Decay Reverberate Program Booklet

Decay/Reverberate: Site-Specific Sound at Silo City Presented by

Null Point and the Center for 21st Century Music

Event Programs

Schedule Thursday, June 11 7:30 pm

VIP preview of select installations and performances (location: Marine A)

Friday, June 12 3-9 pm

Installations open (Marine A, Perot, and elsewhere)

4:30 pm

Performance I: Filter Index—Participatory Works for Listeners (Marine A)

6:30 pm

Performance II: Labor—Interactive performance-installation for five performers with everyday objects by Lena Nietfeld (Marine A)

8 pm

Performance III: Ritual for Grain Silo—for participating audience and interactive electronics by Andrea Steves (Marine A)

Saturday, June 13 1-7 pm

Installations open (Marine A, Perot, and elsewhere)

1:30 pm

Record Release—participatory performance-installation by Christof Migone (meet at Marine A front desk)

2:30 pm

Sound Walk led by Abby Aresty (meet at Marine A front desk)

4 pm

Tour of installations with short artist talks and performances (meet at Perot entrance)

6 pm

Record Release—participatory performance-installation by Christof Migone (meet at Marine A front desk)

7 & 8:30 pm Performance IV: Slow Drip—works for clarinets and percussion in resonant spaces (Marine A)

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Sunday, June 14 1-4 pm

Installations open (Marine A, Perot, and elsewhere)

2pm

Tour of installations with short artist talks and performances (meet at Perot entrance)

4 & 6 pm

Performance V: Embedded Environments—works for acoustic instruments, electronics, and resonant spaces (Marine A)

Note All works, except those by Ian Power and James Tenney, are presented for the first time on this event.

All works created 2015 unless otherwise noted.

All program notes by the artists unless otherwise noted.

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VIP Preview Thursday, June 11 7:30 pm Marine A front entrance

Circular Apparatus to Study Your Thoughts in a Resonant Space for mechanical gong/beater system and interactive electronics Richard Logan-Greene

Typographies II: Opera — "sempre pianissimo" (version for null point/Silo City) for trumpet and drum set composer: Daniel Bassin trumpet: Daniel Bassin drumset: John Bacon

slow drip performance/installation for clarinet, drip mechanism, and interactive electronics clarinet/improvisation: Krista Martynes concept, sound, electronics: Tom Stoll concept, sound, electronics: Ezra Teboul

Resonant Spaces—Silo City, June 2015 for drums and transducers Tim Feeney

Record Release 7-inch participatory performance-installation for vinyl, contact microphones, and surface resonating speakers Christof Migone

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About the Pieces Richard Logan-Greene—Circular Apparatus to Study Your Thoughts in a Resonant Space Circular Apparatus to Study Your Thoughts in a Resonant Space is a round, partially aluminum, fickle, supercollider-controlled, sonically-deceptive, phased device intended to helps us contemplate an empty grain silo.

Tim Feeney—Resonant Spaces – Silo City, June 2015 Resonant Spaces – Silo City, June 2015 uses snare drums as speaker elements, each projecting continuous streams of irregular pulses. The size, shape, and tuning of each drum filter these sounds, which are further affected by the geometry and construction of the surrounding space. The sounds of these hybrid electronic and acoustic instruments activate the resonant frequencies of their locations, highlighting the materiality of their staging sites by illuminating acoustic and physical properties of the surrounding concrete.

The staging points of the drums are linked by the consistency of their sound material, and defined in relationship to one another by resonant acoustic, as dry and fragile sound outdoors is trapped and amplified when enclosed.

A participant stopping to listen in one location experiences an afterimage of the others, building a sense of a large environment by comparing bits of information available only as objects of memory.

Daniel Bassin—Sempre Pianissimo My "Typographies" series of compositions take as their initial inspiration the work of the late French philosopher Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, whose focus on mimesis and cultural representation have fascinated me for at least a decade. These compositions constitute not so much a 'cycle' of works, meant to be played and/or heard as a single entity, than they represent a certain composition focus, or precompositional goals for finding musical analogies for Lacoue-Labarthe's erudition. There are three distinct 'branches' for the Typographies series, with the pieces from the first branch mainly focusing on the very smallest musical building blocks. The third branch gave way to my PhD dissertation, where each work in that part of the cycle takes as its starting point an eight-note piano chord, and in each of those pieces, the role of the pianist as solo voice, narrator, or ensemble accompanist is problematized.

