Performances featuring Todd Lerew and Bonnie Jones!

at The Red Room
425 E. 31st St
Baltimore, MD 21218
doors at 8:30
show at 9:00
$5-10

Todd Lerew is a Los Angeles-based artist and composer working with invented acoustic instruments, repurposed found objects, and unique preparations of traditional instruments. Much of his work deals with the physical properties of sound and the nature of perception, exploring the use of sound as a plastic medium, and revisiting relationships within a performance environment. Other works examine the effect of isolated elements of indeterminism within mostly-closed systems, and the generation of musical material by deviation from an impossible given task.

Lerew is the inventor of the Quartz Cantabile, which utilizes a principle of thermoacoustics to convert heat into sound, and has presented the instrument at Stanford’s CCRMA, Georgia Tech, the American Musical Instrument Society annual conference, and Machine Project in Los Angeles. He is the founder and curator of Telephone Music, a collaborative music and memory project based on the children’s game of Telephone, the last round of which was released as an exclusive download to subscribers of music magazine The Wire. He has received commissions from So Percussion (New York) and the Now Hear Ensemble (Santa Barbara), in addition to performances by members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Wet Ink Ensemble (New York), and the Canticum Ostrava choir (Czech Republic).
Bonnie Jones is a Korean-American writer, improvising musician, and performer working primarily with electronic music and text. Born in 1977 in South Korea she was raised on a dairy farm in New Jersey, and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. Bonnie creates improvised and composed text-sound performances that explore the fluidity and function of electronic noise (field recordings, circuit bending) and text (poetry, found, spoken, visual). She is interested in how people perceive, “read” and interact with these sounds and texts given our current technological moment. Bonnie has received commissions from the London ICA and has presented her work in the US, Europe, and Asia and collaborates frequently with writers and musicians. She received her MFA at the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.

The Late Night Theatre series at Psychic Readings (Baltimore) begins this week with a double bill

Strange Fire
written & directed by Ric Royer, sound by G Lucas Crane
lights by David Crandall, projections by Meredith Moore
safety disclaimer by Cricket Arrison

The Smallest Something Not Quite Nothing
written by Thalia Field, directed by Bonnie Jones
lights by David Crandall

At PSYCHIC READINGS, 219 Park Ave, Baltimore
Wed & Thu, Jan 6 & 7 @ 9pm (doors at 8:15)
$10 (or $8 if you drink a prepared elixer at box office)

ABOUT THE PLAYS:

Strange Fire is a re-enactment of the infamous West Virginia Blessing sermon delivered by charismatic Christian preacher, Rodney Howard-Browne. In 1993, Brown whipped thousands of people who were in attendance into a frenzy through a sermon that consisted mostly of laughter and glossolalia. In Strange Fire, Royer extracts the large sections of the sermon that were delivered in tongues and re-contextualizes the “sacred text” in a hypnotizing, multi-sensory environment where the specific religious apparatus is removed, but the performative aspects of ritual and ecstatic trance are maintained.

The Smallest Something Not Quite Nothing was written by poet, playwright Thalia Field. First published in “PLAY A Journal of Plays” in 2009, this will be the world premier staging of the piece. The play is about how amazingly sad, sexy, and creepy it is to be watched and watching each other all the time in a highly surveilled human society (condition). People watching each other, objects watching each other, all of us and all of our objects trying to touch each other – check each other out, define each other’s shapes.
Two characters, Superstar and Radar, encounter each other and this world amidst war, pop music, celebrity culture and constant bombardment by waves and waves of invisible frequencies.

RhizomeDC presents the next in a series of concerts of experimental and improvised music featuring pre-show workshops with world-class improvising musicians.

Workshop with Bonnie Jones at 530 pm – email laynegarrett at yahoo dot com to RSVP – free and open to all – (workshop details below)

Doors for the concert open at 730pm, performances start at 8 sharp – $10 suggested donation – featuring:

Bonnie Jones
Lab Mice

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ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
Bonnie will lead participants in an exploration of resonance via sine tones: their relationships to the performance experience, and also a more intuitive/iimprovisational approach to considering sine tones with text.

Bonnie Jones is a Korean-American writer, improvising musician, and performer working primarily with electronic music and text. Born in 1977 in South Korea she was raised on a dairy farm in New Jersey, and currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland. Bonnie creates improvised and composed text-sound performances that explore the fluidity and function of electronic noise (field recordings, circuit bending) and text (poetry, found, spoken, visual). She is interested in how people perceive, “read” and interact with these sounds and texts given our current technological moment. Bonnie has received commissions from the London ICA and has presented her work in the US, Europe, and Asia and collaborates frequently with writers and musicians. She received her MFA at the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.

