ESS has a new online home: www.experimentalsoundstudio.org.

Brett Ian Balogh: Chora

Friday, November 13 - Sunday, December 13

Opening reception Friday, November 13, 6-9pm.

Chora is a computer-controlled installation incorporating video projection and multi-channel audio. Inspired by the Ring of Fire in the Pacific Ocean, an area of great geologic instability, Chora establishes an immersive environment of video and sound constantly and unpredictably transformed by the computer’s algorithms.

Brett Ian Balogh is an artist in Chicago whose work incorporates numerous technologies, both new and old, drawing on his education in both the sciences and the fine arts. He has performed and exhibited at various venues in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.

At the Audible Gallery at ESS
Gallery hours: Saturdays and Sundays 1 - 5pm
Through December 13

25 Acres of Coins: Sound installation by students from the Sound Department of the School of the Art Institute 

Wednesday, November 4 - November 25
Opening reception: Thursday, November 5, 4:30pm–6pm.

Presented in conjunction with the Poetry Center of Chicago and the Learning Modern exhibition at The School of the At Institute of Chicago.

Poets: Bill Allegrezza, Ray Bianchi, Justin Cabrillos, Steve Halle, Philip Jenks, Simone Meunch and Lina Ramona Vitkauskas
Sound Artists: Matt Bourque, Ian Chan, Becky Grajeda, Elon Katz, Lucas Lasky, Jordan Scrivner, Aaron Zarzutzki, Ben Chaffee, Kelly Morrison, Kendra Calhoun and Orla McHardy

Sullivan Galleries entrance foyer, SAIC
33 S. State St.
Exhibition hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am-6pm
Free

Melissa St. Pierre: prepared piano
November 8

Performance: 2pm, Workshop: 4 - 6pm

Melissa St. Pierre presents an hour-long set as part of the 2009 Outer Ear Festival of Sound. Following the performance, Melissa will hold a prepared piano workshop for pianists, composers, musicians and experimenters interested in altering the piano’s innards. This special educational event is presented in partnership with Links Hall.Pianist/Composer Melissa St. Pierre has toured the United States and Europe, both solo and with ensembles. She studied contemporary performance techniques at Bennington College, New England Conservatory and Williams College. She performed at the 50th Anniversary of the
writing of John Cage’s 4′33″ as part of a celebration of Black Mountain College. Avant music label Table of the Elements released St. Pierre’s debut EP Specimens, leading to collaborations with
Collections of Colonies of Bees, Megafaun, and Arnold Dreyblatt with performances at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Bohemian National Home, Salem Art Works, Middle East and Knitting Factory, among others. Festivals performed in include Troikafest, South By Southwest, BBMix
(FR), and Fantastic Voyagers, among others.

Suggested donation for concert $10, all proceeds benefit ESS as part of its Sunday Solo performance series. Workshop registration: $30, $25 for students and ESS members. Advance registration recommended. To register for the workshop, visit: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/87389

Experimental Sound Studio

5925 N. Ravenswood

2009 Outer Ear Festival of Sound

Experimental Sound Studio announces its annual festival of sonic arts, including performances, installations, and broadcasts. Outer Ear the only comprehensive sonic arts festival in the Chicago region.

25 Acres of Coins: Sound installation by students from the Sound Department of the School of the Art Institute 

Wednesday, November 4 - November 25

Opening reception: Thursday, November 5, 4:30pm–6pm.

Presented in conjunction with the Poetry Center of Chicago and the Learning Modern exhibition at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.Poets: Bill Allegrezza, Ray Bianchi, Justin Cabrillos, Steve Halle, Philip Jenks, Simone Meunch, and Lina Ramona VitkauskasSound artists: Matt Bourque, Ian Chan, Becky Grajeda, Elon Katz, Lucas Lasky, Jordan Scrivner, Aaron Zarzutzki, Ben Chaffee, Kelly Morrison, Kendra Calhoun, and Orla McHardy.

Sullivan Galleries entrance foyer, SAIC 33 S. State St. map

Exhibition hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am-6pm

Free

Melissa St. Pierre: Prepared Piano Performance and Workshop

Sunday, November 8

Performance: 2pm, Workshop: 4pm-6pm

Workshop: 4-6pm: Prepared piano workshop, for pianists, composers, musicians, and experimenters interested in altering the piano’s innards. Presented in partnership with Links Hall.

