Category: projects

project discussion and writings

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a good time was had by all

back from belfast, and what a trip!  the friendliness of the irish is by no means exaggerated.

had a great set @ an excellent venue, the black box, highly recommended if you are looking for a place to play.  the ISEA conference was quite an experience—never been to an academic conference before, and some of the seminars were of a different focus than the performative or process-oriented kind of explorations i usually seem to expose myself to.  however, i did see some good performances, even though the focus was on academia everyone made it out to the shows at night.  in particular i am very pleased to have finally met my now good friend yasuhiro morinaga, who had a great performance during the day the first day i got there.  we are on track for a performance in toronto for the new adventures in sound art festival soundplay.

there are pics of the set on my site thanks to colin, who was the volunteer in charge of the night.  only a few though—it was, after all pretty dark.

hitting the ground running, now.  kailash comes up at the end of the year, and the nuit blanche project with peggy baker is on tap as well—more on that later, and see previous posts here for links.

good night, and see you at a show soon….

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belfast kommt

a few more sleeps until i go to ISEA 2009.  i will, as i have mentioned, be presenting a new video, the white dog, and will be performing my shruti audiovisual project on aug 27 around 9pm.  please drop by if you get a chance—coincidentally my friends from autorickshaw will be in belfast at the same time.  expect a big toronto reunion at the nearest pub afterwards—i haven’t seen any of them in over a year.

soon after returning, i will be doing the harmonium audiovisual project at the toronto portion of the international indian electronica festival.  september 4 is the date, and rolly’s garage is the place.  9pm start, cover tba (check the website).  i look forward to doing this project here in toronto.  some new surprises are in store for this performance, including the excellent reading of text i wrote, courtesy of berlin electronica star robert lippok, who incidentally has a great voice.

sept 19 has my visual work as part of the next bird project concert.  this ensemble of flutes, voice, piano, poetry, electroacoustic sound and video is still going strong, and we are well into our season.  unfortunately i won’t be there to do live visuals, as i will be on a plane to spain to present my new work kailash, the winner of the CDMC/Ars Sonora prize.  the piece will be premiered at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Alicante, and i am really thrilled to be going there to present.

finally, peggy baker and i will be presenting the dance/audiovisual installation project move @ nuit blanche toronto on october 3rd (7pm to sunrise).  24 dancers and a great band—myself, ben grossman, and phil strong.

hope to see you there.  somewhere.

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radio/CD

the spanish radio piece i spoke about in an earlier post is nearing completion.  my liason for the project is miguel alvarez fernandez, who translated the text i wrote into spanish and recorded the fantastic reading of it by radio clasicá personality gregorio parra.  things sound sooooo much better in spanish.

i am also in the happy position of having 2 options for releasing the new CD.  discussions are ongoing, but expect a late 2009 release as CD and on bandcamp.

i will be in residence as peggy baker’s accompanist this summer for various classes at the national ballet school, as well as for her yearly teacher’s seminar.  playing the drums will be nice—it always is with the inimitable ms. baker.

not to mention the little hurricane that is our daughter leena.

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more international: spanish national radio

just found out i am the winner of the XVI radio creation works contest, administered by radio clasica (spanish national radio) and ars sonora.  this is a major prize, and i am really honoured and very flattered to have been chosen.  i will be creating  a new long form radio piece called “kailash”.  the work will be debuted at the international festival of contemporary music of alicante in late sept 2009.

thanks to the jury and to senor miguel alvarez-fernandez for awarding me such a high honour.

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international / Peggy Baker / Lippok

wow, has it been a month?

work continues on the new peggy baker dance project.  the choreography is amazing, and the whole project is really growing into something amazing (read peggy’s journal entry for April 27 here).  the final project will be about an hour long—quite a bit of music/sound and i am having a great time working with peggy and the dancers.  there will also be a duet choreographed by new york city’s own doug varone as part of the program.  i’m very honoured to be creating music for so many great people.

i am thrilled to have been invited to ISEA this year as part of the juried exhibition with a new video work, based on the performance project shruti which i have written about here before.  we are hoping to also arrange a performance of the project as well, and this will be the first time i have made a fixed video work expressly based on the shruti project.

i have also been invited to the re-new festival in copenhagen, and the ex-is festival in seoul to do AV performances, but funding being what it is i am unable to attend.  if you find yourself in these neighborhoods, do give them your patronage.

robert lippok, my friend and cohort, has agreed to record some text for a new audio piece that i am calling the bodhi tree.  he did a fantastic job, and his voice and delivery is spot on and exactly what i had hoped for.  stay tuned for further info on that project.  we are hoping to record this june here in toronto…there are some happy glitches that may not be able to be worked around though.  we’ll see how it goes.

all this and more!  coming this summer to a screen in front of you.

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montreal/toronto shruti mini tour

getting a quick coffee @ caffe art java in montreal, the day after my shruti performance @ concordia university’s annual electroacoustic music festival.  wednesday night saw me @ the night bazaar concert series in toronto.  despite a very large snowstorm, we had a respectable turnout for a 3 set evening of improvised music on a school night.

some notes about montreal:

a) the coffee is awesome.  come here and drink it.  thanks ben for hipping me to it via patrick.

b) the music at this festival is also awesome.  i haven’t spent enough time doing concentrated EA listening, and hearing it in a big room with great speakers, and other people is especially great.  there is a great lineup here, check the website and get hip to some of these people if you haven’t already!  thanks very much to eldad tsabary and max and julian stein for putting me up, putting up with me, and inviting me to the festival.

pics to follow….cheers from the sexiest city in canada.

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homewreckers and peggy baker

that post title didn’t sound quite right.

i am just finishing work on a new video for german dj trio homewreckers (that’s a still from the video there).  they asked me to do something for “the other side of town”, a track from their new CD, american ruhr.  more info later on where and when you might be able to see it.  a great quote from kodwo eshun on the result: a dialogue for a frame and an edge.

the first of a few scores this year for canada’s national treasure, dancer peggy baker is complete.  earthling will premiere @ the PUSH festival in vancouver, january 22 and 23rd are the performance dates.  more info here if you are in the vancouver area.  i will be making more music and video for peggy later this year for a new full length work.  stay tuned.

work continues on a couple of solo CDs!  slow going but i am really enjoying the minutiae of crafting the sound for these releases.

if you happen to be reading this before january 28th, come down to the tranzac in toronto, where i will be doing my first toronto performance of shruti, the field recording based audio performance i have done in germany, newfoundland, and banff.  each one is different….this performance has been programmed as part of david sait’s and michael keith’s night bazaar series.

…..reading this over i see that the holiday is over.  more to come.

the other side of town video still

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2008/2009

it has been some time since my last post, and things are starting to wrap up here @ old monkey studios.

its been pretty memorable, really (see the post before this one). but there is no point going over a list of what happened, that’s what this blog is for.

i will say that 2009 promises to be full of great projects:

*a new solo CD is in the works, as well as documentation/recording projects with ensemble polaris, evergreen club gamelan maza meze (yes!) and more.

*i will be starting the creative process with the unbelieveable peggy baker, creating audio and video for an upcoming 1/2 hour dance work.  possible CD release is being considered as well.

*robert lippok and i are in the planning stages for some canadian concerts and possibly a CD recording

*work continues on audio and video pieces that will be influenced by the drumming and recording i did in kolkata this past fall

*who the heck knows what else?  that should keep me relatively busy i should think….

all the best to you and yours.