Microscope is pleased to present an evening of live sound works by duo VALES, composed of Asa Horvitz and Carmen Rothwell, and by Brooklyn-based artist Anna RG.
The approx. 90-minute program sees the debut of new compositions by each artist in which “voices, string instruments, and modular synthesizers combine with video, live processing, and a conversation with an AI named LUCAS”.
A solo set of scores for violin and viola by Jason Kao Hwang opens the night.
Program:
Solo set
by Jason Kao Hwang
Compositions for violin and viola by Hwang.
GHOST
by VALES
“Can music and sound be a way to relate to the dead? Not so much to grieve a particular individual, but to develop a relationship to the dead in the here and now? What sounds, words, images or gestures might be born from this effort? Both of our fathers died in the last two years. GHOST blends fragmented songs, improvisation, 3 part traditional polyphonic songs from the Republic of Georgia, and text generated through conversations with LUCAS to explore the questions these transitions have raised.
LUCAS is an AI developed by researchers at the University of Washington, one of only three neural nets in the world being taught to write fiction. Trained on over 600 million words of everything from classical literature to tabloids and Twitter, LUCAS is full of ghosts, remembers everything, and considers death quite differently than we humans do. Over 30 minutes, the sounds we create will give birth to subtle gestures, relationships with objects, and light... Jaxyn Randall makes it all sparkle with live electronics and processing. Bryan West sings. Esy Casey provides lighting. Dramaturgy consultation with David Bruin. AI design by Seraphina Goldfarb-Tarrant. Supported in part by a grant from RSF Social Finance and a residency at the Camargo Foundation.” – Asa Horvitz & Carmen Rothwell
SHELL PIECE #1
by Anna RG
Anna RG's SHELL PIECE #1 explores the interior wordless spaces of old songs, of her own body, and her lengthy journeys to landscapes where old songs were sung 100 years ago. A new solo piece for voice, text, and projections.
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Asa Horvitz has shown work in contemporary performance and music across the US and Europe at venues such as The New Museum, Death by Audio, PRELUDE Festival, New Amsterdam Records (NYC), Living Arts Museum (Tulsa), CounterPULSE (SF), and Teatr Polski (Wroclaw). He has collaborated with Lukasz Korczak and Scott Gibbons/Romeo Castellucci on performances that have toured internationally. As a musician/composer he has performed with Anna Webber, Kalup Linzy, Julian Kytasty, Michal Zadara, et. al. Horvitz’s work has received support from The MacDowell Colony, RSF Social Finance, CEC Arts Link, MDOCS/Skidmore, The Camargo Foundation, and a Fulbright Fellowship. In 2019 he will be part of MEET THE NEIGHBORS, an international residency exchange between artists around the Mediterranean. Horvitz has studied embodied dreamwork and psychoanalysis since 2013. He lives and works in Queens, NY.
The music of Jason Kao Hwang (composer/violin/viola) explores the vibrations and language of his history. His compositions are often narrative landscapes through which sonic beings embark upon extemporaneous, transformational journeys. His most recent release, Blood, performed by Burning Bridge, his octet of Chinese and Western instruments, is receiving critical acclaim. Downbeat Magazine named his quintet recording Sing House, one of the Best CDs of 2017. In 2013 and 2012 the El Intruso Jazz Critics Poll voted him #1 for Violin. The 2012 Downbeat Critics’ Poll voted Mr. Hwang as “Rising Star for Violin.” As composer, Mr. Hwang has received support from Chamber Music America, US Artists International, the NEA, Rockefeller Foundation and others. As violinist, he has worked with Karl Berger, Anthony Braxton, William Parker, Butch Morris, Ivo Perlman, Oliver Lake, Reggie Workman, Pauline Oliveros, Tomeka Reid, Patrick Brennan, and many others.
Anna RG (Roberts-Gevalt) is a multi disciplinary artist working in Brooklyn, moving outwards from her immersion in folk music. For the last eight years, she was creative director of a traditional ballad-based collaboration with Virginia singer Elizabeth LaPrelle, transforming archival research into lo-fi multi-media performances. They toured the US and UK extensively, including Carnegie Hall, Newport Folk Festival, Big Ears Festival, and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. Smithsonian Folkways released their third record The Invisible Comes to Us, which Anna co-produced and was heralded by the New Yorker as a "radical expansion of what folk songs are supposed to do." More recently, she has worked with a spectrum of composers and traditional musicians including Jim White, Susan Alcorn, Lee Gilboa, James Moore, Ellen Fullman, Timo Andres, Paul Wiancko, Grey McMurray and members of the avant-rock quartet Horse Lords. She is a current Smithsonian artist in residence, and MFA candidate at Bard College in sculpture; she has been a fellow at The MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Berea College Traditional Music Archive, and guest curator of traditional music at the Big Ears Music Festival in Knoxville.
Carmen Rothwell is an upright bassist working at the intersection of creative, improvised, underground, and contemporary music in New York City. A prolific performer, arranger, and composer, she is a key force in multiple Brooklyn-based projects including Scree, TRIO, and the recording project Parenthetical Girl. She has performed with Andrew D’Angelo, David Murray, Ben Monder, Bill McHenry, Jacob Sacks, Wayne Horvitz, Bill Frisell, Cuong Vu, Ted Poor, Wally Shoup, Anna Webber, and many others. Originally from Seattle, WA, she earned the prestigious Earshot Jazz award for Emerging Artist of the Year in 2014. She is a graduate of the University of Washington Jazz Studies program. Carmen’s work has been featured on All About Jazz, and Paste Magazine named her one of 10 Women Instrumentalists Who Redefine Jazz in 2016. She has toured internationally and lives in Bushwick.