San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2024 Plans

Once again, the San Francisco Tape Music Festival will take place next month, marking the beginning of a new year. This remains our country’s only festival devoted to the performance of synthesized audio compositions projected into a three-dimensional space. That space is configured with 24 high-end loudspeakers; and, for many of the performances, the projection of the audio sources onto those speakers is controlled in real-time. The results are experienced by the audience sitting in total darkness.

Pierre Schaeffer at work in his studio (from the Eventbrite Web page for the Festival) 

Once again, the Festival will see four performances of “fixed media” compositions by 46 local and international composers. This year programs have been prepared to celebrate 75 years of musique concrète. Each of the four programs will begin with a work composed by Pierre Schaeffer in 1948, four of the five pieces collected under the title Cinq études de bruits (five studies of noises). Specific dates and times of the four performances are as follows:

    •    Friday, January 5, 8:30 p.m.
    •    Saturday, January 6, 7 p.m.
    •    Saturday, January 6, 9:30 p.m.
    •    Sunday, January 7, 7 p.m.

As in the past the second Saturday concert will feature late-night appropriate works that lean towards ambient and long-form explorations. The specific compositions to be performed at each of these concerts will be as follows:

Friday January 5, 2024 (8:30pm)
    •    PIERRE SCHAEFFER - Étude aux chemins de fer (1948)
    •    LUCIANO BERIO - Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1959)
    •    ROYOJI IKEDA - Ultrasonics 02 (2022)
    •    JONTY HARRISON - Kammermusik (2022)
    •    PATRICIA MARTÍNEZ (1973-2022) - Del cuadro a la postergación (1994)
    •    L.J. ALTVATER - Zoos and Airports 1 (2023)
    •    THOM BLUM - New Work (2023)
    •    RAPHAEL RADNA - strung (2022)
    •    NICHOLAS VIRGO & ALISTAIR MACDONALD - A Confluence of Birds (2022)
    •    MARIA PELEKANOU - Nach der Stille (After the silence) (2020)
    •    TIMOTHY ROY - Brompton & Braeswood (2023)

Saturday January 6, 2024 (7:00pm)
    •    PIERRE SCHAEFFER - Étude pathétique (1948)
    •    BEVIN KELLEY - OMNII POLYHEDRAL PARTICULATES (2023)
    •    JAVIER ÁLVAREZ (1956-2023) - Mambo à la Braque (1990)
    •    DAVID BEREZAN - Ukulele (2023)
    •    MANUELLA BLACKBURN - Cupboard Love (2022)
    •    FERNANDO LOPEZ-LEZCANO - New Work (2023)
    •    EMIL MARGOLIS - So We Won’t Forget (Venice Lido Sunset Mix feat. Alex Ness) (2022)
    •    KRISTIN MILTNER - New Work (2023)
    •    JEFF RICE - Sheep drive (2021)
    •    ROCÍO CANO VALIÑO - Okno (2020)
    •    BERNADETTE JOHNSON - Disturbed Waltz (2023)

Saturday January 6, 2023 (9:30pm)
    •    PIERRE SCHAEFFER - Étude violette (1948)
    •    CLIFF CARUTHERS - Natoma (2003)
    •    XOPHER DAVIDSON - Elegy (VII) (2022-2023)
    •    JULIE HERNDON - From Nothing (2023)
    •    ELIZABETH ANDERSON - Les ailes de l'augure (2021)
    •    FABIO SELVAFIORITA - Convexities, among the ruins (from THE FALL) (2020)
    •    MATIAS VILAPLANA STARK - Funeral For A Whale (2023)

Sunday January 7, 2023 (7:00pm)
    •    PIERRE SCHAEFFER - Étude aux tourniquets (1948)
    •    IANNIS XENAKIS - Concret PH (1958)
    •    THOUGHT GANG (ANGELO BADALAMENTI (1937–2022) & DAVID LYNCH) - Stalin Revisited (2018)
    •    GILLES GOBEIL - Un cercle hors de l'arbre (2014-2015)
    •    MAGGI PAYNE - Aries 2020 (2020)
    •    MATT INGALLS - Scherzo. Allegro molto (2002/2023)
    •    BRIAN REINBOLT - Bischoff Surface Variations (2023)
    •    MATT ROBIDOUX - Corn Straw Ball (2023)
    •    JOÃO PEDRO OLIVEIRA - N'vi'ah (2019)
    •    ADAM STANOVIĆ - Unto the Sea (2022)
    •    BOYI BAIA - Echoes of National Parks (2023)
    •    JOHN GIBSON - In Summer Rain (2021)

All performances will take place in the Victoria Theatre, located in the Mission at 2961 16th Street, one block east of the 16th Street BART Station and the Muni bus stops on the corner of Mission Street. General admission will be $20 for each concert with a special $10 rate for balcony seating and for the underemployed. The one exception will be the 9:30 p.m. show on Saturday, which will be $10 for all. As in the past, there will be a festival pass sold for all four concerts for $50. Tickets will be available at the door after 7 p.m. on each of the three days of the festival, and only cash will be accepted. Eventbrite has created a Web page for advance ticket purchases for both individual concerts and the festival pass.