Monday, May 3, 2021

The Bleeding Edge: 5/3/2021

Once again there was a one-week hiatus in these reports, since the last Bleeding Edge article appeared on April 19. This time, however, that gap has been compensated by a more generous number of events. One of these offerings, the second installment in Karl Evagenlista’s Unsolitary series of improvised performances, was announced at the end of last week. However, as was the case last month, most of this week’s “action” will be taking place under the auspices of the Mills College Music Department and the Center for Contemporary Music. Specifics are as follows:

Tuesday, May 4, 7 p.m.: The Mills Student Musicians will perform in the spring Showcase Concert. One of them, Maisha Lani, will perform two of her own compositions, “The Wolf” and “Bap Boom,” providing her own instrumental and electronic accompaniment. The one ensemble performance will be of John Cage’s “Six,” performed by the students in the Mills Percussion Ensemble directed by William Winant. Sam Regan will provide the audio mix for the video stream. Other featured soloists will be vocalists Lillith Era and Julia “Jett” Barker. This will be the latest free program in the Music From Mills Classes series. The event page for this concert will provide a link for on-demand viewing at showtime.

Wednesday, May 5, 5 p.m.: Zeena Parkins will direct the next Selected Issues in Contemporary Composition and Improvisation performance at Mills. The title of the program will be Sounds of the Sonosphere, Poetic Responses to Listening. This will be the next free program in the Music From Mills Classes series. The event page for this concert has an embedded video player.

Wednesday, May 5, 8 p.m.: This will be an Introduction to Electronic Music Concert presented by the ten students in the class taught by Kaori Suzuki. The title of the program will be Imagine the Music as a Moving Chain or Caterpillar. All of the offerings will be based on experiments in working with analog technology based on voltage-controlled synthesis. In the course of the performance, all noise and accidents are welcome. This will be the next free program in the Music From Mills Classes series. The event page for this concert will provide the link for on-demand viewing at showtime.

Thursday, May 6, 5 p.m.: The Audium Theater is a pitch-black, 176-speaker space. It is the only theater of its kind in the world, pioneering the exploration of space in music for over 45 years. It has recently been upgraded and now allows for crisper and more immersive sound movement than ever before. Audium Sound Hour is the first performance to be given in the new space. Each performance is private, charging $100 for up to four people and $25 for each additional person with a maximum of ten in the audience. Ticketing is handled through a City Box Office event page. Note that, as of this writing, tickets are available for 5 p.m. on May 6; but subsequent performances are sold out until 8 p.m. on Friday, May 7.

Piano Break pianist Jenny Q Chai (courtesy of Peter McDowell Arts Consulting)

Friday, May 7, 5 p.m.: This week’s Piano Break streamed recital presented by the Ross McKee Foundation definitely counts as a Bleeding Edge event. Jenny Q Chai will take a multimedia approach to presenting her program. This will include two of György Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata compositions (the first and the seventh), which will be performed with visualizations of global warming data compiled by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She will also perform the Bay Area premiere of Milica Pavlovic’s “Paranosic Bubble (in trouble),” played in a setting of a bubble machine and lights. In a somewhat more conventional setting, Jarosław Kapuściński’s “Side Effects” will be played in a setting of photographs by Kacper Kowalski. This will be the final selection in a program that will begin with Kapuściński’s “Oli’s Dream.” The other multimedia offering will be Andy Akiho’s arrangement of Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” (also being given its Bay Area premiere) in a setting of paintings by Camryn Connolly. The overall title of this program will be Humanity First: We Are All In This Together. The concert will last under an hour and will be streamed through YouTube. The link for this video will be posted on the Web page for the Ross McKee Foundation YouTube channel.

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