Tucson Noise Symposium
April 24 – 28, 2018
Hosted by MOCA Tucson, University of Arizona, Exploded View Cinema
http://phonophilia.com/tns/ for complete schedule

Suzanne and I will be hosting a contact microphone workshop with the Arizona school district, a panel discussion and a concert.

The TNS is an annual, several-day festival/conference in Tucson, Arizona, in April, with related events at other times. (You can see information about our inaugural 2017 fest here.

The 2018 symposium will be April 24 – 28. Featured guests include Bonnie Jones and Suzanne Thorpe (Techne), Jon Leidecker, John Niekrasz, Zachary Watkins, Lana Del Rabies, Jessica Schwartz, Amy Cimini, and more. Venues include Exploded View Microcinema, Dunbar School Project, University of Arizona Music School, and Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art.

The idea is: Let’s gather together people doing noise in Tucson (and beyond!) Let’s listen to all the different ways they are doing noise. Everything is open to everybody and each show is 5 dollars or free.

Creative Field Recording
Friday, Mar 23 at 11:00 am – Sunday, Mar 25 at 6:00 pm
Union Docs, NYC

A three-day intensive on the theory and practice of field recording for various forms of sound design led by Zach Poff. I’ll be leading a session that will collaboratively explore the line from recording to use of recordings for composition and performance techniques with an emphasis on improvisational music approaches and performances incorporating text, visuals and other elements.

In his 1985 essay, Listening Roland Barthes wrote “Based on hearing, listening (from an anthropological point of view) is the very sense of space and of time… Noises have been the immediate raw materials of a divination; to listen is, in an institutional manner, to try to find out what is happening”

Sound has a special relationship to emotion, instinct, and memory, both individual and collective. Tapping into an ancient area of our brain, sound provides immediate information telling us where we are, if it is safe, and how we should feel about that.

This three-day intensive and immersive workshop, with lead instructor Zach Poff, will have its participants considering the path from listening, to recording, to designing sound for various project forms. Covering topics and techniques from listening to Deep Listening, soundwalks and sound recording in the field, the relationship between the soundscape and sound design, and what is carried and created on the path from recording and recordings, to sound art, performance, and design.

No Idea Festival 2018
February 22 – 25
Austin Texas
http://noideafestival.com

Thomas Lehn analog synthesizer → vienna
Marcus Schmickler laptop → cologne
Judith Hamann cello → melbourne
Bonnie Jones electronics → baltimore
Tetuzi Akiyama guitar → tokyo
Greg Saunier drum set → baltimore
Akira Sakata alto saxophone, clarinet, voice → tokyo
Marshall Trammell drum set → kansas city
Bhob Rainey soprano saxophone, laptop → philadelphia
Birgit Ulher trumpet, radio, objects → hamburg
Juanjosé Rivas electronics → mexico city
Juan García double bass → mexico city
– – / dashes percussion, electronics, text → vancouver
Sean O’Neill electronics, light → austin
Damon Smith double bass → boston
Liz Tonne voice → dallas
Chris Cogburn percussion, electronics → austin / mexico city
Raquel Bell voice, organ → austin
Parham Daghighi guitar → austin
Stefan Gonzalez drum set → dallas

Performance
Sunday, December 10 at 4pm
Indeterminacy by John Cage performed by Bonnie Jones, Bill Harris, Maia Asshaq, and Jason Murphy

Admission: Free (suggested $5 donation)

DEPE Space Residency
Ben Hall: Slow an Alarm Until it’s a Tone
October 27, 2017- January 7, 2018

Drawing upon a fascinating array of references—from Ornette Coleman to punk rock back patches, Richard Pryor to the fourth chapter of Don Quixote and Kwame Ture—Ben Hall’s exhibition features a series of monoprints, free takeaway posters, videos, and paintings which explore how sound can influence and inspire radical thought. Throughout the exhibition Hall will host performances, readings, and live recording events where sound—in this case the voice of the Detroit community—is transformed into artifact through the production of vinyl records.