Lab Mice (Gary Rouzer on amplified objects and tapes and Chris Videll on electronics and objects) was conceived back in November 2012 and went through several stages before our first performance in April 2013. We wanted to create something new, not just a combination of our usual sounds and tendencies. Chris usually pays heavy drone electronics, while Gary tends towards amplified objects with quickly changing textures. Gary decided to slow down his playing using circular motions and amplified motors. Chris chose to speed up his reaction time with his electronics and also used bowed cardboard and wood. The results sound machine-like yet warm and unpredictable. We both employ electronic and acoustic sound sources. The dynamics vary from silence to near silence to quiet.

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Back Alley Theater is at the corner of 14th / Kennedy / Colorado Streets NW – go down the stairs at the corner into the basement

http://www.rhizomedc.org/new-events/2015/12/13/sound-ideas-workshop-and-performance-with-bonnie-jones

The 17th annual High Zero Festival returns to Baltimore from September 22nd – 27th!  Over two dozen local, national and international artists and musicians converge for a week of sound installations, concerts, happenings and more.

I’ll be performing in the following sets this year:

Thursday Night, September 24th
Third Set
Bonnie Jones (electronics)
Michael Zerang (percussion)

Saturday Night, September 26th
Third Set
Nava Dunkelman (percussion)
Bonnie Jones (electronics, text)
Andrew Lafkas (bass)
Paul Neidhardt (percussion)
Irena Tomažin (voice, tapes)

Sunday Night, September 27th
Solo Set

High Zero Festival Main Concerts
September 24-27, 2015
Theatre Project, Baltimore, MD

Sound Investments: Storefront sound installations
Opening party September 22nd – Gallery hours: September 24 – 26, 2015, 2pm to 7pm
Bromo Arts District, Baltimore, MD

High Zero collaborates with Ljubljana’s Museum of Transitory Art and Sonica Festival to Present 5 amazing sound installations in 3 locations in West downtown B-more! Artists Irena Tomazin, Carrie Fucile, Martin Bricelj Baraga & Matt Spendlove, and Andrew Bernstein take feathers, fans, giant faces, wheezing robotic organs, the sound of water evaporating and dark ambient metal riffs performed by toothbrushes into the shop windows of downtown.

High Zero Artists 2015

From afar: 
Amma Ateria (electronics, inventions) San Francisco
Ben Bennett (percussion) Philadelphia
Alexandra Cárdenas (computer, live electronics) Berlin
Miha Ciglar (ultrasound, electronics) Austria
Tashi Dorji (guitar) Asheville
Nava Dunkelman (percussion) San Francisco
Heejin Jang (electronics, visuals) New York City
Andrew Lafkas (bass) Berlin
Irena Tomažin (voice, tapes) Slovenia
Bromp Treb (elect., perc., performance) Massachusetts
C. Spencer Yeh (voice, violin) New York City
Michael Zerang (percussion) Chicago
Eva Zöllner (accordian) Hamburg

From Baltimore:
Stephanie Barber (voice, projections)
Andrew Bernstein (saxophone, electronics)
Rose Hammer Burt (saxophone, reeds)
Mei Mei Chang (projections)
Bonnie Jones (electronics, text)
Caroline Marcantoni (voice, dance)
Jamal R. Moore (woodwinds, electronics)
Stewart Mostofsky (electronics, Ultra Sound)
Paul Neidhardt (percussion)
Shelly Purdy (percussion)
M.C. Schmidt (electronics, objects)
Sydney Spann (electronics, strings, voice)
Luke Stewart (electronics, bass)

Sunday September 20th, 6:30pm – dusk******
Creative Alliance, Baltimore MD
$12, $9 mbrs DOOR: $15, $12 mbrs

Join us at sunset with Weather Warlock, a heavy drone band which uses sun, wind, rain, and temperature to control a monster analog synth designed by Quintronics in New Orleans, LA. and at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Florida. Led by New Orleans’ own Quintron (of Quintron and Miss Pussycat), the weathervane will be situated outside of the Creative Alliance for the public to view. Cabling will be run into the theater where Weather Warlock, joined by local guest musicians, will perform.

Collaborating Artsts:

From NOLA:
Martin Quintron (Mr. Quintron and Miss Pussycat) – Warlock Guitar/Synth Developer
Gary Wrong (WIZZARD SLEEVE) – Guitar/Electronics
Aaron Hill (EYEHATEGOD) – Drums

From Bmore:
Ami Dang (sitar & electronics)
MC Schmidt (keys)
Bonnie Jones (electronics)
+more TBA

Post Weather Warlock Performance by Baltimore’s HD Sunrise

******IMPORTANT* This performance is a SUNSET CONCERT. The Weather Warlock is a musical instrument which is played by the weather. The weather sensors are mounted to a post and detect temperature, wind, sun, and rain. This all analog synthesizer produces a wide range of tones and harmonics based around a consonant E major chord with special audio events occurring during sunrise and sunset. PLEASE SHOW UP ON TIME OR YOU WILL MISS THE FUN!

