Ting Luo – Friday, October 4 at 8 pm
Ting Luo, piano
Maria Kallionpää (composer) and Andre Veloux (visual artist) The Reef World Premiere
Mark Winges (composer) and Jody Zellen (visual artist) Points Becoming World Premiere
Vera Ivanova (composer) and Anne Stagg (visual artist) Toy Phantasy World Premiere
Aries Mond Choose World Premiere
Aries Mond Converse World Premiere
Yalan Chang improvisation with fixed media
Dilate Ensemble improvisation with fixed media
Presented by New Arts Collaboration
Join us for an evening of groundbreaking music and multimedia art presented by New Arts Collaboration. This concert showcases the world premieres of The Reef, Points Becoming, and Toy Phantasy, each bringing a unique blend of sound and visuals. These pieces delve into themes ranging from the fragility of marine ecosystems to the dynamic processes of transformation and imagination.
Featuring performances by the guest pianist Motoko Honda, composers Maria Kallionpää, Mark Winges, Vera Ivanova, the audio/visual group Dilate Ensemble, and visual artists including Andre Veloux, Anne Stagg, Jody Zellen, and Yalan Chang, the event promises to be an inspiring fusion of artistic disciplines. Experience the synergy of music, technology, and visual art in a setting that pushes the boundaries of contemporary performance.
About the music:
The Reef (World Premiere) The work is based on a sample recorded at Thailand’s Mu Koh Lanta National Marine Park. Being somewhat limited in its spectral composition, the excerpt consisted of a swimmer proceeding towards a coral reef. The video element of the premiere was created by assigning colours to different hexadecimal bytes of source code of sound files of the piece, producing colour bar codes. Andre used the Lego colour palette to facilitate the creation of physical artworks from these colour bar codes.
The goal of this series of works discussed above is to draw attention on the importance of protecting our marine environments. Together with the real-time video artwork, the music of The Reef paints a picture of the gradual damaging that pollution causes to the coral reefs. However, with the help of computer-based analysis, also the vivid colors of such ecosystems were translated into music, giving us a gleam of hope. Maybe it is not too late to do something?
Points Becoming (World Premiere) is a one movement work with two contrasting moods / sections. Throughout, the piece explores how a “point” becomes “something else”. In the first section, individual notes expand into chords and short, staccato chords expand into wider, sustained notes and chords. In the slower, second section, widely spaced notes (“points”) contract, or narrowly spaced notes expand. In this sense, the music is always “becoming”.
The animation for Points Becoming is part of an ongoing series that features simple shapes and stick figures that when seen together form a larger dream-like narrative about the trials and tribulations of life. These animations explore the relationship of an imagined past and future, taking into consideration the years of the pandemic and the effects of isolation. The are figures anonymous silhouette signs for everyone and are meant to evoke emotions and sympathy without having faces. It is their actions and interactions and how we project onto them, that gives them life.
Toy Phantasy (World Premiere) for piano and fixed audio was composed in 2022-2023 for Luo Ting, the first performer of the work. The piece has been inspired by the poem by John Updike Player Piano, originally published in The New Yorker. While the poem is about player piano, some of its characteristics and specific words used by the author (“click,” “chuckling,” “pluck”) reminded me of a different, but related instrument – a toy piano, which I sampled and included in the piece along with select words from the poem. Most intriguing for me were certain words in this poem (such as “misstrums”), which led me into writing a phantasmagoric piece with pre-recorded spoken and sung words borrowed from the poem and transformed freely, using computer software and my imagination.