Experimental Sound Studio

5925 N. Ravenswood

Suggested donation for concert $10, all proceeds benefit ESS as part of its Sunday Solo performance series. Workshop registration: $30, $25 for students and ESS members. Advance registration recommended. To purchase workshop tickets, visit: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/87389

Reactor and Countdown: two sound installations by MW Burns

Monday, November 9 – Wednesday, December 9

Opening reception: Friday, November 6, 6pm.

Burns’ uncanny installations take advantage of inaccessible locations, such as locked closets, to tease the listener and call attention to our innate curiosity and desire for inclusion

Chicago Cultural Center

77 E. Randolph St.

Free

Gesualdo Translations/The Chicago Version: Alessandro Bosetti in collaboration with students from the Sound Department at the School of the Art Institute:

Tuesday, November 10, 7pm

Bosetti and his collaborators will record people throughout Chicago singing along to renaissance madrigals by the Neapolitan composer Gesualdo da Venosa.  The resulting recordings will be transformed into a polyphonic electro-acoustic performance that superimposes languages and histories.

Claudia Cassidy Theater, Chicago Cultural Center

77 E. Randolph Street

Free

Variable Area: Hearing and Seeing Sound, 1966–78

Thursday, November 12, 6pm

Curated by film scholar Michelle Puetz, this program presents films that investigate the visual and aural possibilities of 16mm optical audio, as sounds perform images and images become sonic scores.  Works by Peter Kubelka, Chris Langdon, Robert Russett, Paul Sharits, Barry Spinello, and a live accompaniment by musicians Art Lange, Guillermo Gregorio, and Brian Labycz to Richard Lerman’s Sections for Screen Performers and Audience (1974).

Gene Siskel Film Center

164 N. State St 

$9 general admission, $5 Film Center members, $4 AIC staff, students and faculty

Co-presented with Conversations at the Edge, Department of Film Video and New Media at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Brett Ian Balogh: Chora

Friday, November 13 - Sunday, December 13

Opening reception Friday, November 13, 6-9pm.

Chora is a computer-controlled installation incorporating video projection and multi-channel audio. Inspired by the Ring of Fire in the Pacific Ocean, an area of great geologic instability, Chora establishes an immersive environment of video and sound constantly and unpredictably transformed by the computer’s algorithms.

Audible Gallery at ESS

5925 N. Ravenswood

Gallery hours: Saturdays and Sundays 1pm-5pm

Closed November 26-29

Free

Tremendous Ferntuity: four-channel sound installation by Jeff Kowalkowski.Sunday, December 6, 2009 – Tuesday, March 31, 2010Opening reception: Sunday, December 6, 3-5pm

Tremendous Ferntuity combines electronically processed voice and instrument recordings into a calmly ambiguous, peaceful environment within the Fern Room, intended as a meditation on good luck in life.

Fern Room, Lincoln Park Conservatory2491 N. Stockton Drive. Exhibition hours: daily 9am-5pm. Free

MW Burns is a sound installation artist in Chicago who creates pieces for galleries, museums and public spaces. . He has exhibited widely in the US, with Chicago venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Cultural Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. 

Melissa St. Pierre is a pianist and composer based in Pittsburgh specializing in prepared piano repertoire and exploration. She has performed and recorded prepared piano pieces by John Cage and other composers, and collaborates with numerous composers, musicians and ensembles, including the groups Technical Drawings and Gangwish.

Alessandro Bosetti is a composer and sound artist born in Milan, Italy in 1973, currently residing in Berlin and Baltimore. He works across the boundaries of sound anthropology and composition, investigating the musicality of speech, unusual aspects of spoken communication, translation, and misunderstanding in the creation of live performances, radio works and published recordings.

Michelle Puetz is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago where she is working on a dissertation on experimental cinema and sound in the 1960s and 70s.  She teaches part-time in the Department of Film Video and New Media at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is the director of programming at the Chicago Film Archives.

Art Lange has produced more than two dozen recordings for artists like Matthew Shipp, Ellery Eskelin, Ran Blake and Guillermo Gregorio, and he has directed ensembles in the music of Cornelius Cardew and Anthony Braxton. His writings on music have been published across the U.S., England and Europe. He teaches at Columbia College, Chicago.

Brian Labycz is an improviser Chicago primarily performing with electronics.  He draws from a range of sources including analog synthesizers, acoustic instruments, digital manipulations, field recordings, and self-made devices to produce and explore various expressive forms.