Until this week's performances, the branch "Typographies II" belonged exclusively to a string quartet I wrote for the 2010 June in Buffalo festival. That piece sought to address extramusical concepts in a web of references that formed a seven-movement standalone work. As the other branches developed and took on more works and a more distinct identity, the idea came to me of writing something that would seek to somehow bridge the gap between my activities in the realm of free improvisation (as a trumpeter)

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and my compositional work. The timing of this decision - virtually as soon as I received my PhD - and the timing of Colin Tucker's Null Point series in Silo City, was fortuitous.

"Typographies II: Opera" is a series of 35 modules for a trumpeter and percussionist (drum set) to improvise on. The subtitle, "Opera," here denotes the plural of "opus," though the dramatic qualities associated with the term opera in its common usage can be valuable, as an audience engages with how the performer/improvisers engage with the musical text. For this performing version of the piece, selections of several modules have been chosen and fixed in place, and the unique acoustics of Silo City have been taken into account as a virtual third player for this duo. It should be noted, however, that this version's title "sempre pianissimo" might be misleading: while there is much soft playing throughout the work, the 'pianissimo' quality has more to do with the intensity of listening, and also the potential violence that comes as soft sounds give way to silences, or brief, occasional loud sounds are counterpoised with sustained soft sections. Suffice it to say that the "sempre" ("always") of the title is hyperbolic.

I am deeply grateful to my friend and colleague, John Bacon, for taking on this project with me, and also for inspiring me to find a common ground between my activities on the band stand, and those at the composer's desk. Heartfelt thanks to Colin Tucker, the other presenters at this festival, and to everyone from Silo City for making this possible!

Krista Martynes/Tom Stoll/Ezra Teboul–slow drip Slow Drip takes advantage of the features of such a well-engineered cave: the long reverb time, the startling echo characteristics, and, in darkness, the illusion of space extending upward until it disappears.

We propose a sonic sculpture, balanced on the vestigial strip of rusted steel: a hanging set of bowls that slowly drip water from small holes at their bases. These bowls mimic the catchment purpose of the funnel structures. Just as the grain would have been meticulously counted and measured as it fell through the exit hatch, our temporary receptacles catch and then pass water in drips and drops measured by means of opto-interrupter sensors that register the droplets as they drip down to the next level. The detectors trigger sonic events that allow for an alternative exploration of the location's space and history.

Christof Migone—Record Release 7-inch The raw material to make records comes in easily-transportable, lentil-sized pellets. This performance/installation will use this material and recordings done with them in the silos last summer.

This is part of a series of events and publications that investigate sites and situations. Each of the 7 publications will have 77 copies, each includes a grooveless 7-inch in white vinyl. These will be part of the presentation during the scheduled performances, along with contact microphones, surface resonating speakers, and enough pellets to make one 7-inch record.

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Sound Installations, Durational Compositions, and Guided Listening Pieces Friday, June 12, 3-9 pm Saturday, June 13, 1-7 pm Sunday, June 14, 1-4 pm

fill a void for inflatable bag, breath, and speaker

Perot

Alejandro Acierto

the space that remains/the spaces between site-specific soundscape composition/guided soundwalk Abby Aresty

Available on mp3 players/scores obtainable from front desk

Resonant Spaces—Silo City, June 2015 for drums and transducers Tim Feeney

score for listening – silo city for listeners

Marine A bin 52 & additional locations (ask at front desk) Scores obtainable from front desk

Jez riley French

Circular Apparatus to Study Your Thoughts in a Resonant Space for mechanical gong/beater system and interactive electronics Richard Logan-Greene