Ting Luo, pianist, and director of New Arts Collaboration. Ting has curated a multimedia music and art project New Arts Collaboration since 2020. She actively collaborates with artists from multiple disciplines including visual artists, composers, and sound artists. Works by NAC have been featured in The San Luis Obispo Museum of Art’s Digital Shorts Film Festival, New Music Gathering Conference/Festival, and are programmed in Old First Concert Series, The Center of New Music, Thailand New Music and Arts Symposium, etc. She performed her original piano compositions as well as solo and ensemble works by classical composers and living composers in prestigious events including The 2022 Bethany Arts Community Multidisciplinary Residency and Dragon’s Egg Presents at University Settlement in New York, Hot Air Music Festival in San Francisco, the Contemporary Art Music Project Festival – CAMPGround22 in Tampa, NowNet Arts Conference 2022 in Stanford, etc. LTingarts.com
Critically-acclaimed Japanese-born pianist/composer/interdisciplinary media artist Motoko Honda has created a distinctive sound through her holistic approach to music, her collaborative sensibility to multiple art forms and inspired use of innovative technologies. Portrayed as a “Keyboard Alchemist” (Chris Barton, Los Angeles Times) and the “Embodiment of a Muse” (Greg Burk, metaljazz.com), Honda has fascinated critics and audiences alike with her genre-defying innovative approach to piano playing and composing: “Imagine Radiohead teaching Franz Liszt how to rock a Kaoss Pad; or John Cage facing off with Bud Powell over prepared piano”(Matthew Duersten, stompbeast.com). www.motokohonda.com
Dr. Maria Kallionpää is an internationally active composer and pianist, working as an artistic researcher at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold since 2023. Kallionpää was an assistant professor of composition and contemporary music performance at the Hong Kong Baptist University (2018-2022), and has been a composer in residence of the Mixed Reality Laboratory of the University of Nottingham since 2016 until present. In collaboration with her colleague Markku Klami, Kallionpää composed the first full length puppet opera produced in the Nordic Countries (premiered in 2018). Kallionpää obtained her MMus degree in composition at the Royal Academy of Music in 2008 and a DPhil in music composition at the University of Oxford in 2015, and was a laureate of Académie de France à Rome in 2016.
Based in San Francisco, Mark Winges has been resident composer / advisor for Volti since 1990. He is a graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, SF State University, and has studied at the Musikhögskolan in Stockholm, Sweden with composer Arne Mellnäs. He has had residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Fundación Valparaiso (Spain), Ragdale Foundation, the Visby International Centre for Composers (Sweden), and a Lucas Artists Residency at Villa Montalvo. He is currently working on The Guardians of Yggdrasil, a staged work for chorus and electronic sounds that will be premiered in spring, 2025. www.markwinges.com
Vera Ivanova is a composer and on faculty at Chapman University (Associate Professor of Music, Music Theory/Composition Department) and the Colburn School. She graduated from Moscow Conservatory (BM and MM), Guildhall School in London (MM), and Eastman School (Ph.D.) with degrees in music composition. Her compositions have been performed worldwide and received many national and international awards. Her music has been published by Universal Edition (UE 31899) and released on CD by Ablaze Records (Millennial Masters series, Vol. 2), Quartz Music, Ltd., Navona Recordings (Nova and Allusions albums), Musiques & Recherches (Métamorphoses 2004), and Centaur Records (CRC 3056). www.veraivanova.com.
