February 26th: 7:30pm $10-
make a reservation here or call 718.384.1369
MonkeyTown (58 N 3rd St, Williamsburg)
Soundtrack is an experimental acoustic cinema project, where musicians create and interpret audio for live imagery. This
second iteration will feature live improvised flute from the celebrated flutist Robert Dick (Website), as well musicians Morgan Packard and José Ayala.
This evening will also explore visuals by Peter Kirn (founder of createdigitalmotion.com), and residents Joshue Ott, Daniel Hai, and Sabina Hahn.
With equally deep roots in classical music old and new and in free improvisation and new jazz, Robert Dick has established himself as an artist who has not only mastered, but redefined the flute. Known worldwide for creating revolutionary visions of the flute's musical role, listening to Robert Dick play solo has been likened to the experience of hearing a full orchestra. His performances typically include flute (with his invention, the Glissando Headjoint®)piccolo, alto flute, and bass flutes in C and F. On special occasions, he'll bring out the giant, stand-up contrabass flute. ( Visit Website )
Morgan Packard's sound is rooted in a decade's immersion in beat-based electronic music and informed by periods of intense study of jazz, western classical music, and computer programming. While his music may be wrangled into the minimal electronic category, he is actually eschewing minimal tropes in favor of highly wrought arrangements – fitting multiple sensibilities into music that could easily be mistaken for existing genres, though when explored carefully, hardly fits into any. Using the form of techno/house/breakbeat music as a beginning, not an end unto itself, Morgan arrives at a sound which manages to synthesize ideas from the worlds of electronics, jazz, and classical in a manner that has no hint of experimentation, but rather a purposeful, concrete rendering of his vision. ( Visit Website )
In his Mofongo project, José Ayala draws upon a wide range of influences and expertise to craft physically compelling, mentally invigorating sonic worlds with razor-sharp conceptual and technical precision. Ayala is a classically trained guitarist and composer, a native of Puerto Rico, a veteran of Jayuya, one of this country's most outrageous salsa bands, and former student of Boston improv gurus Ran Blake and Joe Maneiri. As Mofongo, he channels these years of intense study of numerous genres in to his live processed guitar work, creating a focused sound which reveals deep musical accomplishment and sensitivity without ever resorting to pastiche or fusion of the various elements of his musical background. ( Visit Website )
PETER KIRN is a composer, digital musician, and media artist/visualist. Classically trained, he has extended his work into experimental music for acoustic instruments, historic instruments, and digital sound and visual technology. As a visualist, he has been a regular at Eyewash and Warper, has projected visuals at the Museum of Modern Art, and was recently a featured artist at MGFest (Motion Graphics Fest) in Chicago. He has been a Digital Fellow at Dance Theater Workshop with collaborator Christopher Williams, and has taught music, interactive visuals, and technology at Harvestworks, 3rd Ward, Massachusetts College of Art, CUNY, Sarah Lawrence, and the R&D Lab of The New York Times. He has also created the popular websites createdigitalmusic.com and createdigitalmotion.com for people pushing the boundaries of music and visual performance with computers and is the author of the book Real World Digital Audio (Peachpit Press). He is completing a PhD in music composition at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
New York-based multidisciplinary artist Joshue Ott creates cinematic visual improvisations, often performed live and projected in large scale. Working from hand-drawn forms which he then manipulates with superDraw, a software instrument of his own design, Ott composes evolving images that reside somewhere between minimalism, psychedelia, and Cagean chance. He performs frequently with musicians, sympathetically translating sound to vision to yield immersive multisensory experiences that are at once immediate and synergistic. He has been featured at exhibitions at Mutek, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Playgrounds Audiovisual Art Festival, and the Ars Electronica Animation Festival. ( Visit Website )
Daniel Hai's visual creations blend multitudes of real world crafts onto a single screen. He is able to create striking narratives in real time, using elements such as clay, illustrations, dancers, or even his own hands. Daniel is the creator of Onyx-VJ, an open source program live performance software geared toward live camera capture. Website
Sabina Hahn is a designer, illustrator and animator, known for her wit and special brand of silliness. She is a master of capturing subtly, fleeting expressions and the most elusive of gestures. Her sublime talent is in seeing the understated, and in presenting it as such.
