WEST OAKLAND SOUND SERIES

sunday february 11, 2024 helena sorokina (vienna) + sarah grace graves / oaklndrdctnstorchstra
sunday february 18, 2024 hans tammen (nyc) / sfSoundGroup (phill niblock & monica scott)
sunday february 25, 2024 jeonghyeon joo group (la/seoul) / bleeding vector

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 11 2024 7:00pm $10-$25

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THE OAKLAND REDUCTIONIST ORCHESTRA
Visiting from Austria, mezzo-soprano HELĒNA SOROKINA joins local composer-vocalist SARAH GRACE GRAVES to perform Scelsi's Sauh voice duos alongside solos and duos written for, and in certain instances by, them. Featuring music by GIACINTO SCELSI, HARRISON BIRTWISTLE, JON YU, SARAH GRACE GRAVES, and others.
The concert also features the OAKLAND REDUCTIONIST ORCHESTRA, a supergroup of local musicians with a predilection for lowercase/fricative/reductionist acoustic improvisation that often sounds more electronic than acoustic. This ensemble grows out of a rich tradition of "American reductionist" music that emerged (re-emerged?) in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Previous projects like Tom Djll's Grosse Abfahrt and document the Bay Area's contribution to the genre.
PERFORMERS
Danishta Rivero, voice
Kanoko Nishi-Smith, koto
Lisa Mezzacappa, bass
Joshua Marshall, tenor saxophone
Cheryl E. Leonard, objects, electronics
Brendan Lai-Tong, trombone
Matt Ingalls, clarinets
Ron Heglin, tuba
Diane Grubbe, flutes
Sarah Grace Graves, voice
Jacob Felix Heule, percussion
Tom Djll, trumpet
Chris Cooper, objects, electronics

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 18 2024 7:00pm $10-$25
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HANS TAMMEN is just another worker in rhythms, frequencies and intensities. He likes to set sounds in motion, and then sit back to watch the movements unfold. Using textures, timbre and dynamics as primary elements, his music is continuously shifting, with different layers floating into the foreground while others disappear. This flows like clockwork, “transforming a sequence of instrumental gestures into a wide territory of semi-hostile discontinuity; percussive, droning, intricately colorful, or simply blowing your socks off” (Touching Extremes).
In his Eigengrau series he explores overtones and noises that are emerging from pianos, guitars and other stringed instruments affected by vibrations from transducers. Eigengrau is the color you see when you close your eyes, which is due to the perception of an ever-changing field of tiny black and white dots seen in the phenomenon. For this concert Tammen is joined by bay area stalwart GINO ROBAIR on assorted electronics.

The "house band" for the WEST OAKLAND SOUND SERIES, SFSOUNDGROUP is a unique collection of performer-composers that have presented their own compositions, improvisations, new commissions, electronic music, and standard avant-garde repertoire for over two decades. For this concert they remember PHILL NIBLOCK with a performance of Disseminate, commissioned in 1998 by Petr Kotik for The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble. As in most of Niblock’s music, he creates sound differences by combining many simultaneous microtonal pitches/tones (by means of multitrack mixing) to make clouds of sum and difference tones. The score for Disseminate specifies 16 parts which can be pre-recorded or live. For this concert the piece will be performed partially “on tape” with four “live” musicians.
sfSound also performs MONICA SCOTT'S Migrations for mixed quintet, where spectrograms of local bird calls are freely interpreted and translated into musical gestures both composed and improvised. While the work is a free-standing 4 movement piece, its genesis is in Scott's multimedia collaboration Lightfast - Intertwine, an exhibition that is showing at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art February 24-June 2, 2024.
SFSOUNDGROUP
Sam Weiser, violin
Monica Scott, cello
Kjell Nordeson, percussion
Brendan Lai-Tong, trombone
John Ingle, saxophone
Matt Ingalls, clarinet
Kyle Bruckmann, oboe

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