Making the Band: Chris Kallmyer composes music for the opening of the Northern Spark

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Reblogged from Walker Art Center.

Chris Kallmyer testing the sound properties of the site.

Chris Kallmyer testing the sound properties of the site.

Los Angeles based composer Chris Kallmyer has spent the last two days walking the Stone Arch bridge, testing survival whistles and sketching plans for new piece as part of the Northern Spark Festival on June 4th and 5th.  for dawn or dusk // homeward is a 10-15 minute sound work for 100+ local musicians playing brass, percussion, piccolos and tiny whistles.  The site specific performance will take place on the Stone Arch Bridge, stretching across the Mississippi playing overlapping melodies derived from the route of the river.  The score is based the route of the river south past St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico.


Map of Mississippi River over-layed as a guide for the composition.

Community involvement is integral to the piece.

In this spirit, amateurs will work side by side with professionals, as well as community leaders who will run rehearsals. Chris states “The intent of this project is to host a range of musicians involved, and create a unique opportunity for younger musicians to pair with more experienced performers outside of a classroom or traditional band setting.”  The score is written considering players of all levels and experience and will give the performers the unique experience of debuting an original piece created specifically for them.”

If you are curious if this project is right for you, please check out this PDF of the working score!

We are still seeking musicians for the piece.  What would that mean for you…

Participating musicians

Trumpet, Trombone/Baritone/Tuba/Sousaphone, Piccolo, Percussion.

We are looking for musicians age 10 – 110 (amateur and professional) who love playing their instrument, are not afraid to play loud, and have an interest in engaging with their community via music. Folks need to be willing to participate in three rehearsal prior to the performance at the Northern Spark Festival on June 4 at 9:05.  Participants will need to provide their own instruments, and percussionists are encouraged to bring two instruments from this list: marching snare drum, marching bass drum, glockenspiel, metal junk, and bells.

Time Commitment

two rehearsals with your section leader prior to the June 4 concert.

  • Friday, June 3. 6:00 – 8:00 pm //  rehearsal at the Stone Arch Bridge.
  • Saturday, June 4. 9:05- 9:20 pm // Walk-through at 7pm // Performance at the Stone Arch Bridge.

Section Leaders

We are looking for trumpet, trombone, and piccolo leaders who can organize and run two rehearsals with your section prior to June 3.  I’d like you to work on the piece but also general fundamentals and pedagogy.  Starting with a warm-up, playing some chorales, and finishing with the piece at hand.  We are able to have one leader for each section.  We are looking for candidates who have an interest in working with their community, pedagogy, new music, and a sense of humor.

Time Commitment

  • phone meeting with Chris Kallmyer (artist) and Northern Spark on May 20 to look over score and parts.
  • arrange two rehearsals with your section prior to the June 3.
  • Friday, June 3. 6:00 – 8:00 pm //  rehearsal at the Stone Arch Bridge.
  • Saturday, June 4. 8:55 – 9:15 pm // Call time at 6pm // Performance at the Stone Arch Bridge.

Chris is also the music curator for Machine Project, a LA based collective who will be in residence on the Walker Open Field this July.Check out video from their brief visit this winter, including Chris’s Tea Pot Igloo performances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k87-fFnl1fM&feature=player_embedded

When Eliza met HAL

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Pretty funny.

via Near Future Laboratory

Transitions, Transformations, and Traditions – Artist’s Role in the De-industrial City

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Public Address invited Cezanne Charles to guest blog about the conference Rust Belt to Artist Belt. Here is her report. Thanks Cezanne.

From April 6 – 7, Rust Belt to Artist Belt explored how artists and creative practitioners are transforming the landscape in Detroit and in other de-industrialized cities. Topics explored DIY culture, social justice, land use, prosperity and neighborhood and community development. Opening Keynotes from Maria Rosario Jackson of The Urban Institute and Judilee Reed, Executive Director of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) set the stage for the conference, providing significant national analytics about the position and role of artists in society.

