Join us for the April edition of our CLEAT Series which highlights work performed on our 16-channel speaker system. This month we’ll have Michael Schumacher in from New York City and Chicago artist Hedra Rowan.
Michael Schumacher will perform Room Piece Rixensart 2019 and SeIten. Commissioned by Kamer Negen Gallery in Rixensart, Belgium, in 2019, Room Piece Rixensart is an 8 channel computer-generated fixed composition in 8 parts. The piece uses a mixed bag of sounds, from field and instrumental recordings to analog and computer synthesizers. Motifs and phrases are varied through changes in spatial placement, filtering, distortion and other kinds of processing. Movements are short, between 2 and 6 minutes, and refer to and subvert traditional formal expectations. Duration: 25 minutes
SeIten is an 8 channel computer-generated fixed media composition. It's in three parts, an introduction, a main section, and a kind of epilogue. The algorithms used a pitch detection feedback loop but errors resulted in new notes and unpredictable digressions. String and percussion samples were used. Duration: 15 minutes
Hedra Rowan will perform a new piece titled Princess Tears, Volume One. There is an order of princesses tasked with keeping our moon and sun fed with the energy of their tears. All around us, but invisible to us, they gather at puddles everyday to weep for hours, providing the sadness that fuels the earth. Princess Tears, Volume One documents the initiation process of one such princess, while she takes a walk through Humboldt Park in Chicago.
Links:
Full Text of piece: https://princess-tears.herokuapp.com/
Stereo edition of piece: https://bdymlk.bandcamp.com/album/princess-tears-volume-one
Michael Schumacher Bio:
Michael J. Schumacher has worked with spatialized sound, computers and electronics since the 1980s, creating multi-channel, generative "Room Pieces" presented in galleries, museums, concert halls, public and private spaces. XI Records has published a DVD set of five sound installations as computer applications, playable on up to eight speakers, which may be installed on a computer to create sound environments in the home. “Living Room Pieces” is another generative installation designed for home listening; in 2021 Schumacher created an edition of 10 for Raspberry Pi. “The Portable Multi-channel Sound System” is an 8 or 12 channel system that fits in a suitcase, with which he has toured Europe and the United States.
His interest in the intersections of musical form, architecture and social spaces led to the founding, in 1996, of Diapason, a gallery devoted to the presentation of multi-channel sound installations, long-duration performances and intermedia artworks. In its 15 years of existence Diapason presented over 300 artists at a time when sound art was emerging as a distinct practice in the United States.
Schumacher is the music director of the Liz Gerring Dance Company and performs regularly with choreographer Sally Silvers.
He studied music composition with Stanley Applebaum, Bernhard Heiden, John Eaton and Vincent Persichetti and piano with Seymour Bernstein, John Ogdon and Shigeo Neriki, and has degrees from Indiana University and Juilliard. He also worked with La Monte Young and Milton Babbitt. He has collaborated with choreographers, poets, architects, musicians and filmmakers including Oren Ambarchi, Bruce Andrews, Tom Chiu, Charles Curtis, Ken Jacobs, Victoria Meyers and Ursula Scherrer.
$15