Event Detail

A performance showcasing recent trans-disciplinary works for percussion, live electronic music, interactive video and animation. 
Windward, composed by David Bithell in 2018 and premiered at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity by Aiyun Huang, is a technologically driven meditation on storytelling and the power of myth. Using the head of a concert bass drum as a projection screen, the performer conjures dynamic images and sounds through their musical gestures. The interactive visuals for Windward are created through procedural animation developed in Unity and triggered by audio-analysis cues and events generated in 3ds Max. Real-time audio processing of the bass drum is mixed with pre-recorded sound elements to create an immersive environment.

With visual inspiration drawn from traditional and contemporary shadow play practices combined with the iconography of percussion performance, the second work, Penumbra, focuses on the human form situated in a technologically saturated atmosphere. Collaboratively composed by David Bithell and Terry Longshore in 2014, Penumbra explores the gestural implications of percussion performance, as well as the audience’s expectations about how physical gestures and percussion manifest in sound and image. Penumbra makes use of 2D and 3D animations that are reactive - changing shape, size, and scope in relation to the live musical input. The sonic environment is created out of real-time processing of live input (including granular synthesis and sample triggering), generative sample playback and patterning, and prerecorded electronic elements.

SPEAKER BIO:

David Bithell is an interdisciplinary composer, artist, and performer exploring the connections between visual art, music, theater and performance. Using new technologies and real-time interactive environments, his work brings the precision and structure of contemporary music and audio practices together with an understanding of performance, narrative and humor drawn from recent theater, live cinema and performance art. His works have been presented at major venues in the United States, Europe and Asia. Highlights include: the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), SPARK Festival of Electronic Music and Art (Minneapolis), Ghent International Film Festival, Pixilerations [v.6], the Seoul International Computer Music Festival, the MANCA Festival (France), the IS ARTI Festival (Lithuania), and at numerous colleges and universities in the United States. He has received grants and commissions from Meet the Composer Commissioning Music / USA, the American Composer?s Forum, the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, and the President's Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Fund at SOU. He is a professor of art and emerging media at Southern Oregon University where he heads the Cross-disciplinary Studio for Art and Technology (xARTS) and is a core faculty member of the Center for Emerging Media and Digital Arts (EMDA).
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The ever-evolving Aiyun Huang ( http://www.aiyunghuang.com ) enjoys a musical life as a soloist, chamber musician, researcher, teacher and producer. She was the First Prize and the Audience Award winner at the Geneva International Music Competition in 2002. Recent highlights include engagements with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, St. Lawrence String Quartet, and Aventa Ensemble. Recent collaborations include works with Nicole Lizée, Vivian Fung, Philippe Leroux, Roland Auzet and David Bithell. An expert in "percussion theater," her work on the subject has been published in Cambridge Companion to Percussion (2016) and Save Percussion Theater (Mode 242). She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from UC San Diego. Between 2004 and 2006, she was a faculty fellow at UC San Diego. Between 2006 and 2017, she led the percussion program and was a William Dawson Scholar at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is currently an associate professor, directs the percussion program, and is in the midst of establishing Centre for Brain, Performance, and Music Creation with Michael Thaut (neuroscience/music) and Eliot Britton (music technology/composition) at the University of Toronto.
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Terry Longshore ( http://www.terrylonghsore.com ) is a percussionist based in Ashland, Oregon whose genre-crossing work exhibits the artistry of the concert stage, the spontaneity of jazz and the energy of a rock club. He performs nationally and internationally as a soloist and ensemble member, collaborates with artists working in diverse media and has premiered and recorded numerous works. Longshore is a Yamaha Performing Artist, a Marimba One Vibe Artist, and an artist endorser for Zildjian Cymbals, Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets, Remo Drumheads, Gon Bops Percussion and Beato Bags. He is also a member of the Black Swamp Percussion Education Network. He is a trained HealthRHYTHMS facilitator. He holds bachelor’s degrees in business administration from California State University, Fresno and percussion performance from California State University, Sacramento, and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in contemporary music performance from UC San Diego. He is a professor of music and coordinator of the Music Graduate Program at the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University

MORE INFORMATION:

A reception will be held at 6 p.m.

This event is free and open to the public.

RSVP requested to galleryinfo@calit2.net