The context for the conference was Detroit and not just the urban center or the image of an American city in decline, which is the popular way this region is depicted. Instead this conference looked at the ways that artists and designers are rethinking and reimagining what is possible for a socially-engaged practice, especially practices that are situated in and suited particularly to the post-industrial context of the multi-centered city/region. The conference also added voices both national and international to the mix.

Creatives Making Their Mark – from left to right Karl Daubmann, Ply Architecture; MonicaBlaire, singer/songwiter; Osman Khan, interactive artist; Lynn Crawford, Author Literary Fiction; (not pictured) Natalie Jeremenjenko, environmental artist. Photo: Cezanne Charles

Detroit has artist community decided micro-funding project grants through Detroit Soup that both weirdly complements and contrasts to The Kresge Artist Fellowship program. The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) and the Heidelberg Project have been awarded funding through LINC’s Space for Change program, while the region also has artists Sarah Wagner and Jon Brumit of DFlux refurbishing their house and offering DIY artist residencies making a different kind of space for creativity. Detroit has an artist run fake guerilla branding agency Hygienic Dress League, the work of Steve and Dorota Coy and top-flight corporate creative agencies such as Skidmore Studios using guerilla tactics. Somewhere in this mix of top down and bottom up approaches artist-led initiatives have found a way to make the region fertile for themselves and other artists and share a connection to artists and creative entrepreneurs in other cities. Detroit has artists and curators working in the public realm making work that moves beyond beautification and cookie-cutter approaches to public art as a hallmark of gentrification and instead illuminates history and traditions such as the Black History 101 Mobile Museum founded by curator Khalid el-Hakim.

Artists in the region like many others have also stepped in to fill needs in the areas of agriculture and urban farming and design as a form of social and economic justice like Margarita Barry and Veronika Scott. They have embraced hacker and media fab labs, like OminiCorp Detroit as a means of addressing digital divide issues; and they are proposing ways to turn homes into environmental assets when property values will likely never provide a return on investment like PowerHouse Productions from Design 99 duo Gina Reichert & Mitch Cope. These were some of the artists’ projects and work that was presented at Rust Belt to Artist Belt as part of a larger context for understanding the full ecosystem or creative supply chain at work in post-industrial or de-industrialized cities.

Rust Belt also attempted to shed some light on what happens when a city becomes the next target for the “Berlin” effect. There are all new issues presented when the superstar curious, the recent transplant, and the native denizens from the core and the suburbs all want to have a say and a stake at the table when promoting or deciding about the future of places like Detroit as an artist/creative city. There are inevitable conflicts of opinions and interests – the panels included a mix of these to offer a portrait of what is happening now.

Foundations and other funders, advocacy and capacity building organizations and those providing professional development, artist space development and entrepreneurship training have forged partnerships to help support and in some cases intervene lightly in this ecosystem – their work was also highlighted as part of the conference.

The Closing Keynotes by Allee Willis, a one woman creative think tank, and Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates left attendees with a clear call to action. Both concurred that artists do have a role in the transformation of the city, and moreover it is their boundless agency that should be supported and encouraged. Over the two days, Rust Belt to Artist Belt started a dialogue about the creative industries, the post-industrial economy of cities and artists value in society.

Cezanne Charles is an artist and curator who co-founded the hybrid art & design practice rootoftwo. She is Director of Creative Industries at ArtServe Michigan and was the lead curriculum partner on the 2010 Rust Belt to Artist Belt.

AOV3 Fellows

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Northern Lights.mn announces the recipients of the third round of Art(ists) on the Verge commissions (AOV3). AOV3 is an intensive, mentor-based fellowship program for 5 Minnesota-based, emerging artists or artist groups working experimentally at the intersection of art, technology, and digital culture with a focus on network-based practices that are interactive and/or participatory. AOV3 is generously supported by the Jerome Foundation.

Drew Anderson
Michael Hoyt
Caly McMorrow
Anthony Tran
Aaron Westre

Congratulations from the jury: Steve Dietz, Artistic Director, Northern Lights.mn; Ben Heywood, Executive Director, The Soap Factory; and Amanda McDonald Crowley, Eyebeam Art & Technology Center. And from AOV3 Co-Director Christopher Baker.

More information.