Ben Hall is an artist, curator, percussionist, and composer. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Bennington College and his Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University. His work has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center in New York City, at INSTAL in Glasgow, Scotland, and the kunstenentrum BELGIE in Belgium. He is a curator for Baptizum.com, the world’s largest online Black American spiritual collection and also produces new American improvisational music on his record label brokenresearch, including the last small group recordings of visionary trumpeter and composer Bill Dixon.

Bonnie Jones: Opening the Circuit / Switching the Power Paradigm
Monday, November 20 at 4 PM – 6 PM
EMPAC Beta Studio

A discussion and open-circuit music performance by Bonnie Jones, Baltimore-based electronic musician, community organizer, and co-founder of TECHNE, an organization that offers DIY audio technology workshops for young female-identifying women and girls.

This event is part of the Open Source Art Music and Culture course at RPI, but is open to the public. It is free. EMPAC Beta is on the south-east corner of the top floor of EMPAC.

Bonnie Jones (Baltimore, MD) joins the USC Experimental Music Workshop (Greg Stuart, director) for an evening of adventurous music-making at Tapp’s Art Center presented by Infinite Room and the USC Luise E. Peake Music & Culture Colloquium Series. Jones will lead the ensemble in “Sounding Points of Light” for light-controlled synthesizers built by members of the ExMus Workshop during Jones’ residency at USC.

The concert will also include a solo set from Jones as well as the world premiere of David Kirkland Garner’s “passage Baptiste” for winds, percussion, and smartphone chorus.

Infinite Room/USC Music & Culture Colloquium Presents:
Bonnie Jones with the Experimental Music Workshop
Tapp’s Art Center
1644 Main St
Friday, 11/3
Doors @ 7:45pm, Concert @ 8:00pm
$8, $5 w/ student ID

Saturday, October 21 at 8 PM – 10 PM
$5 suggested donation
Pearlarts Studios
201 N Braddock Ave, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15208

Soy Sos and STAYCEE PEARL dance project are back at it with the development of a new project, sym. Join us for a live experimental sound and light centered performance project featuring Soy Sos, Bonnie Jones, and Sadie Powers.

Bonnie Jones – electronics, metal, transducers and radio
Sadie Powers – electric upright bass and electronics
Herman “Soy Sos” Pearl – electronics, percussion and radio

sym. is a continuation of our previous project OCTAVIA, which debuted in Spring of 2011 at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater where we explored the work and life of Octavia Butler, esteemed African-American science fiction writer. With sym. we look to her vampire themed novel, Fledgling, to dig deeper into a recurring theme in her work: symbiosis.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Bonnie Jones is a Korean-American improvising musician, poet, and performer working with electronic sound and text. She performs solo and in numerous collaborative music, film, and visual art projects.

Sadie Powers is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, specializing in upright bass and fretless bass guitar. Her music focuses on the tension created through small movements. Powers currently tours as a member of the indie rock band Shearwater.

Herman Pearl (Soy Sos) is head engineer and owner of Tuff Sound Recording, as well as sound designer and co-founder of PearlArts Studios, a sound and creative movement company he formed with his wife, Staycee Pearl. Through PearlArts, Herman creates soundscapes to serve as a component to contemporary dance.

I’ll head to Chicago and Detroit with Suzanne Thorpe and our TECHNE organization to teach young students at GIrls Rock Detroit, Girls Rock Chicago, and to initiate a new program we can Teach the Teachers. This program is designed to get educators in cities across the US trained in TECHNE’s unique pedagogy and workshops.

In addition, Suzanne and I will perform a special benefit concert at Constellation in Chicago on 8/13, 8:30pm
https://www.constellation-chicago.com/event/1523934-techne-benefit-talsounds-chicago/

The night features sets by Bonnie Jones & Suzanne Thorpe, TALsounds, and Young/Marino/Lyle.