Guillermo Gregorio is a composer, improviser, and visual artist in Chicago.  Trained in architecture and music, he was associated with the Madi movement in Argentina in the 60s, and the spirit of experimentation across forms continues.  He is especially noted for his compositions that combine improvisation and composed elements through graphic notation.

Brett Ian Balogh is an artist in Chicago whose work incorporates numerous technologies, both new and old, drawing on his education in both the sciences and the fine arts. He has performed and exhibited at various venues in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.

Jeff Kowalkowski is a composer, musician, and educator in Chicago. He received his doctorate in composition from Northwestern University and currently teaches part-time at DePaul University.  His chamber music works have been performed internationally, and he has engaged in numerous collaborations with musicians, artists, performers and students. Presented as part of the ESS Florasonic sound installation series.

Presenting partners: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago: Sound Department and Department of Film Video and New Media, The Gene Siskel Film Center, The Poetry Center of Chicago, The Italian Cultural Institute, The Chicago Park District, The Chicago Cultural Center, MB Financial Bank

Chicago’s musical luminaries present hour-long solo sets in the cozy confines of the ESS recording studio. Thought-provoking music, a glass of wine and good company: what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

Jason Adasiewicz: vibraphone

October 18, 2009

2pm

A prolific member of Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scene, Jason Adasiewicz is quickly gaining widespread recognition through his extensive work as a sideman. He had a strong showing in the Rising Star Vibes category of DownBeat’s 2007, 2008, and 2009 Critics’ Poll. “Rolldown” takes its title from Adasiewicz’s five year-old working band of the same name featuring Josh Berman, Aram Shelton, Jason Roebke and Frank Rosaly. Their second record, Varmint, was released in September 2009 on Cuneiform Records. Critics have called Adasiewicz “a remarkably adroit colorist” (Jay Collins, Cadence) and “a welcome new voice” (Chris Kelsey, JazzTimes), noting his “probing sound” (Michael McCaw, AllAboutJazz.com) and ability “to create cunning and subtle rhythmic suspensions” (Derek Taylor, Dusted).  Adasiewicz is a member of more than 20 working bands, including Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, the Nicole Mitchell Quartet, Mike Reed’s Loose Assembly, Josh Berman’s Old Idea, and James Falzone’s Klang. Jason has shared the stage with Fred Anderson, Ab Baars, Chris Connelly, Bill Dixon, Roscoe Mitchell and Damo Suzuki.

Suggested donation: $10, $7 students and ESS members. All proceeds benefit Experimental Sound Studio.

UPCOMING

November 1: Jeff Abell - piano

November 8: Melissa St. Pierre* - prepared piano

November 15: Julia Miller - guitar

November 22: Kent Kessler - bass

*Presented as part of the 2009 Outer Ear Festival of Sound

Eleven composers and as many wines come together in the ESS garden for an evening to stimulate the senses. Curator Matt Griffin has asked composers from across the U.S., Canada and the U.K. to create pieces that will be paired with fine wines selected by Michael Malinsky of In Fine Spirits. We hope you can join us and toast the coming of autumn with wine and song!

The composers:

Tanner Menard has composed and curated experimental sound works and installations both for electronic media and orchestral ensembles for 20 years. In 2002, his world was permanently altered by his experience working with Naut Humon, the curator and then label owner of Recombinant Media Labs in San Francisco. There Menard discovered the aesthetic world of ambient, experimental, and minimal electronica. Tanner Menard’s music is released on Install Records, Archaic Horizon Net Label, Friendly Virus Net Label, Kafua Records and will soon be released on Experimedia, Mandorla, Tokyo Droning and Slow Flow Recordings. His orchestral music has been published by Loose Filter Music.

Eric Powell is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and audio
installation artist. His work has been heard across the Americas and
Europe. He spends his days making beer and his nights listening to
sounds.

Michael Vallera is a sound/visual artist based in Chicago Illinois. Using a combination of sources including field recordings and various instrumentation, his works are explorations of microtonal interactions and textures informed by the arenas of ambient sound, drone and experimental music. He is currently pursuing an MFA in sound at the Art Institute of Chicago.

