VNM 2016 Festival - Vancouver New Music

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 12, 2016
Vancouver New Music Festival 2016
Mechanical Music
Presented by Vancouver New Music
October 13-15, 2015; 8PM each night
Pre-show chat at 7PM each night
The Annex (823 Seymour Street, 2nd Floor, Vancouver)
Vancouver, BC — Vancouver New Music’s 2016 Festival, Mechanical Music, brings together an eclectic mix
of local, national, and international musicians and sound artists who are redefining how notions of the
‘mechanical’ intersect with sound and music.
Reflecting on the festival’s theme, Artistic Director Giorgio Magnanensi says “the idea of ‘mechanical’ has
often been associated with lack of expression. All of the artists at the 2016 festival challenge this through
their extremely suggestive and visionary sound explorations.”
Experimenting with everything from unique material inventions, to algorithmic programming, to
electromagnetic interactions, these artists generate immersive and expressive sound works, compositions
and installations.
Featured performers include Lucas Abela (Australia), Adam Basanta (Montreal), Peter Hannan and Camille
Hesketh (Vancouver), Anne-F Jacques (Montreal), Koka Nikoladze (Georgia/Norway), Tristan Perich (US),
George Rahi (Vancouver), Jocelyn Robert (Quebec City), Kelly Ruth (Winnipeg), and Sabrina Schroeder
(Canada/UK); plus a special Soundwalk and performance by the Vancouver Electronic Ensemble.
TICKET INFORMATION:
• Festival Passes for all three concerts: $59 - save 20% off regular single ticket prices
• Single concert tickets: $25 regular / $15 students (taxes included)
• Available at www.brownpapertickets.com or 1.800.838.3006
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE + ARTIST LINE-UP:
THURSDAY OCTOBER 13
Adam Basanta (Montreal)
In small movements, Adam Basanta creates sounds through careful manipulation of microphones, small
speaker cones, small kinetic objects, and custom control software, encouraging the audience to reflect on
the instabilities inherent in sound production.
Sabrina Schroeder (Canada/UK)
Sabrina Schroeder builds live performance systems using tactile transducers to make heavy sound
spaces that are as much about body-feel as they are about audible sound. Schroeder plays through layers
that run a continuum between industrial noise and enveloping pools.
Lucas Abela (Australia)
Australian musician and installation artist Lucas Abela debuts Bass Balls (2016), a custom built pinball
machine interwoven with bass strings to create a mesh-like musical play surface. As much ‘gameplay’ as
musical performance, Abela harnesses rich, responsive, subsonic sounds via various pick-ups connected
to effects pedals controlled by pinball targets.
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FRIDAY OCTOBER 14
Jocelyn Robert (Quebec City)
Long intrigued by the concept of mistakes, Robert presents a series of live improvisations, in which
specially developed software keeps the notes played and forces him to take them as the basis for the next
ones – whether he likes them or not, whether they are right or wrong.
Anne-F Jacques (Montreal)
Anne-F Jacques’ performance-installation continuous sliding is a of collection of contraptions and devices,
in which mundane found objects and tired motors interact with each other. The inherent fragility and
inconsistency of the electronics generate irregular musical and mechanical fluctuations and accidents to
deliver unexpected sonic surprises.
Tristan Perich (US)
Tristan Perich delivers a visceral electronic performance of material from his newest release, Noise
Patterns. Like his 2005 release 1-Bit Music, Noise Patterns is a self-contained electronic circuit,
programmed to synthesize its music when switched on. With Noise Patterns, he embeds randomness into
the heart of his code, its music flowing from white noise to crackling kicks and hypnotizing bass pulses,
growing with a tactile density that the New York Times called “techno for silicon-based life forms.”
SATURDAY OCTOBER 15
Peter Hannan and Camille Hesketh (Vancouver)
Growing out of an interest in writing a work in short scenes - the equivalent of musical haiku – composer
and electronic musician Peter Hannan and singer Camille Hesketh present their newest work, We need to
talk. We need to talk is a monodrama made up of 50 very short pieces that tells the story of a modern
relationship in text messages.
George Rahi (Vancouver)
George Rahi’s Pulsars repurposes organ technology from various eras to pursue new sonic possibilities.
Featuring a series of altered early 20th century “Leslie” rotary speakers – designed to mimic the sonic
quality of large, spatially dispersed pipe organs – the speed of their rotation, pulsations of various speeds
shape the sounds as they reflect off walls and surfaces.
Kelly Ruth (Winnipeg)
Textile artist and musician Kelly Ruth presents Manufacturing Voices, an improvised sound composition
created while Ruth weaves a cloth on a floor loom fitted with contact microphones and effect pedals. The
act of weaving symbolically counters the drive-through pace of contemporary society, while the sounds
created echo the inventions of transportation, the militaristic organization of workers in large-scale
industry, and mechanized industrial practices.
Koka Nikoladze (Georgia/Norway)
Violinist, composer, and inventor Nikoladze finds musical inspiration in making new instruments or tools.
Handmade boxes of springs, coils, wood and metal become electromechanical beatboxes, or
electromagnetic devices that extend the sounds of string instruments. The music he creates with these
imaginative, invented instruments becomes a natural consequence of a process of ‘play’, and a way of
reconnecting with music as one of the most ancient forms of human entertainment.
FREE COMMUNITY EVENTS
Soundwalk – Automation: Trains and Blades
Led by Roxanne Nesbitt
Sunday, September 25, 2016; 2–3:30PM
Automation: Trains and Blades considers the sonic overlap between residential and industrial spaces in
Vancouver’s Grandview Woodland neighbourhood. Participants will engage with mechanical sounds at
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both a micro and massive scale, exploring the seemingly self-operating nature of industrial sound fields.
This event takes place rain or shine, so please dress appropriately.
Vancouver Electronic Ensemble
Saturday, October 8, 2016; 8PM
Vancouver Community College Atrium (1155 East Broadway – enter from East 7th Ave. SE corner of
Glen Drive)
MEDIA CONTACT
Heather McDermid, heather@newmusic.org | Tel: 604.633.0861 Cell: 778.885.9443
ABOUT VANCOUVER NEW MUSIC
Vancouver New Music engages communities in the exploration, creation, and experience of progressive and
outstanding new music. VNM regularly commissions and premieres new works by Canadian composers,
presents leading and emerging electroacoustic and electronic music artists, international composers and
performers, sound installations and music theatre. VNM presents an annual festival that focuses each year on
a theme within the new music landscape, and explores the interaction of contemporary music with other
disciplines such as theatre, installation and media arts. Other activities include lectures and workshops with
visiting artists, ensemble workshops and presentations open to the community, and other sound art and new
music related community events.
www.newmusic.org
Vancouver New Music gratefully acknowledges the support of The Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian
Heritage through Arts Presentation Canada, The Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia
Arts Council and Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, The City of Vancouver, Tom Lee Music, Holiday Inn
Downtown and The Georgia Straight.