Marine A bin 40

slow drip installation for drip-mechanism and interactive electronics

Marine A bin 48

clarinet/improvisation: Krista Martynes concept, sound, electronics: Tom Stoll concept, sound, electronics: Ezra Teboul

surplus displacement for two concealed speakers Colin Tucker

unmarked, on walkway between Perot and American Elevators 7

About the Pieces Alejandro Acierto—fill a void As the development of grain farming has seen a drastic shift towards large-scale mechanization, grain farmers have increasingly become exhausted by their attempts to keep up with the global demands for grain. With the vast amounts of production needed to meet supply requirements, grain storage use has remained at an all time high, thus causing a continuous rate of silo deaths of silo workers, mostly people under the age of 20. Though recent federal laws have sought to curtail children under 18 from working in these perilous environments, many silo workers either lack the equipment or training to protect themselves against avalanches or grain collapses, the two most common causes of grain silo deaths. As a result, most victims are killed first by asphyxiation or suffocation from the highly combustible grain dust lodged into the airways and usually cannot be saved.

Employing a large inflatable bag fabricated for a low-oxygen silo, this project seeks to temporarily reclaim an industry devoid of corporeal agency by activating an unused silo with the breath and bodies of working farmers and agriculturalists. Staging a performance that will leave a sonic and sculptural imprint, I will employ various local grain farmers in the surrounding areas to utilize their breath to inflate a low-oxygen grain silo bag. Once full, these bags expand and contract depending on weather conditions, and effectively breathe on their own as the day progresses and night falls. By using the breath and oxygen of current farm workers, I seek to re-inhabit the silo-space with the corporeal while also allowing a meditative space to remember and reflect those bodies whose lives were taken by the industry.

With this performance, I will also record the sounds of the bag’s inflation that will become the basis of the sonic installation played back through the resonant interior of the inflated bag. By mediating the sounds of performance through the materials of the bag, the memory of the performance itself becomes one with the corporeal breath housed inside another semi-bodily structure. In this way, the sounds and space are temporarily injected with a bodily presence once relegated to the exteriors of the silo. By reclaiming the interior space with sound and body, a formerly inactive space becomes a space from which the vestiges of presence permeate its walls.

Abby Aresty—the space that remains/the spaces between We rely on our ears to orient ourselves in space. Aural cues teach us about the locations we visit, our place within them, and our relationship to others with whom we share these spaces. This implicit knowledge is made explicit only when a site’s sonic features are so unique or conspicuous that they draw our conscious attention. The acoustic environment of the Marine A Elevator at Silo City is both unique and conspicuous, so the site immediately captivates the ear. The space that remains/the spaces between is a participatory piece in which I use simple tools and a limited 8

sonic palette to illuminate the acoustics of this space and to highlight the presence of, and relationships between, the listeners within it.

Tim Feeney—Resonant Spaces – Silo City, June 2015 see p. 5

Jez riley French—score for listening – silo city My scores for listening use photographic images as cues for focused listening experiences. They stem from a deep interest in the quality of sound- and site-based sonic experience. Drawing on my own extensive work with durational listening, field recording (using conventional & extended techniques) and photographic scoring, 'score for listening - silo city' aims to guide the audience towards a new insight into not only this specific site but also a heightened sense of the sounds we filter out in our daily lives. Subtle sounds from the space will begin to emerge with careful listening.

Richard Logan-Greene—Circular Apparatus to Study Your Thoughts in a Resonant Space see p. 5

Krista Martynes/Tom Stoll/Ezra Teboul—slow drip see p. 6

Colin Tucker—surplus Surplus is a site-specific sound work created specifically for presentation at a complex of vacant grain silos on the Buffalo River in Buffalo, NY. The work subtly inflects the site’s everyday soundscape, foregrounding a point of resonance between the site’s soundscape and its material conditions of possibility, and in turn proposing avenues for a politicized consciousness of the everyday. In surplus, two concealed speakers play audio that reinforces sustained, mostly low-frequency broadband noise of on-site industrial fans and distant freeway traffic. This reinforcement functions to acoustically conceal sonic evidence of living bodies (i.e. bird sounds, human speech, human footsteps, etc.) otherwise present, creating an acoustic void.

The speakers are placed at opposite ends of an elevated walkway—roughly 10 ft. above ground— that runs between the American (built 1906) and Perot (built 1907) Grain Elevators. The resulting 9

sounds seem to invisibly materialize out of thin air; they are at once plausible and foreign within the site’s acoustic environment, exaggerating and illuminating its existing dynamics. As they are faded in gently and played at gradually changing volumes, the speakers’ sounds are barely perceptible, but their effects may denature the site’s everyday mise-en-scène in their unexpected, invisible subtraction of sounds most constitutive of the site’s “normalcy.”