Community conversation @NorthernSpark

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All My Relations Gallery

All My Relations Arts invites you to join us for a community conversation with local Native American artists Mona Smith, Bobby Wilson and Robert Two Bulls. They will be talking with guest artists Rigo 23, whose work Oglala Oyate will screen during the Northern Spark festival at AMRA. Joining them will be Tom Poor Bear from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Poor Bear worked with Rigo 23 and appears in the video. Curator and poet Heid Erdrich will moderate. Light refreshments will be served.

All My Relations Arts
1414 East Franklin Ave.
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm, Saturday, June 4, 2011

Rigo 23, Oglala Oyate, 2010 01SJ Biennial

Mississippi Megalops tickets

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Jonathan Padelford at night

Mississippi Megalops is a floating Chautauqua featuring performances & presentations of history, art & science aboard an authentic paddle steamer riverboat. Tickets are free, but limited! To pre-book a ticket visit bit.ly/megalopstickets.

ReGeneration deadline extended to May 16

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The deadline for submissions to ReGeneration has been extended to May 16.

Proposals for ReGeneration can be for gallery installations or public projects on the grounds of NYSCI or in surrounding areas for the duration of the exhibition or for one-week modules exploring a particular concept or idea. Six of the projects will be juried based on this open call, three for installations and three for workshop modules. Collaborations are encouraged but should be confirmed with a letter of support in the application. More information here.

Call for trumpet, trombone / baritone, percussion and piccolo for unique community band.

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Would you like to be part of a unique musical performance?  Do you like the standing above/between the banks of the Mississippi?  Do you play a brass instrument or percussion? Do you like bridges? Are you free the evening of June 4th?   Do you like sparklers?  Do you want to be part of something you will talk about for years? Do you have friends that fit the above description too?  If so…we have something you are going to love.

Los Angeles based composer Chris Kallmyer has been invited curator Scott Stulen and  the Northern Spark Festival to create a gigantic brass and percussion piece for the Stone Arch Bridge.  Chris is also the music curator for Machine Project, a LA based collective who will be in residence on the Walker Open Field this July.  The performance for Northern Spark will serve as an opening “fanfare” to the nightlong festival and is sure to be a highlight of the event.

The piece itself is conceived specifically for the site of the Stone Arch Bridge, taking advantage of the space and its perch above the Mississippi. The instrumentation is for brass section, percussion battery and a small choir of piccolos.  Below is further information on the piece, and the potential time commitment. Click here for Northern Spark’s page on the project. The piece has the potential to be a cultural event for the local music community, and if this fits you,  we hope you consider participating.

1. Time Commitment:

– Friday, June 3. 6:00 – 8:00 pm //  rehearsal at the Stone Arch Bridge.

– Saturday, June 4. 8:55 – 9:15 pm // Call time at 6pm // Performance at the Stone Arch Bridge.

2. Open to musicians of all levels and abilities

3. We are looking for candidates who have an interest in working with their community, pedagogy, new music, and a sense of humor.

Full Description

Stone Arch Bridge

for dawn or dusk // homeward is a 10-15 minute sound work for 100+ local musicians playing brass, percussion, woodwinds and tiny whistles.  The site specific performance will take place on the Stone Arch Bridge, stretching across the Mississippi playing overlapping melodies derived from the route of the river.  The piece follows the route of the river south past St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico.  Community involvement is integral in this piece. I am interested in how we can create a forum of equal participation and creative input, much like the brass bands in Europe and community bands that used to populate the United States.  In this spirit, local amateurs will work side by side with professional musicians, and local community leaders.

Interested?

Please RSVP to curator Scott Stulen at scott.stulen@walkerart.org to sign-up and for full details or pass this information along to anyone you know.

For context, here is a short video of one of Chris past projects.
http://vimeo.com/17313416

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Jasper Elings, _Default Landscape_

via Valentina Tanni

Media facades Europe

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It would be great to have some U.S. cities as part of this Connected Cities experiment.

AOV3 submissions due Monday, April 11

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More about AOV3: http://tylerstefanich.com/clients/northernlights/projects/artists-on-the-verge-3/

Online submission form: http://review.northern.lights.mn/AOV3/

Support Mississippi Megalops

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And receive reserved tickets for one of the more than 90 highlight events of Northern Spark.