About the Weather Warlock:

Now in its third year of an optimistically infinite lifetime, the provisionally utopian COLONY OF LIGHT is proud to present a two-part program of 16mm films, videos and live performance. Featuring an array of recent works from its 13-person strong membership of internationally-renowned artists, curators, and musicians, these programs converge on a radiant center via two seemingly divergent branches. In OUR (IM)MATERIAL SELVES, the physical body comes face-to-digital face with its decidedly virtual self; in HIVE VISION, the individual undergoes an alchemical transformation into collective spirit, into light and Beyond. The two sides form a third: transfiguration awaits…

The Colony of Light 2015 is Bonnie Jones, Xander Marro, Ruth Somalo, Aily Nash, Basma Alsharif, Jodie Mack, Ben Rivers, Ben Russell, Peter Burr, Fern Silva, Joshua Gen Solondz and Jonathan Schwartz

http://www.fosters.com/article/20150816/NEWS/150819647

WEDNESDAY AUG 19 2015 8:00 PM
THE COLONY OF LIGHT, PT 1: OUR (IM)MATERIAL SELVES
Now, as in the future, we all live double lives – after all, the virtual realm is no place for a rotting body. It requires an augmented form – an explicit set of controls that cannot simply be called ‘neck’ or ‘eyes.’ Virtual space exists as an inverted mirror, all specular noise and colorful decay. Things do not decompose there – they simply cease to be. “Anything is possible”, our avatars tell us. “Anything is possible”, we respond back. Hands in virtual hands, we re-vision our horizons, pull their selective threads, build a glint of utopia. Together, we project our futures back.

SATURDAY AUG 22 2015 7:30 PM
THE COLONY OF LIGHT, PT 2: HIVE VISION
Here is the body-as-group, illuminated in the flickering light of this mythical now. Here is the Self as Hive-Core, as Collective Spirit, as Incantation given voice through the drone and hum of the masses. Here is shadow-play and dream projection, murmur and ecstatic prayer. Here is conjuring! Here is mimicry. Here is a Gathering, an assembly of costumes called bodies and skin. Oh, sure – everything is everything, but when that’s over and done we’ve still got us. And so, here is a solution: you call it “cinema” – we call it “the way forward.”

In conjunction with Juan Betancurth’s exhibition and studio residency at the Queens Museum, I’ll be collaborating with the brilliant musicians MV Carbon, Maria Chavez, and Victoria Keddie to create an improvisation and meditation on the artists’ four sisters.

Image: Juan Betancurth, Virtues of Disequilibrium, 2015. Installation view, Queens Museum

I’ll be presenting a solo electronics performance with Richard Garet in conjunction with the exhibition In the Glow of a Breathing Sphere.
http://www.fridmangallery.com/

Doors open at 7pm, performance at 8pm.
Fridman Gallery,  287 Spring St, New York, NY 10013

IN THE GLOW OF A  BREATHING SPHERE
June 25 – July 31, 2015

In the Glow of a Breathing Sphere is a site-specific LED installation conceived and built by the interactive design studio B-Reel, accompanied by a program of sound and spoken-word performances by various artists, focusing on relationships among living organisms, technology and the environment.

 

Techne brings electronic music workshops to Girls Rock Camps this Summer!

Since 2013, TECHNE’s summer tour has brought their DIY electronic music workshops to hundreds of young women at Girls Rock Camps and community arts centers in across the US. From Oakland, Sacramento, Portland and Seattle to Murfreesboro, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Washington DC, and South Carolina!

This summer we’re heading to sunny Southern California and Texas! We’ve got special workshops planned for the Girls Rock Santa Barbara sleepaway camp, and contact mic building in Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas and Austin!

Workshops: 

Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls: Los Angeles 
6/23 – 6/24, 7/9, 7/10

San Diego Art Institute
7/2

Amplify Sleep Away Camp  – Girls Rock Santa Barbara
7/7, 78

MECA School Workshop (Nameless Sound & Rock Camp Houston)
7/13

Girls Rock Dallas
7/14

Girls Rock Austin
7/16, 7/17

Concerts: 

Abrash Series, Space4 Arts, San Diego, CA
6/25, 8pm

San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA
7/2, 7pm

the wulf, Los Angeles, CA
7/10, 7:30pm

Avant Garden, Houston, TX
7/13, 7:30pm

Rubber Gloves, Denton, TX
7/14, 10:00pm

studium, Austin, TX
7/17, 7:00pm