A veteran to the Experimental Sound Studio, Alejandro Acierto performs three pieces for three different media this Sunday at 7:30 pm.
Ceaseless Cease (2009) for clarinet and electronics by Kyong Mee Choi • She writes:
Ceaseless Cease depicts the endless turmoil of the human condition that stems from human desire. If we try to stop desire, however, we create another form of desire. The title refers to this dichotomy in the attempt to end what cannot be ended.
Water Study #2 (2016) by Timothy Edwards • The composer writes:
This is one of a series of pieces that transforms sounds from the clarinet captured on microphone during performance.
all that remains (2015) by Alejandro Acierto • The composer writes:
As part of my last recorded project Amid These Traces, this work foregrounds the voice as an expressive and conceptual subject embodying strategies of constraint. As a way to consider the body, presence, and communication, the voice is interrupted in multiple iterations through live processing. Caught in the moment of communicative dis-clarity, this work draws on improvisational parameters – colliding in ways that reference the virtuosic demands of classical music’s “new complexity.” Through this work, the vestiges of language glisten though words are never spoken. The normalization of stutterances forces us to contend with its about- to-ness – as pregnant combinations of breath and sound prevail. Pushed towards exhaustion, frustration, and physical (dis)ability, the body’s facility to communicate is troubled. These residual sounds that remain after the voice has undergone multiple constraints are the traces of language that linger between music, speech, communication, and utterance.
Alejandro T. Acierto is an artist and musician working in time-based media. He has exhibited his work at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Issue Project Room, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Salisbury University, SOMArts and presented performance works at the Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival, Center for Performance Research, and Center for New Music and Technology. Acierto has held residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Banff Centre, High Concept Laboratories, and Chicago Artists’ Coalition. He is currently a FT/FN/FG Consortium Fellow, a Center Program Artist at the Hyde Park Art Center, and teaches at UIC and Truman College. Acierto received his undergraduate degree from DePaul University, a MM from Manhattan School of Music, an MFA in New Media Arts from University Illinois at Chicago, is a recipient of the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Darmstadt Festival for New Music, and founding member of contemporary chamber orchestra Ensemble Dal Niente in Chicago. You can find out more about him at alejandroacierto.com.
Also on the program:
Skallagrimsson, for 2-channel audio and piano by David Heuser performed by Lawrence Axelrod • The composer writes:
Skallagrimsson, for 2-channel tape and piano, is based on a solo piano piece (Piano Solo No. 8 – Skallagrimsson) which I wrote in 1989. It is in four sections (fast, fast, slow, fast). The close synchronization required between the performer and the tape reminds me at times of John Henry’s race against the railroad spike driving machine. Hopefully our performer will not suffer his fate (I haven’t lost anyone yet). The name of the work comes from the title character of Egil’s Saga, Egil Skallagrimsson. Egil’s Saga, one of the major Icelandic sagas, was written around 1230 AD, possibly by Snorri Sturlason. Egil Skallagrimsson, like many Icelandic saga character, is full of contradictions. He is a hulking, violent brute with a misshapen head and an axe nicknamed Skullsplitter, and he is also a poet of great talent and renown.
Getting By (2016) for Moog theremini and processing by Elizabeth Start
Melt (2016) for guitar, cello, piano and three laptop computers by Beth Bradfish • performers include Elizabeth Start, Timothy Johnson, Lawrence Axelrod, Kyong Mee Choi, Timothy Edwards and the composer
Aurora Inscrutabile (2016) for cello and electronics by Timothy Ernest Johnson performed by Craig Hultgren
Sunday, April 3 at 7:30 pm
Experimental Sound Studio
5925 N Ravenswood
Chicago
$15/$5
tickets: c3icewater.brownpapertickets.com