[zygote] is a collaboration between Antti Sakari Saario (b. 1974, Lahti, Finland) and Martin Iddon (b. 1975, Manchester, UK). Antti Sakari Saario studied electroacoustic composition at the Universities of Keele and Birmingham with Jonty Harrison and Michael Vaughan. Martin Iddon studied composition and musicology at the Universities of Durham and Cambridge with Ian Cross (musicology) and Robin Holloway (composition). He has also studied composition privately with Chaya Czernowin and Steven Kazuo Takasugi. Currently, Saario and Iddon both lecture at Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, UK.

Max Alexander, musician, composer and Canadian, has been living and working in Chicago since 2007. He holds a BFA in Composition from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, and an MFA in Sound from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His works have been presented in such wonderful and far-flung places as Grand Rapids, Michigan, St. John’s, Newfoundland, and Takaka Hill, New Zealand.  He began drinking wine before he began composing electroacoustic music, and he remains better at the former.

Christy Matson is currently an Assistant Professor in the Fiber and Material Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her studio practice typically incorporates textiles with sounds into interactive installations that sometimes, but not always, also involve headstands, fog machines or Van Halen. Recent exhibitions include, the 2009 NEXT fair with ThreeWalls, Heaven Gallery, Chicago, The Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago,  the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, The San Francisco Museum of Craft+Design and The San Francisco Museum of Craft and Folk Art.  In 2006, Matson was an artist in residence at the Experimental Sound Studio.

Olivia Block is a contemporary composer and sound artist who combines field recordings, scored segments for acoustic instruments, and electronically generated sound. Her recorded work seeks to introduce and ultimately reconcile nature with artifice in the realms of music and sound. Block works with recorded media, chamber ensembles, video, and site specific sound installations. Block has created sound installations for public sites and exhibition spaces including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the library at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, the Lincoln Conservatory Fern Room in Chicago, and at the “Echoes Through the Mountains” exhibit at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. In the September 2008 she joined the sound department faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Knut Aufermann, born 1972 in Hagen (Germany), studied chemistry, audio
engineering and sonic arts (MA Middlesex University). From 2002-2005 he was the
station manager of Resonance104.4fm in London, now he is active across Europe
as a musician, radio artist, organizer, curator, consultant and workshop leader.
Knut Aufermann plays improvised electronic music using various forms of audible
feedback. Together with Sarah Washington he runs the project Mobile Radio
investigating alternative means of radio production. Their works have been
broadcast in 12 countries on 28 different radio stations. He is a founder member of
the international Radia network of independent cultural radio stations.
http://knut.klingt.org
http://mobile-radio.net

Filipe Otondo studied acoustics in Chile where he started composing and performing music for experimental theater. In 1999 he moved to Denmark to do post-graduate studies in sound perception and studied composition privately with Anders Brødsgaard. In 2005 he pursued his composition studies at the University of York in England with Ambrose Field and Roger Marsh and obtained a PhD in 2008. His music has been performed in festivals across Europe, in North and South America, as well as in Australia. Has received awards and prizes in composition competitions in Italy, Switzerland and Brazil.

Toronto-based Nick Storring was born in Kitchener in 1981, and began Suzuki-Method cello training at the age of four. He still credits this early ears-first-style training with spurring on his interest in composition and improvisation. Active as a performer/ improviser and composition, he is also an avid collector, and sometime music journalist. He has been a member of unsettling quiet-rock group Picastro since 2005, with whom he recorded the group’s third record Whore Luck (released on Polyvinyl Record Co.) and toured in North America and Europe. Nick is also one third of electronics-heavy improv combo I Have Eaten The City and regularly plays in wayward cello duo The Knot, alongside soul vocalist Saidah Baba Talibah and roots-rock singer Erika Werry. His enthusiasm and eclecticism has also led him to collaborative encounters in concert with Daniel Johnston, Rhys Chatham, Malcolm Goldstein, Owen Pallett, Damo Suzuki, Laura Barrett, Eddie Prévost, and Diane Labrosse.

The wines:

·  Aveleda Vinho Verde - white - Portugal - light, zippy, effervescent - a good welcome wine 

·  Monte Palma Verdejo / Viura - white - Spain - citrus and minerals from the desert 

·  Schlink 2006 Dornfelder - red - Germany - light skinned red here this year thanks to global warming 

·  Vika Oak 2007 Malbec / Syrah - red - Argentina - ripe and smoky 

·  Kana 2006 Workingmans Red - Washington - zin, malbec, syrah - dark and minerally 

·  Gilbert 2006 Earth Series - Washington - carmenere, syrah, malbec, petit verdot - dark and brooding

