radical sonic futures
music performance and recordings
photo by cathy irving
the world on a string concert presented by smallworld music and recorded by CBC Radio is now online. many thanks to alan davis, artistic director of smallworld. also of course all the musicians, especially rich brown for asking me to be a part of it.
i am playing loads of dance classes these days, about 9 or more a week. first of all, i love playing dance classes. well, maybe love is a strong word but the demands placed on the accompanist for these classes are all things that the musician (or any artist for that matter) must have at their fingertips. improvisation, creativity, strong time sense, connection with sound, with other dancers, with the essence of the movement…..these are all things that as a drummer i need to have honed and ready.
playing dance class, particularly for peggy baker (whose accompanist i have had the good fortune to be for over 6 years or so now) is a great way for me to keep fit—physically, musically, mentally and spritually. listening to peggy speak about dance and the creative process is one of the biggest influences on me as a musician and on my approach to creating. i am very fond of saying that i would not be half the musician i am today without my many years of accompanying dance class.
but man my hands hurt. i’m not getting any younger.
well, i put robert lippok on the plane yesterday. after a week long radio theatre workshop sponsored by the goethe institute toronto and a wonderful concert at toronto’s music gallery we parted ways for now. on his plate: set design, an electronic mass, and other european delights. on mine: lots of dance classes to play, grant writing and composing to do.
the concert itself was a great treat for me. the confluence of the digital and acoustic worlds is something i have been so entranced by, and robert’s sounds are precisely what i hear in my head somehow. we are hoping to do more playing as a duo in the future, and i am already on to the planning stages for next year!!!
stay tuned.
robert lippok is coming to the goethe institute to present a radio theatre workshop. i will be attending and i can’t wait. besides being a very nice fellow he has been behind some of the most interesting projects i have had the pleasure of discovering.
and—bonus for me!—we will be presenting a concert together at the music gallery of course, thanks to the goethe institute and raster-noton. deets below, and hope to see you there.
Thursday, October 4, 8 pm
Music Gallery, 197 John St., Toronto
Tel: +1 416 2041080
Admission at the door: students and Music Gallery members $5, general public $10
Robert Lippok and Debashis Sinha collaborate in a live concert setting, each artist presenting his own sound world to the other and the audience, reacting, creating, and making music together in the moment. The acoustic and electronic combine to create something unique and new, skin and computer chip, groove and texture, past, present and future joined together.
nuit blanche is fast approaching and i am busily navigating the web interface for the cell phone piece that i am presenting (see the nuit blanche website for details). also that evening i will be performing (solo+, 9pm) at the music gallery where a whole slew of some of toronto’s best improvisers and sound experiementers will be performing throughout the night, including ima ensemble members ben grossman (7pm), and andrew downing (10pm). the whole evening will be mixed in 12 speaker surround by new adventures in sound arts AD darren copeland. really, its the best way ever to start your evening.
see you there!
taken from this summer’s tour with maryem tollar, ernie tollar (winds) and levon ichkhanian (guitar) at the peace conference in castlegar BC.
i’m in berlin right now. spent the day sightseeing, although that is the worst word for it.
its a city so full of history. i’m staying in mitte, right near the wall in east berlin. 2 min walk from here is an old guard tower. i have been so overwhelmed with history. its been a very emotional day. i can see why the war is still so alive in the collective memory of the german people.
but, on another note, i too will be contributing a bit to the culture of berlin. i make my laptop debut on aug 4 as part of the daskleinefieldrecordings festival, mangling sound i recorded on my latest trip to kolkata and also plundering my own archives of music and phonographic sound in a live improvised set.
deets:
@ wendel (one of the best places in berlin for organic beer!), Schlesische Strasse 42, U-bahn Schlesisches Tor, Kreuzberg (of course).
21:30 doors, 5 Euro.
peace.
well.
i guess i am not as good as i thought keeping this updated.
mostly because the work life these days is kind of in limbo. i am making some sketches for an upcoming tv doc, waiting on a few grants to see if i got them….the same old thing i suppose, for those of you not familiar with the life.
some nice things, though: leela gilday was nominated for a juno for her album sedzé. since i was the drummer on the whole record, is it ok to say i was nominated too? i’m going to assume yes. so there: i was nominated for a juno! 3rd time lucky maybe. its a great CD.
also i am going to be providing music over the internet for the mirvish production of theatre gargantua’s production of e-dentity. very fun. i can do it in my pajamas if i want. oh, wait, i can’t. there’s going to be a webcam.
wish there was more music to share, but its all project based at the moment, so no peeking.
happy spring.
i’m back. even though i landed about a week ago. keeping up and getting back into the groove is taking up a certain amount of time.
lots of great news on the work front, including a new myspace page to highlight composition and sound design work, shows with arabic singer maryem tollar, getting accepted to the 2nd round of the fresh ground commissioning selection process, and beginning the process of scoring a TV doc (more news later).
i have also been working on making some short films based on my experiences in india and created from lo res footage i shot there. the preliminary work is proving to be very inspiring and i am really looking forward to the process of creating video works and scoring.
waiting on a few grants to see what i will be concentrating on next.
happy new year.
many of you interested in percussion music may know john wyre, formerly of nexus fame. i am sorry to say that he passed away on october 31 at his home in st john’s, newfoundland.
there are better people than me qualified to eulogize him, but i did have the chance to work with him as a member of maza mezé a few years back. we commissioned a piece from him and recorded a number of songs for our “secrets moon magic” CD for CBC.
he was an amazing man, with an incredible outlook on life, and music. the first lyrics to the piece he wrote for us was “the joy of living/begins by giving/yourself away”.
rest in peace, john wyre.
