in the picture is also the trombonist). The three are not regular collaborators, but this just shows us how great those once-in-a-while projects can turn out.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Weekly link #4: Sigur Ros - Heima (2006)
This is the first weekly link in 3 weeks! Apologies, my friends.
Though well known in commercial streams, Sigur Ros is a group of musicians who in 2006 (after touring the globe for a few years) went on a tour of their native Iceland that reached out largely to smaller communities, and rural areas.
The tour brought them to perform outdoors, in small function halls, abandoned warehouses, and condemned valleys, as well as your typical venues for a band of this scope.
During the tour, they were augmented regularly by a string quartet. They also collaborated with various local musicians (from wherever they were playing) that included a brass band, a choir, and a traditional Icelandic folk vocalist. Their keyboard player says at one point "We are giving back to Iceland...but they can also back us up."
The tour was beautifully documented, and all of the venues are spoken of in depth. This documentary, and all other aspects of the groups work on this tour is amazing to me. It's something I will look up to for a long time to come!
Though well known in commercial streams, Sigur Ros is a group of musicians who in 2006 (after touring the globe for a few years) went on a tour of their native Iceland that reached out largely to smaller communities, and rural areas.
The tour brought them to perform outdoors, in small function halls, abandoned warehouses, and condemned valleys, as well as your typical venues for a band of this scope.
During the tour, they were augmented regularly by a string quartet. They also collaborated with various local musicians (from wherever they were playing) that included a brass band, a choir, and a traditional Icelandic folk vocalist. Their keyboard player says at one point "We are giving back to Iceland...but they can also back us up."
The tour was beautifully documented, and all of the venues are spoken of in depth. This documentary, and all other aspects of the groups work on this tour is amazing to me. It's something I will look up to for a long time to come!
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Triiibe Installation Recap
In November, when I first went to Triiibe's installation at the 808 Gallery, I was hoping to find a venue for some simple experimentation, and maybe talk to them about their field. I wanted ideas about how to effectively reach out to students in the art world. After talking to Triiibe on that first day, I thought we would play there maybe once, and introduce some new musicians to our way of community authorship of a work.
We ended up playing there three times over the course of December with a developed "script" - a set of perimeters that gave us a structure to build on, and our building on that structure was new every week. Everyone involved (including Triiibe) was thrilled, and wants to keep working together in the future.
Each week (Saturday afternoons) brought in some new individuals, ensembles, and repertoire. The second week included actors and dancers, and on the third we welcomed some of our observers (ages 4-32) to contribute to the performance.
The installation, and the space it was in allowed for a new experience for everyone involved. The artists loved what we created within their project, and the performers really enjoyed the collective building and individual experience of this work.
Actors, Dancers, and Musicians from four schools contributed to the performances and scripts for this installation. We intend to work on more material next semester. There is a definite energy and connection between everyone here that I'm happy to say will be explored more. People are already coming up with ideas for new ensemble pieces, and their own projects . These are connections we're going to retain and work from for a long time to come, and that is the top goal of the collective and forum.
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