·  Stafford Hill 2007 Riesling - Oregon - bone dry and sharp from a cold, cloudy vintage 

·  Schmitt 2008 Pinot Meunier Rose - Germany - super rare grape makes an appearance in a soft easy rose 

·  Les Trois Clochers 2007 Baujolais Villages - France - easy gentle fruit with just enough skin and spice 

·  Curatolo 06 Nero d’Avola - Sicily - Pinot Noir’s sicilian cousin with thick skins and color 

·  Yard Dog 06 Red - Australia - a high percentage of petit verdot makes this scream with dark, smoky violets

Audible Gallery presents

LUFTWERK:Seacurrent
September 18 – October 25, 2009

Seacurrent is the latest video installation by Luftwerk, a collaboration between Chicago-based artists Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero.  Their innovative work transforms surfaces and environments into a moving and illuminated canvas—using scale, light, motion and perspective, they make the architecture of a given site fluid and evocative. more…

Opening at Florasonic

Norman W. Long: Electro-Acoustic Dubcology III

Opening reception: Sunday, September 20, 3-5pm

Combining his interest in acoustic ecology, the study of the sounds of environments, and his interest in 1970s Jamaican dub music, in which recorded songs were “recycled” and remixed into new versions, Long has created a sound composition from electronic transformations of the everyday sounds of the Lincoln Park neighborhood. more…

Long-awaited Pavilion Celebrates the Centennial of Burnham’s Plan for Chicago

Due to unforeseen construction delays, only one of two temporary pavilions commemorating Daniel Burnham’s  innovativePlan of Chicago stood complete in Millennium Park by the original June 19 opening date. On Tuesday, August 4, the long-awaited sleek, futuristic pavilion designed by Zaha Hadid—the first female recipient of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture—will open to the public. The tent-like structure houses a video installation by Thomas Gray of The Gray Circle, London with sound design by ESS’s Executive Director, Lou Mallozzi. Gray’s installation, which plays on a continual loop throughout the day and evening, reflects Chicago’s transformation, and includes the voices of people throughout the Chicago region sharing their visions of the future.

 ABOUT THE DESIGN

“Superimpositions of spatial structures with hidden traces of Burnham’s organizational systems create unexpected results in the Burnham Pavilion. By using methods of overlaying, complexity is built up and inscribed in the structure.”  -Zaha Hadid

Examining Burnham’s drawings in the Plan of Chicago, Hadid was struck by how the city’s diagonal streets open up the otherwise rigid street grid. Lengthening the drawn line of one of the diagonals, she marked where the street would fall if extended into Millennium Park. The design for the Burnham Pavilion incorporates that line, with the structural ribs and openings in the roof running parallel to an imaginary extension of a diagonal street. The result is Hadid’s sinuous pavilion that plays with shadow, light and space. This pavilion is made of totally recyclable materials, and can be dismantled and reinstalled elsewhere after the Centennial. It is a tent-like structure made of aluminum and dressed in a tensile fabric. The aluminum ribs are deliberately expressed through the external skin.

EVENTS
Talks with the Team: Donna Robertson and Lou Mallozzi
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 5:30pm

Talks with the Team is a series of free informal tours of, and talks about the Burnham Pavilions featuring the staff and professionals involved with the project.  Learn directly from the insiders about the planning, design, construction, techniques, artistry and technology involved in making the Burnham Pavilions a reality. Each team member brings their own emphasis to the talk, and will share their unique perspective. 
Lou Mallozzi is Executive Director of Experimental Sound Studio and teaches in the Sound Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He created the sound for Thomas Gray’s film installation.
Donna Robertson is Dean of the School of Architecture at IIT. Together with faculty members Dick Dennison and Jonathan Miller, she brought Zaha’s team into contact with IIT students and can talk about how their perspective and new design techniques stimulated dialog on campus.

PRESS

 “A preview of Zaha hadid’s Burnham Plan centennial pavilion: Tailored architecture, dazzling video and star seamstresses” Chicago Tribune August 2, 2009

 “A New Monument – For a Few Months”  Wall Street Journal July 24, 2009

“A Peek at the Burnham Pavilions in Millennium Park” Chicago Tribune June 16, 2009

“Chicago Eco-Pavilion by Zaha Hadid Unveiled” Inhabitat April 16, 2009

The Zaha Hadid Pavilion stands in Millennium Park, South Chase Promenade, 55 N. Michigan Ave, August 4 – October 31, 2009.