The work’s subtraction of the sounds of living bodies is a metonym for the site’s social effects. The development of industrial-scale food production in the American Midwest in the mid-1800s—a system in which Buffalo grain elevators played a pivotal role in transferring grain grown in the upper Midwest to markets in the Eastern US and Europe—necessitated systemic violence against both human and non-human bodies. Grain cultivation in the upper Midwest became possible only through the forced removal of Native Americans and through habitat destruction that wiped out entire species, while the poorly-paid immigrant workers who operated grain silos faced dangers of grain dust explosions, and of falling into silo bins and “drowning” in the grain. The work materializes these social contradictions in its sonic form, denaturing the site’s present day scene with metonymic traces of the unresolved antagonisms constitutive of its past. The experienced bodily reality of these contradictions is ultimately unrepresentable, especially to privileged 21st century people, and as a result, this work manifests these contradictions not in a straightforward representational sense, but instead does so negatively, as a sonic “stain” that attenuates the seeming ordinariness of the everyday.

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Performance I: Filter Index Participatory Works for Listeners Friday, June 12, 4:30 pm Marine A front entrance

Filter Index performance for balloons Shannon Werle

score for listening – silo city Jez riley French

the space that remains/the spaces between site-specific soundscape composition/guided soundwalk Abby Aresty

About the Pieces Shannon Werle—Filter Index Filter Index focuses on the acoustic peculiarities of each grain silo at Marine A. These have been revealed by popping balloons throughout the structure. Subtle differences in the reverberation characterizing each point in space is analyzed and relied upon to inform a composition of unique impulse responses. -SW A fixed media version of the piece, cataloguing each acoustically unique point in the Marine A with an accompanying video diagram of each point’s location, is available on the artist’s website: shannonwerle.com. -Colin Tucker

Jez riley French—score for listening – silo city see p. 9

Abby Aresty—the space that remains/the spaces between see p. 8 11

Performance II: Labor Friday, June 12 6:30 pm Marine A (throughout)

“… some workers it casts into barbarous types of labor, and others it turns into machines” performance/installation for five performers with everyday objects composer: Lena Nietfeld percussion: Bob Fullex, Daniel Bassin, Zane Merritt, Zachary Steinberg, and Jamie Sunshine

Audience members are encouraged to walk around the Marine A grain elevator during the performance. Quiet footsteps are appreciated!

About the Piece “… some workers it casts into barbarous types of labor, and others it turns into machines” is a hour-long site-specific work for five performers positioned in different locations throughout the Marine A grain elevator. During the performance, the audience is invited to walk through the grain elevator, observing and listening from a variety of locations and perspectives.

My goal in undertaking this project was to create a work in which both the actions of performers and the interactions between performers are informed by the history of the site, specifically the types of work that were done both in and around the grain elevators on Buffalo’s waterfront, and the many difficult circumstances faced by laborers. The title of the piece, “… some workers it casts into barbarous types of labor, and others it turns into machines,” is a quote (roughly translated and paraphrased) from Karl Marx’s 1844 manuscript “Estranged Labor.” The manuscript reflects the situation of the people working in and around the grain elevators in many ways, but this quote is particularly evocative of both the physically arduous labor performed by grain scoopers and the monotonous button-pushing of elevator operators.

In this piece, the grain silos themselves are used as instruments; the floor, walls, and the remains of metal grain hoppers are scraped and struck with a variety of objects of historical significance to the site. Shovels and brooms were used by grain scoopers and sweepers to move loose grain from the hulls of ships or railcars into the grain elevator’s marine leg, where a conveyor belt would transport 12

the grain into storage bins. The beer bottles represent the grain scoopers’ dependence on saloon bosses, who controlled the hiring of scoopers, paid them in tokens which could only be used for food, drink, or lodging at the saloon, and constantly devised underhanded schemes to cheat the scoopers out of part of their wages. Consequently, the laborers that ended up being hired were those who spent most of their money at the saloon, drinking whiskey to take away the taste of grain dust.

