Program
Kalun LEUNG, Bettina SZABO, Travis WEST - Migrations Part 1 (Premiere) for augmented movement, and mubone augmented trombone
Kalun Leung (co-creator, movement, sound design) Travis West (co-creator, music interaction design), Bettina Szabo (co-creator, movement, choreography)
Kalun LEUNG - Garcia - solo sound and movement work
Kalun Leung (mubone augmented trombone), Bettina Szabo (choreography), Travis West (electronics)
PAMELA Z - Works for solo voice and electronics
All works composed and performed by Pamela Z, © Last Letter Music (ASCAP)
Quatre Couches (2015) [4:00]
Badagada (1988) [4:30]
Typewriter (1995) [3:00]
Declaratives (2005) [4:00]
Broom (2009) [5:00]
Pop Titles ‘You’ (1986) [3:30]
Le Corps (2022) [6:30]
Unknown Person (from Baggage Allowance, 2010) [5:30]
Syrinx (2003) [2:00]
Other Rooms (2018) [7:00]
Ticket Reservations
*Reservations for this concert are now full, but you are welcome to sign up for our waiting list (using the same reservation form below). Guests on the waitlist are welcome to show up 10 minutes before the concert and will be granted entry if there are any remaining seats.*
This event is open to the general public and free with seat reservation.
*For CIRMMT students wishing to have their attendance tracked for awards eligibility, please ensure to reserve your own seat.
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Program Notes
Migrations Part I is the first in a series of place-inspired works for sensor-augmented movers. The work will feature a spatialized soundscape composed of field recordings from Hong Kong which has been developed specifically for the large-scale multichannel sound system in MMR. The piece is inspired by the authors’ migratory experiences in navigating new cultures and landscapes as first generation immigrants.
Garcia is the middle name of my childhood nanny who helped take care of me from birth to age 4. The single digit years of a human life are so formative and foundational, but it is often this decade that is most easily forgotten. When Jackie found me on Facebook in 2020 during a time of intense identity reckoning that was brought on by COVID-19 among other challenges, I saw it as a fascinating opportunity to uncover my past through her memories. What was I like? Was I a brat?
This piece is inspired by this process of uncovering memories through others and through self-discovery. Having immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong at age 4 with only one memory from this time, reconnecting with my nanny was a way for me to reconstruct how I navigated immigration and assimilation as a child, and to ascertain why I am the way I am. Sounds are recorded, triggered and manipulated via this memory “sound palette” that is represented by the space around the performer, and the trombone is used as a memory logger and jogger, stylized by the performer’s movements. - Kalun Leung
Quatre Couches is a sonic trifle, tiramisu, or mille-feuille – juxtaposing four contrasting layers and toying with them – mixing them and moving them around on the plate until they all melt away. In Badagada one of my early digital delay pieces, the syllables "ba-da-ga-da-ga-da-ga-da-ga" are layered in multiple delay lines to form a harmonic, rhythmic accompaniment to a melody sung in English. Typewriter uses voice, processing, and typewriter samples (triggered with a gesture controller). Declaratives combines live and sampled text fragments, which are further fragmented and layered through delay and granulation processes. The text samples were originally created for a six-channel sound installation in an exhibition called “The Art of Artist Statement.” Broom was originally composed as part of a score commissioned by choreographer Jo Kreiter for a dance work about woman bridge-builders, and its lyrics were taken from interviews with women who worked construction in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pop Titles 'You' is a found text piece for voice and three delay lines. The text was taken from a page out of the Phonolog Report, a reference publication that was once found at the center of every record store – cataloguing the titles, composers, and performers of all commercial recordings that were currently in print. Le Corps is woven from layered samples of French choreographer Christine Bonansea’s speaking voice, which are played using a gesture-controlled MIDI instrument. Unknown Person is an excerpt from Baggage Allowance, an intermedia work that scans and inventories the belongings (and memories) we all cart around. Syrinx is named for the avian vocal organ. In this little extract from my longer 2004 sound work, a birdsong is pitch-shifted and consequently stretched until its individual notes are slow enough and low enough to be accurately produced by a human voice. Other Rooms is constructed from samples of the speaking voice of Paul David Young taken from an interview I recorded as part of the process of making my performance work, Memory Trace. - Pamela Z
Biographies
Born in Uruguay, Bettina Szabo is a dancer and choreographer. Before she arrived in Montreal in 2007, she studies with Hebe Rosa (Uruguay), and Rami Be’er (Israel). She graduated from the EDCM in 2013 in Dance, and obtained her BFA in Choreography at Concordia University in 2017, both in Montreal. She follows many workshops with renowned artists such as Marie Chouinard, Dave St Pierre, Hildegard De Vyust, Guy Cools, Benoit Lachambre, and Clara Furey.
Kalun Leung is a collaborative trombonist, augmented instrumentalist, and sound artist with an extended practice in instrument building, electronics, and movement. His projects are motivated by the exploration of new and unexpected contexts in which the trombone can thrive, an interdisciplinary and research-based approach that has led to the invention of new electronic trombone augmentations, the study of Balkan brass band music in Guča, the premiere of never-before-seen Keith Haring computer art, the mounting of a Fluxus-inspired trombone sound sculpture, and site-specific improvisations with landfills and robots.
Travis West is a multidisciplinary programmer, composer-performer, and musical instrument designer. His research explores the design of gestural interfaces, sound synthesis algorithms, and the mappings made between the two. These inquiries culminate in the creation of new digital musical instruments and interactive systems such as the body:suit:score, a full-body wearable vibrotactile musical score, and the mubone, a trombone-enabled digital-acoustic musical instrument made in collaboration with trombonist Kalun Leung. Travis completed his Bachelors in Electroacoustic Music Composition at Concordia University in 2017, and his Masters degree in Music Technology at McGill in 2020. He is currently pursuing a Ph. D. in cotutelle with McGill and the University of Lille on the subject of Music Technology and Computer Science, under the supervision of Dr. Marcelo M. Wanderley and Dr. Stephane Huot.
Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist working primarily with voice, live electronics, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live digital looping techniques, she processes her voice in real time to create dense, complex sonic layers. Her solo works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and wireless MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. In addition to her solo work, she has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theatre, film, and chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Julia Bullock with SF Symphony, and the LA Philharmonic New Music Group. Her interdisciplinary performance works have been presented at venues including The Kitchen (NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), REDCAT (LA), and MCA (Chicago), and her installations have been presented at such exhibition spaces as the Whitney (NY), Savvy Contemporary (Berlin), and the Krannert (IL). Pamela Z has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. She has performed in numerous festivals including Bang on a Can (NY), Interlink (Japan), Other Minds (San Francisco), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Dak’Art (Sénégal) and Pina Bausch Tanztheater Festival (Wuppertal). She’s a recipient of numerous awards including the Rome Prize, United States Artists, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Guggenheim, Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, Herb Alpert Award, an Ars Electronica honorable mention, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. She holds a music degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder. www.pamelaz.com