Lessons, Masterclasses & Workshops by:
Melinda Wagner | David Sanford | John Aylward | Hassan Anderson | Curtis Stewart | Special Guest Popebama
More Info
Saturday, June 8 // 1 & 4 pm
Floor 3, Theater
Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort St
New York, NY
More Info & Tickets
As part of the performance program organized by guest curator Taja Cheek for Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing, Sarah Hennies presents Motor Tapes, a one-hour work for a large ensemble. Taking its name from neuroscientist Rodolfo Llinás’s characterization of the human brain as containing innumerable “tape loops” that run continuously within the mind, Motor Tapes is composed of densely overlapping patterns of sound, with musicians representing synapses that both fire independently and work together to achieve complex activities. Llinás’s description of this phenomena is strikingly musical: “The activity in the basal ganglia is running all the time, playing motor patterns and snippets of motor patterns amongst and between themselves […] they seem to act as a continuous, random, motor pattern noise generator.” “I am interested in the motor tapes theory,” Hennies has said, “because it suggests that alongside lived experience there is a mysterious biological basis for our inclinations, talents and identities.”
Motor Tapes will be performed by Lauren Cauley, Laura Cocks, David Friend, Madison Greenstone, Judith Hamann, Tristan Kasten-Krause, Hannah Levinson, Christopher McIntyre, Erin Rogers, Brendon Randall-Myers, Bill Solomon, and Nate Wooley.
New Thread Quartet presents Electric Sax Vol. 2: Terrain and Barriers, the saxophone quartet’s second annual concert of electroacoustic works for saxophone. This year’s program explores the literal and metaphorical paths across landscapes, through music about terrain, barriers, and the interconnectedness of things.
Erin Rogers’ Fledge is a electroacoustic, quadraphonic companion piece to her 2023 work Foliage for saxophone quartet. cory ryan kasprzyk’s other transforms a physical barrier from an obstruction into something sonically intertwined to the environment. The composition is an exact transcription of a barrier resonance, performed through microtones and extended technique alongside audio and video playback. Matias Vilaplana Stark’s Senderos, leads the musicians in improvisation guided by a video score. The work is created with satellite imagery showing four landscapes from Chile. Karlheinz Essl’s colorado utilizes an interactive “particle accelerator” to superimpose live sound particles of the saxophones across a 4-channel sound projection. The electronic manipulation will be controlled live by Dennis Sullivan.
Electric Sax Vol. 2: Terrain and Barriers
Saturday, May 25, 7:30pm
The Cell – 338 West 23rd Street, New York, NY, 10011
Tickets – Free, suggested $15 donation – available online and at the door
Reception to follow
Program
Erin Rogers – Fledge, for sax quartet and live electronics * #
cory ryan kasprzyk – other, for sax quartet with audio/video playback * #
Matias Vilaplana Stark – Senderos, for sax quartet with video score
Karlheinz Essl – colorado, for sax quartet with live-electronics and 4-channel sound projection +
* world premiere
+ North American premiere
# commisioned by New Thread Quartet
A performance in the Catacombs
Phantom Waves is an innovative music series crafted for the distinctive acoustic spaces of Green-Wood’s Historic Chapel and Catacombs. Headlined by musicians making waves with experimental approaches to voice, instrumentation, and composition, the series offers immersive sonic journeys that blur the line between the living and the spectral.
The 2024 series is curated by acclaimed performer Gelsey Bell, recognized by The New York Times as “one of New York’s most adventurous musicians.”
Price: $40, and $35 for members.
Vocalist Gelsey Bell and saxophonist Erin Rogers come together to celebrate the release of their new album, Skylighght, which features tracks recorded in Green-Wood’s Catacombs. Using the historic structure as a third collaborator, their performance will feature a site-specific sonic interaction, artfully integrating the unique architectural shape and resonant acoustics of the space. Together, Bell and Rogers explore an intimate and vulnerable practice that brings together the voice and the saxophone, ultimately leading to a harmonic blend of multiphonics.
Please note that if only 1 ticket shows as available during the purchase process that is the last ticket available.
A performance in the Catacombs
Phantom Waves is an innovative music series crafted for the distinctive acoustic spaces of Green-Wood’s Historic Chapel and Catacombs. Headlined by musicians making waves with experimental approaches to voice, instrumentation, and composition, the series offers immersive sonic journeys that blur the line between the living and the spectral.
The 2024 series is curated by acclaimed performer Gelsey Bell, recognized by The New York Times as “one of New York’s most adventurous musicians.”
Price: $40, and $35 for members.
Vocalist Gelsey Bell and saxophonist Erin Rogers come together to celebrate the release of their new album, Skylighght, which features tracks recorded in Green-Wood’s Catacombs. Using the historic structure as a third collaborator, their performance will feature a site-specific sonic interaction, artfully integrating the unique architectural shape and resonant acoustics of the space. Together, Bell and Rogers explore an intimate and vulnerable practice that brings together the voice and the saxophone, ultimately leading to a harmonic blend of multiphonics.
Please note that if only 1 ticket shows as available during the purchase process that is the last ticket available.