Sound Symposium Day 3 Recap
Joshua Le Gallienne, with is installation, Action Without Action, at the Craft Council Gallery. Helium filled balloons with glass bells attached. Photo by Greg Locke.
At 10 a.m. on the third day of Sound Symposium XXI, composer Andrew Gosse invited guests to take in his installation, Order Comforts Chaos in which the participant listened to a 20-minute composition of music and spoken word while meandering throughout the building at their leisure. The purpose? To give the listener a look into the artist’s experience with OCD. As a reuslt of his condition, Gosse walks with a certain 1-2-3 rhythm which he elicited the listener to do so with a constant count within the recording. The use of headphones allowed the listener to have a completely isolated inner experience that emulates Gosse’s own experience.
Andrew Gosse photographed by Terry Day
After another triumphant edition of the Harbour Symphony, the multi-talented musician and educator Persio Dominguez Piantini gave a workshop – with much crowd participation – on various instruments and musical styles within Dominican Folklore. In addition to giving an overview on Dominican rhythms like salsa and bachata and instruments such as the marimbula and conguito, the history of Dominican folklore music was elucidated, including its history with colonization and multicultural origins. As this music has long been an oral tradition, Piantini highlighted the importance of transcription in preserving the culture.
Participants explored the sensory experience of the body, its movement through space, and their identity with it in Sarah Joy Stokers workshop Moving From your Cellular Body. Through Stokers gentle invitations, folks went from gentle floor-bound writhing movements to out-and-out extasis in leaps and bounds around the room, seemingly devoid of any perceivable self consciousness.
Back downtown at the Craft Council Gallery, British non-binary artist Joshua Le Gallienne presented their site-responsive installation Action Without Action, in which helium filled balloons adorned with bells react to environmental changes including those present in the room.
Accompanied by musician Jing Xia, poet Andreae Callahan, and the animations of Ava Moyes, Louise Moyes presented her spoken word piece Comedy of Care, which explored women’s roles in caregiving through her own lived experiences. Highlighting the tendency to lose sight of oneself while in the care of those we love, Moyes’ presentation was a poignant yet comical look into these dynamics. Andreae Callahan recited a poem that described her own experiences with playing constant catch-up with motherly duties while Jing Xia accompanied the whole affair with beautiful guzheng plucking.
Gregory Oh. Photographed by Terry Day ay DF Cook Hall.
Certainly a virtuosic focal point of the evening, pianist Gregory Oh presented his show Lessons in Failure, a mixture of storytelling and emotive performances of compositions of some of the worlds most celebrated composers including Glass Houses 5 by Ann Southam,
Intermezzo Op 118 no 2 by Johannes Brahms, Battle of Manassas by Thomas Wiggins, Premiere Ogive by Erik Satie, La Ricordanza by Carl Czerny, and a wild, triumphant finish with B minor Sonata by Franz Liszt. From the hilarious story of being compelled to practice as young boy out of shame with being caught with a dirty magazine, to his inability to land a residency with a prestigious organization, Oh led us through the failures and music that informed his life, leading him to where he is today.
As per tradition, the night was officially closed out at The Ship for another edition of Night Music, this time with Natasha Blackwood and her repertoire of infectiously catchy jazz pop hits. Blackwood and her band played a set of new and old songs, even a repurposed country song to better suit her jazz sensibilities. Standout tracks included endearing tracks about friend, family, and the bay.