|
Project Website: http://slought.org/content/11305/
Please join us on Monday, September 26, 2005 from 8-10pm at Slought Foundation for the Sound Field @ Slought series, featuring a live concert with Japanese experimental musicians Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board and live electronics) and Taku Unami (computer and electronic devices) in duo, and in trio with American composer and musician Gene Coleman (bass clarinet).
The style of their collective music is marked by the careful use of the sound space, which is understood here to mean sounds that are used very sparingly and where the emphasis is on the act of listening. As a result, the soundfield is suggestive of one the more aesthetic forms of Japanese culture, such as Zen ink painting, and is filled with what could be called "colored silence", an experience that is then ruptured by more sudden (and louder) interjections. Despite this overall abstract form, and the organic mixture of acoustic and electronic sounds, the music has an open quality to it, as sonic references and images seep in through the cracks and drift overhead.
The concert at Slought Foundation in Philadelphia will be the first performance of the trio in the United States. Coleman met Toshimaru Nakamura in Tokyo in 2001, while he was living there as a guest composer of the Japan-US Friendship Commission. In June 2002, Coleman returned to Japan to record with Taku Sugimoto and Toshimaru Nakamura. In May 2005, Nakamura, Taku Unami and Gene Coleman played their first concert together in Tokyo.
Toshimaru Nakamura is one of the most prominent members of the burgeoning onkyo movement. Onkyo, a Japanese word meaning 'reverberation of sound', places much more emphasis on sound texture than on musical structure, distilling elements of techno, noise, and electronic music into a unique hybrid. Nakamura plays the 'no-input mixing board', connecting the input of the board to the output, then manipulating the resultant feedback. Since 1998, he's been exploring the possibilities of his instrument in contexts ranging from solo to collaborations with Taku Sugimoto, Keith Rowe, and the duo project Repeat with drummer Jason Kahn. Nakamura is also a co-founder of The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama, a monthly concert series in Tokyo. Nakamura has played at many festivals in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the USA and made many CDs, including four solo albums. In addition to these activities, Nakamura has since 1996 been a composer/sound designer for the theatrical works of Bagnolet Choreography Concours-winning dancer Kim Ito. These works have been performed in countries including Japan, the U.S., England, France, Germany, and Israel.
This program is made possible in part through the generous sponsorship or support of Sound Field NFP
|