The introduction of grain elevators produced a marked change in the soundscape of Buffalo’s waterfront. A large percentage of human laborers were replaced by machines, resulting in an unexpected sense of desolation despite the larger amounts of grain being shipped. Workers, particularly grain scoopers, were constantly plagued with a sense of uncertainty as to how much work would be available, depending on both the unpredictable arrival of ships and the unpredictable whims of saloon bosses to secure work. The grain scoopers’ labor was extremely physically taxing and fast-paced, with shifts lasting anywhere between five and thirty hours at a time. Also unpredictable were grain dust explosions, which occur when large quantities of grain kernels rub against each other, create grain dust, and suddenly ignite, often causing a chain reaction which would cause the early wooden elevators to burn down, and many workers to lose their lives.

The types of actions performed by the five musicians seek to reflect, but not imitate, the kinds of work done both in and around Buffalo’s grain elevators when they were fully operational. In some cases this can be very visceral – the extreme contrast between the more physically demanding and fast-paced performance techniques that signify the work of the grain scoopers and the sparse, desolate sounds representing periods of non-work – but in other cases it is more subtle. The unpredictability of work availability (and of workplace crises such as grain dust explosions) is reflected in the way the five performers interact with each other and with the sound environment.

There is no fixed score for the piece; rather, there are several types of performance techniques that the five musicians alternate between based on different types of cues, which may come either from unpredictable environmental sounds (such as bird calls, ships, machines, etc) or from sounds made by other performers.

Many thanks to Colin Tucker for all his hard work in organizing this event and for his help to me personally; to Jim Watkins, for all his help with the site, rehearsals, and equipment; to Bob, Zane, Jamie, Dan, and Zack for their hard work in learning, rehearsing, and performing this piece; and to Richard Logan-Greene and the University Heights Tool Library for the loan of additional equipment used in the performance.

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Performance III: Ritual for Grain Silo Friday, June 12 8 pm Marine A

Ritual for Grain Silo for performers, interactive playback, transducers, and participating audience concept, sound, electronics: Andrea Steves performance: Misty Periard

About the Piece “Surely again, to heal men’s wounds by music’s spell.” ― Euripides, Medea (480-406 BC) Attempts to use sound for healing of physical ailments stretch far back into history. For this piece, I conducted research into contemporary sound healing as it relates to the conditions, organs, symptoms, compounds, and side effects associated with celiac disease. The harmonic score playing throughout the hoppers in Marine Silo A was based on the proprietary frequency tables and brain wave octave tables of numerous sound healers. Custom tone-generators will be provided to allow visitors to add to the piece. These tones are combined with recordings from dozens of interviews I collected from celiacs and individuals with gluten intolerance, as well as quality control recordings made inside grain hoppers in the 1980s, as part of the development of new pest control technologies. It is technologies like these, and their role in the massive, industrialized food system these silos represent, that many suspect have contributed to the increase of modern autoimmune disorders like celiac. Though the sound healing systems included here contain differing tones, and thus conflicting methodologies and content, perhaps some combination of them can produce its own effects— healing or otherwise.

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Record Release Thursday, June 11, 7:30 & 8:45 pm Saturday, June 13, 1:30, 4, & 6 pm Sunday, June 14, 2pm Marine A (meet at front desk)

Record Release 7-inch participatory performance-installation for vinyl, contact microphones, and surface resonating speakers Christof Migone

About the Piece The raw material to make records comes in easily-transportable, lentil-sized pellets. This performance/installation will use this material and recordings done with them in the silos last summer. This is part of a series of events and publications that investigate sites and situations. Each of the 7 publications will have 77 copies, each includes a grooveless 7-inch in white vinyl. These will be part of the presentation during the scheduled performances, along with contact microphones, surface resonating speakers, and enough pellets to make one 7-inch record.