Mississippi Megalops – A Floating Chautauqua by Works Progress is a night of sparkling performances, illustrated presentations, and other works of artistic and scientific expression, which will take place aboard the Jonathan Padelford stern wheeler as it makes its way down the Mississippi River, illuminating the shores of Saint Paul, on June 4-5, during the Northern Spark Festival.

Jonathan Paddleford

More artists selected for Northern Spark

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We recently juried a number of open calls, and selected an amazing group of artists to present work at Northern Spark on June 4-5. This is not a complete list, yet. These projects will join those presented by Northern Lights and our more than 40 partners, many of which are listed on the Northern Spark website. Congratulations to these artists and thanks to everyone who submitted proposals.

Emily Darnell, Molly Roth, Terese Elhard. The Snap Shot Shanty is a portrait studio and multipurpose art space used to facilitate projects with its attendees, which are documented in photo, video, and sound formats and then archived online. Beyond documentary-style portraiture,  past activities have included mask-making, caricature drawing and musical performances. New activities will be introduced for The Snap Shot Shanty’s new context including long exposure photographic experiments, illuminated storytelling, and choreographed light shows.

Daniel Dean and Ben Moren. Mobile Experiential Cinema is a roving, bicycle-mounted cinematic experience that takes advantage of the specific sites at which a film is created. A short narrative film will be created and then projected at at least 5 specific sites within Zones A,B, C & D with audience and projection team travel via bike between sites as part of the narrative arc of the film. Props and actions will be included at the physical site that mirror the content of the film and draw the audience into the experience of the film.

Ben Garthus. Creative Outpost is a nomadic social gathering point that unpacks from a car trailer and is devoted to facilitating creative, self-determined activities. Inspired by the free open-ended play of adventure playgrounds, which are common in much of Europe but are a rarity in the United States, Creative Outpost will not have a specific program but instead will have a variety of loose parts, old building materials, tools and open ended equipment that challenges participants to come up with their own activities.

Leslie Kelman and Mark O’Brien. Domestic Storefront is a small hut resembling a Minneapolis mixed-use building and having fabric over the windows, lit from within. Working from within through the night modifying the shape of the windows using needles, thread, wooden strips and staple guns our silhouettes are visible from outside for curious observers to follow the progress.

Osman Khan. Ceiling places a horizontally scanning laser at a city site. Apart from a drawing a line approximately 10 ft in the air on surrounding buildings , the laser is invisible, except when particulates pass through the beam, such as fog, mist, dust, steam from sewers, laundromats, individual smokers or strategically placed fog machines.  Oscillating between visibility and invisibility, Ceiling plays with the public’s perceptions and fantasies of invisible forces.

Mina Leierwood and Mike Haeg. Paradice on the Mississippi is a pair of dice shaped shanties that host many opportunities for families, friends and even total strangers to connect through gameplay. Activities include The Holy Roller, which alternates between transportation and game board; a table game based on the Art Shanty Projects; and play and pick up plans for some Scandahoovian yard games.

Norbert Lucas, Jerry Riess, Craig Mary Verhoeven. GPS Shanty is an octagon-shaped shanty. Visitors use the direction of a large three foot compass in the center of the octagon shanty to determine Norht, South, East or West, and then locate their town and place a note on the wall including their town’s name, what the town is most known for, or why they like the town. Maps and photos decorate the appropriate walls of the North, East, West, and South suburbs.

Aaron Marx. MAW Mobile Hotspot creates a mobile 4G hotspot and human-powered projection unit used to allow other artists or participants free wireless access. The unit will also be used for projection experiments utilizing live streaming technology.

Megan Mertaugh. To pull up. is a mobile film installation to be projected on homes that are in the process of foreclosure or are foreclosed within festival Zone D of Northern Spark. Moving from one house address to another using MAW’s mobile projection platforms to project onto the structural features of each property, To pull up. is designed to provide a visual voice for those individuals and families within our community who have recently lost or are in the midst of loosing their home, to tell their story.

