2010 Wrap-Up

2010 Highlights…

January 15-17
3Seasons composer
Olivier Wevers/Whim W’him
On the Boards, Seattle

January 20 – March 07
保重 Farewell Exhibition curator
artwork by MalPina Chan, Diem Chau, Paul Kikuchi, Annie Han + Daniel Mihalyo: LEAD PENCIL STUDIO, Tiffany Lin, June Sekiguchi & Ying Zhou
Columbia City Gallery, Seattle

February 18-20
Farewell composer
Donald Byrd/Spectrum Dance Theatre
The Moore Theatre, Seattle

March 27
Home & News performed
The Way Back Home, Portland Taiko
Winningstad Theatre, Portland

April 11-12
12 Minutes Max curator
On the Boards, Seattle

April 23-25
Dance, Music & New Media panelist
Rasmuson Foundation, Anchorage

May 01
Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas excerpt performed
May Day! May Day! 12-hour New Music Marathon
Town Hall, Seattle

May 14
Anna Homler & Friends performer
Chapel Performance Space, Seattle

May 16
Erik Satie’s Vexations pianist
Jack Straw Productions, Seattle

June 08
Stuck Elevator reading
Chen Dance Center, New York

June 13-28
Stuck Elevator residency
Yale Institute for Music Theatre, New Haven

June 19-20
Fifteen (violin + taiko) premiered
Ten Tiny Taiko Dances, Portland Taiko
Winningstad Theatre, Portland

June 25-26
Stuck Elevator workshop reading
International Festival of Arts & Ideas, New Haven

August 14
Chinese Drumming Workshop
Regional Taiko Gathering instructor
University of Washington, Seattle

August 26-27
Engaging Audiences Forum + Workshops coordinator
The Wallace Foundation & Washington State Arts Commission

October 02-03
Home & News performed
Taiko Unleashed, Portland Taiko
Newmark Theatre, Portland

November 18-19
Changing Demographics Forum + Workshops coordinator
The Wallace Foundation & Washington State Arts Commission

December
Stuck Elevator receives a 2011 CityArtist Project Award, Seattle

Here’s to continued music-making and gardening in 2011 and beyond. Cheers (!)

 

840 Vexations at Jack Straw

Liberation often arises from frustration. Beginning at 4pm today, 32 pianists will play Erik Satie’s Vexations 840 times. I am scheduled to perform from 1:30-2am.

Satie’s piano anomaly is deceptively frustrating. The melody wanders, the same pitches are written with multiple spellings, and the curious chords leave listeners drifting in sonic clouds. Yet, with his insistence on repetition (Vexations played 840 times should equal 18+ hours of music) Satie’s ideas about the profundity of boredom and the wisdom of returning to a beginner’s mind, points to an approach to music that is both decorative and sublime, mundane and extraordinary, as well as frustrating and liberating.

Amazing to think that Satie composed Vexations 100+ years ago in 1893, the same year that the U.S. Supreme Court legally declared the tomato a vegetable. Vexations was first performed in 1963, courtesy of John Cage.

Jack Straw Productions is a fitting location to host this marathon event. I fondly remember many late-night recording sessions in this unique non-profit recording studio. It will be dreamy to play the piano in the middle of the night.

Below is a schedule of the rotating pianists involved in the first-ever Seattle performance of Vexations:

• 4pm Karin Kajita
• 4:30pm Chase Hills
• 5pm William Chapman Nyaho
• 5:30pm Ann Cummings
• 6pm Hayley Pike
• 6:15pm Stanley Whitfield
• 6:30pm Garrett Fisher
• 7pm Jennifer Keuer
• 7:30pm Brian Kinsella
• 8pm Amy Rubin
• 8:30pm Michael Owcharuk
• 9pm Rachel Matthews
• 9:30pm Aleksandra Tsirkel
• 10pm Gust Burns
• 10:30pm Erin Rubin
• 11pm Roger Nelson
• 12am Daniel Arthur
• 12:15am Ann Cummings
• 1am Dawn Clement
• 1:30am Byron Au Yong
• 2am Korby Sears
• 3am Garrett Fisher
• 4am Gavin Borchert
• 5am Rachel Matthews
• 6am Shenandoah Davis
• 7am Jensina Byington
• 7:30am Nicole Truesdell
• 8am Keith Eisenbrey
• 8:30am Julie Ives
• 9am Tito Ramsey
• 9:30am Kelly Wyse
• 10am Paul Kikuchi
• 10:30am Tiffany Lin
• 11am Wayne Horvitz
• 11:30am Robin Holcomb
• 12pm Karin Kajita
• 12:30pm Roger Nelson
• 1pm Jennifer Keuer
• 1:30pm Nicole DeWolf

Preview Articles:

Get to know “Vexations” Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times, May 2010
A Free Erik Satie Marathon! Christopher DeLaurenti, The Stranger, May 2010
Erik Satie’s “Vexations” Gavin Borchert, The Seattle Weekly, May 2010

Jack Straw Productions
4261 Roosevelt Way NE
Seattle WA 98105
(206) 634-0919

Not in Seattle? Listen to a live streaming broadcast on Hollow Earth Radio.

 

The East is Red

In the midst of composing for FAREWELL. Working on the timeline canon is difficult, but am learning more about 20th century Chinese history. Here’s audio of Chairman Mao Zedong proclaiming the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

As a side note, watching The East is Red makes me wonder about “hope”.

 

Happy Birthday Alan

Alan Lau is a poet [Blues and Greens, Songs for Jadina, etc.], painter [represented by Francine Seders Gallery], arts editor [International Examiner], and produce worker [Uwajimaya]. He is the most important Asian American artist in Seattle after Bruce Lee and George Tsutakawa [who are dead], yet he lives in a small studio with his wife Kazuko Nakane. Their place seems even smaller, because the walls are stacked two deep with shelves filled with books, magazines, records, clippings, and art.

When anyone needs info about an Asian artist, they visit Alan at Uwajimaya. He is the wise one who calls Seattle home. Alan is the most amazing artist living in the guise of a humble produce worker. Seattle wouldn’t be the same without him.

This post is just to say:

Happy 60th Birthday Alan.

 

murmur

Here is a cool project that my friend Shawn Micallef is involved with…

[murmur] is a documentary oral history project that records stories and memories told about specific geographic locations. They collect and make accessible people’s personal histories and anecdotes about the places in their neighborhoods that are important to them. In each of these locations they install a [murmur] sign with a telephone number on it that folks can call with a mobile phone to listen to that story while standing in that exact spot, and engaging in the physical experience of being right where the story takes place. Some stories suggest that the listener walk around, following a certain path through a place, while others allow a person to wander with both their feet and their gaze.

[murmur] was started in Toronto and is in Vancouver, Montreal, San Jose, and other cities. Walter Benjamin would be excited. Perhaps one day [murmur] will be in Seattle.

I hear of similar projects using cell phones, such as the Bike Bin Project curated by Mike Min.

I’m so lucky to know all these creative people who combine audio with geography. Do you know of other sound in the street projects?