SFEMF Announces Plans for 23rd Season

The Audium Theatre of Sound listening space (from the City Box Office Web page for its San Francisco Electronic Music Festival event)

This year there will be a change in plans for the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (SFEMF). As was the case last year, there will be three performances at The Lab, which will again provide for the usual system of 32 loudspeakers configured to surround (immerse) the audience through the control of free open source spatial audio tools. However, those performances will be preceded by an event taking place at the Audium Theater of Sound on Thursday, September 19. The program will consist of three unique works of spatial sound art, which were composed specifically to be projected through that venue’s 176 loudspeakers. It is also worth noting that most Audium events take place in total darkness.

The Audium performance will begin the Festival with “Heretical Voicings” by Danishta Rivero, in which her vocal performance will be processed by the signal processing gear in real time. This will be followed by “AFRICALIEN,” composed by Ronald Peabody with recorded brainwaves of an elderly trauma survivor as the sound source. The final selection will be a site-specific work by the duo of Sally Decker and Brendan Glasson, which will explore a variety of qualities and trajectories of movement.

As in the past, specifics for the remaining three programs have not yet been finalized. However the performers for each of the three dates of the Festival at The Lab have been planned as follows:

1. Friday, September 20: Amanda Chaudhary, Pedestrian Deposit (the duo of Shannon A. Kennedy and J. Borges), Evicshen (Victoria Shen)
2. Saturday, September 21: Julie Herndon, Sholeh Asgary, Valerio Tricoli
3. Sunday, September 22: Dustin Wong, Briana Marela, Eddie Ruscha

All four of these performances will begin at 8 p.m. with doors opening at 7:30 p.m. Audium is located at 1616 Bush Street, just to the West of Franklin Street and a short walk from the bus stop on Van Ness Avenue. The Lab is located in the Mission at 2948 16th Street, a short walk from the corner of Mission Street. This latter location is particularly good for those using public transportation, since that corner provides bus stops for both north-south and east-west travel as well as a BART station.

This year all tickets for The Lab will be sold through a single DICE Web page. That Web page includes general admission for a single program for $20 and a Full Festival Pass for $44.99. The Audium performance will be ticketed separately through a City Box Office Web page with admission prices for $23 and $28. There will be no late entry. A limited number of pay-what-you-can tickets will be available at the door on a first come, first served basis.