The Notion Collective (Andy Dayton, Jason Bahling, Michael Eckblad, Candice Heberer, Jon Wohl). Station Identification is an audio installation on the Foshay Tower Observation Deck, which will serve as an aural map of Twin Cities  AM/FM radio broadcasting as well as transform the historic skyscraper into a broadcast tower for transmitting information about participants’ relationship to the radio landscape.

Angela Olson. wanderlust will be a night of journey, wander, and search. A group of wanderers travel from site to site, observing the events around them. and searching for their end destination.

Stephen Rife. Firefall is a live-action, pyrotechnic display involving a modified grain shovel marking regular intervals of the Northern Spark nuit blanche.

Carissa Samaniego and Bridget Beck. GLOW-a-BOUT is a nightlong city game meant for large-scale participation that combines the spirit of nostalgic night games and the Holi Festival to create a new event specific to Northern Spark and involves fortresses, flags, pigmented powders, teams, and glowing orbs.

Skewed Visions (Charles Campbell, Gulgun Kayim, Sean Kelley-Pegg). Please Remain Seated is a performance tailored for 15 bus drivers, driving the 15 Festival buses for the duration of Northern Spark. The material for the performances will explore the inner thoughts and intimacies in the urban environment as seen through the eyes of the driver and the routine of driving a bus.

Angela Sprunge, Dana Maiden , Julie Kesti , Scott Kesti, Kaara Nilsso. In Art Swap Shanty adults and children are invited to swap an object of their creation for someone else’s. Our mantra- “if you call it art, we call it art.” Art Swap is fun, interactive, community building, economically and resource friendly, recession trendy, and contagious.

Paris along the Mississippi?

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MPR’s Chris Roberts interviews Northern Spark Artistic Director Steve Dietz. Chris did a great job of zeroing in on some of the key questions about why Northern Spark and why the Twin Cities? Ultimately, only the Festival itself can make the case, but listen here for some initial thoughts. And start “training” now to stay up all night on June 4.

Midnight concerts recorded

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Olivia Block, midnight concert, Trinity Cathedral, 2010 01SJ Biennial, San Jose, CA. Photo: Everett Taasevigen, from unpublished proofs of 01SJ image catalog designed by Matthew Rezac.
Olivia Block, Steve Roden, Stephen Vitiello, Molly Berg, midnight concert, Trinity Cathedral, 2010 01SJ Biennial, San Jose, CA. Photos: Everett Taasevigen, from unpublished proofs of 01SJ image catalog designed by Matthew Rezac.

One of my favorite moments – there were many – during the 2010 01SJ Biennial was visiting Trinity Cathedral at the end of each day, at midnight, to hear a series of concerts curated by Stephen Vitiello by himself, Molly Berg, Olivia Block, and Steve Roden. Fortunately, Stephen recorded the sessions, and they are now available on “Moss” via 12K.

As the liner notes tell it:

“The final night was meant to be a duo with Molly and Stephen but the opportunity to play with musicians/friends who we admire so much called out for an invitation to play together. As the set was entirely improvised, the billing really changed in our minds from being a duo with guests to becoming a quartet. The church itself was certainly inspiring, its dark wood and clean, dry acoustics. There was a very small but dedicated audience. No one slept and the church crew were amazingly able to quiet the rowdy revelers on the street for the duration of our set.

“Anyone familiar with any of the four musicians involved in this recording will know the level of craftsmanship and attention to sonic tactility that can be found within. They each exercise such incredible restraint, a feat difficult to pull off in an impromptu improvised session where musicians are often found competing for space, and allow for a sense of place to work its way through the quiet recording. “Moss” breathes like a living being lying down to sleep — a delicate wave of hushed field recordings, tape tracks and subtle electronics provides a bed for which Molly Berg’s clarinet and voice (joined at times by Steve Roden) ebb and sway, allowed center- stage, in movements across the piece’s 24+ minutes. Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello provide guitar (lap steel and electric, respectively) while Olivia Block manipulates the tapes, field recordings and electronics.”

Buy now in the 12K Shop

Info and sound samples