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Performance IV: Slow Drip Works for clarinets and percussion in resonant spaces Saturday, June 13, 7 & 8:30 pm Marine A front entrance

slow drip performance for clarinet, drip mechanism, and interactive electronics clarinet/improvisation: Krista Martynes concept, sound, electronics: Tom Stoll concept, sound, electronics: Ezra Teboul

[relictumne sum] (2014) for solo percussion and audio playback composer: Ian Power percussion: Brandon Bell

(untitled) 2 for clarinet (in A) in a space with a long reverberation time (2000) composer: Christian Kesten clarinet: Alejandro Acierto

having never written a note for percussion for solo percussion (1971) composer: James Tenney percussion: Brandon Bell

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About the Pieces Krista Martynes/Tom Stoll/Ezra Teboul–slow drip see p. 6

Ian Power—[relictumne sum] 'relictumne sum', as the 'relic-' may begin to suggest, translates from Latin roughly as 'Have I been left behind?'

Christian Kesten—(untitled) 2 The piece sounds out the space between performer and listeners. The playing at the threshold of audibility and beyond is an entering and leaving, a coming in and going out, between a staying for oneself and manifesting the own existence in space. –CK The companion piece to (untitled) 2, (untitled) 1 for clarinet (in A) in a space with a long reverberation time was written for a concert series in which a single 10-minute-long solo piece was premiered each week for three years (1997-1999). The series took place in former East Berlin at the Zionskirche (Zion’s Church), which at the time was not functioning as a church, and was in a state of mild disrepair, with numerous windows broken. The church was built in the late 19th century and has a storied history: it was meeting place for resistance against both the Third Reich and GDR; it was damaged during WWII, during which time its pews were pilfered for use as firewood. (untitled) 2 was written with the space of the Zionskirche in mind, but was not for any particular occasion, which is why the piece has waited until now for its premiere. –Colin Tucker

James Tenney—having never written a note for percussion Written for John Bergamo, percussion teacher at Cal Arts, the piece (and the multiple entendre) usually consists of one continuous roll on a tam-tam (although that instrument does not appear on the score…), with a crescendo from quadruple piano to quadruple forte and then back down again.

The only duration indication is “very long,” and the several performances I’ve heard range from eight minutes to about 20. All are quite astonishing, as the gentle inaudible hum of the instrument builds into a complex and somewhat frightening chaos of non-periodic spectra, room resonances, illusory tones, and indescribable concurrences with the listener’s psyche…Incidentally, the titular claim, as far as I know, was true. –Larry Polansky

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Performance V: Embedded Environments Immersive, Interactive Works for acoustic instruments, electronics, and resonant spaces Sunday, June 14, 4 & 6 pm Marine A front entrance

slow drip performance for clarinet, drip mechanism, and interactive electronics clarinet/improvisation: Krista Martynes concept, sound, electronics: Tom Stoll concept, sound, electronics: Ezra Teboul

Tide (10+1 basses) for solo contrabass and electronics composer: Matt Sargent contrabass: Zachary Rowden Typographies II: Opera — "sempre pianissimo" (version for null point/Silo City) for trumpet and drum set composer: Daniel Bassin trumpet: Daniel Bassin drumset: John Bacon

Embedded Environments for four percussionists composer: Sarah Hennies percussion: Crossfire Percussion Duo (Jason Bauers & Bob Fullex), Tim Feeney, and Sarah Hennies

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About the Pieces Daniel Bassin—Sempre Pianissimo see p. 5

Matt Sargent—Tide (10+1 basses) This piece is the second in the series of works called Tide, which started with a work for nine players in 2011. This work is 21 minutes in duration and developed in collaboration with bassist Zachary Rowden. The piece consists of eleven parts (10 recorded + live player). The piece is an interaction between software and improviser, each playing a role in a shared act of listening. During the recording process, the player listens back to the previous takes and matches/responds to the previous recordings, based on instructions given by a text score generated by the composer’s software in real-time (the first recording of this process, with no memory of previous takes to draw upon, is an alternating recording of bass drones and silences).

Krista Martynes/Tom Stoll/Ezra Teboul–slow drip see p. 6

Sarah Hennies—Embedded Environments "Embedded Environments" is a percussion piece composed for myself, Tim Feeney and the Crossfire Percussion Duo. It continues my work into the largely untapped timbral and psychoacoustic potential of conventional percussion instruments and the unique, complex ways so-called "unpitched" sounds interact with reverberant spaces. It takes inspiration in part from the work of Tim Feeney and Baudouin Oosterlynck.

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Center for 21st Century Music

NULL POINT

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