Aries Mond (Boris Billier) starts to work in the field of sound arts in 2002. He starts to focus on instrumental music since 2012, using Aries Mond moniker, his music is published by eilean rec and iikki. He is also involved in many collaborations with contemporary theatre and dance. www.ariesmond.com
British artist Andre Veloux has shown across the USA including twice at Art Basel week in Miami. He is best known for his feminist work which is defined artistically within the parameters of modern feminism and gender exploration, including exploration of the human form. His work which is created entirely from Lego is in private collections worldwide and has been installed in public spaces as well as many group shows. He has also held several live art events including at Princeton University centred on the theme of consent. He is currently represented by the Krause Gallery, New York City. www.veloux.com
Jody Zellen is a Los Angeles based artist who works in many media simultaneously. She makes animations, interactive installations, app art, net art, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artists’ books. Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). Her work has been included in more than 500 group exhibitions and festivals since the late 1980s and is in numerous private and museum the collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. www.jodyzellen.com
Anne Stagg is an artist and educator living and working in Tallahassee, Florida. Her paintings explore the various systems of our lives: legal, financial, regulatory, social, political. Typically designed to streamline and simplify complex tasks, these practices act as a visible scaffold to support society, however they are often more complex than promised and as a result, fall short or fail. She is particularly drawn to the promise they offer, in contrast to their failure rate and how many systems are layered one on top of another. Stagg uses color and pattern as metaphor for one-size-fits-all systems that often prove inadequate. www.annestagg.com
Dilate Ensemble (DE) is an audio/visual collaborative group invested in the instantaneous dialogue of sound and image that emanates from deep listening across networked landscapes. DE is interested in amplifying the impact of live presence within the nodal architecture of networked communication. The four musicians of the ensemble, Gloria Damijan, Scott L. Miller, Luisa Muhr and Jon Raskin, work with Kim’s live visuals in a form of an interactive improvisation-based dialogue, as never quite seen before. www.dilateensemble.com
Carole Kim is a media artist with a focus on video projection for multimedia installation, performance and photography. She has a very hands-on, tactile approach to the materials she works with, pushing the moving image to take on optical, spatial and dimensional form. Her work has been presented in a wide range of contexts including experimental music, theater, art, dance and site-specific installation. She is grateful for an ever-expanding community of collaborators across disciplines energized by a process of exploration in the moment. www.carole.kim
Gloria Damijan studied piano and music pedagogy at Music University Vienna with a focus on contemporary music and free improvisation. She has studied with Manon-Lìu Winter, Burkhard Stangl, Franz Hautzinger and Ian Pace and collaborated with Stefan Fraunberger, Vinzenz Schwab, Klaus Filip, Arnold ‘Noid’ Haberl, Christine Schörkhuber and Ye Hui. Working together with composers Tamara Friebel, Margareta Ferek-Petric, Veronika Mayer,Matthias Kranebitter. Damijan has performed in Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Antwerp, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisbon, Porto, Oslo, Hamburg, São Paulo and is a member of the Viennese Improvisers-Network snim. www.gloriadamijan.com
Minnesota composer and electronic musician Scott L. Miller is described as a creator of ‘high adventure avant garde music of the best sort’ (Classical-Modern Music Review). Best known for his electroacoustic chamber music and ecosystemic performance pieces, his music is characterized by collaborative approaches to composition, exploring performer/computer improvisation, and re-imagining ancient compositional processes through the lens of 21st century technology. He is a Professor of Music at St. Cloud State University and Director of Recordings for the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the U.S. (SEAMUS). www.scottlmiller.net
Luisa Muhr is an interdisciplinary art-maker, focusing on vocal and movement art. Her range includes her capacity as a performer, improvisor, installation artist, sound artist, composer, director, and experimental theater maker. Originally from Vienna (Austria), Luisa lives and works in New York, and is at home in the experimental/avant-garde. Her creations range from interdisciplinary installation performance works, experimental and music theater pieces, improvised music and movement, graphic scores and compositions, to video works, and opera. Commissions include the Austrian Cultural Forum NY and Roulette Intermedium. www.luisamuhr.com
Jon Raskin has been a member of Rova Saxophone Quartet for the last 45 years exploring the relationship of improvisation and composition, developing and honing the language of ensemble music and researching linguistic possibilities of the saxophone. He has performed and/ or recorded with Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, Sam Rivers, Tim Berne, Phillip Johnston, Leo Smith, Frank Gratkowsi, Phillip Greenlief and Henry Kaiser. He is involved in ongoing collaborations with the poet Carla Harryman and Shinichi Iova-Koga. www.jonraskin.com
New Arts Collaboration is an interdisciplinary art project for sound and multimedia. NAC was curated by pianist Ting Luo in 2020. NAC connects with artists from multi-disciplined fields, forming a strong bond for artists to collaborate with each other, including living composers, sound artists, visual artists and so on. In our vision, sound as a human expression could be formed and interacted freely and experimentally with other mediums including electronics, tape, visuals, music, etc.
NAC Fundraiser for supporting living composers and interdisciplinary art: https://newartscollaboration.org/fundraiser
More info: https://newartscollaboration.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewArtsCollaboration/