| |
|
|
Project title: Transmission
Mission
Recipient Organization: Galería
de la Raza
Lead Artists: Guillermo Galindo & Chris
Brown
Genre and Date Awarded: Media Arts, June
2003
To be Completed: June 2004
Sound installation artists/composers Guillermo
Galindo and Chris Brown will
collaborate with Galería de la Raza and young Latino artists to create Transmission
Mission, a multidimensional, audience interactive, live electronic music
performance. The artists intend to recreate the distinctive aural qualities of
the Mission neighborhood and present them in an interactive format at Yerba Buena
Gardens in June 2004.
The project reflects the lead
artists’ interest
in bringing the musical experience out of the concert hall and
into the city streets.
The collaboration
will begin with a series of five radio-sound production workshops at Galería
that will engage young Latino artists—DJs, spoken word poets and musicians—along
with older community members in the creation of new poetic and musical works.
The themes, texts, performances, and recordings of the workshop participants
and the neighborhood will become the production’s sonic material. Throughout
the late summer and early fall, the artists will work with community participants
to further develop the sound materials, finalize the electronic score, and
then tighten Transmission Mission’s separate elements into a unified
whole at a pre-performance run through.
During the public presentation of Transmission
Mission at Yerba Buena
Gardens in June 2004, the two artists will occupy the center of the outdoor
performance space and play electronic music from laptop computers. Their
music will accompany
live spoken-word performances, and all will be mixed into four channels,
each of which will be sent to its own low-power FM radio transmitters. The
collaborating
participants will tune in radios to the transmitters, which will operate
on one of the four frequencies not in use by local broadcasters. The soundscape
will
change when participants move into different spatial formations. The audience
will be encouraged to bring portable radio receivers, especially battery
powered
boom boxes, to participate in the live performance. The performance will
be built upon the interaction among the musicians, their collaborators, the
audience,
and the transmitted sounds and themes.
Lead artist Guillermo Galindo has written
music for more than 20 independent films and multimedia projects and has
designed sound for radio, museum dioramas,
and sound installations. The project will continue his exploration of public
spaces which began with “(T)our Time,” (1997), when he broadcast
nature sounds from the top of San Francisco’s Ferry Building. Chris
Brown is a composer, pianist, and electronic musician who has been creating
new music in
the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 20 years. Brown’s interest
in multi-channel sound installations began with “Talking Drum” (1998),
which was performed in many places including on San Francisco’s Market
Street in collaboration with Vietnamese youth.
The two artists have produced
four previous “Transmission” pieces
in Mexico City and Northern California. The lead artist writes, “The
Transmission Series is part of our effort to empower audiences to create
a new relationship
with broadcast media. In particular, the medium of radio is normally
perceived as something magically received from the established providers
of information.
In this project, radio receivers will be presented as the equivalents
of musical instruments that everyone knows how to play.” For both
artists, Transmission
Mission extends these experiences to a larger scale and enhances
their direct interaction with young artists and neighborhood residents.
Galería
de la Raza is one of the nation’s oldest and most
respected Latino arts organizations. Founded in 1970, Galería
presents programs that examine and express artistic concepts central
to the Latino experience.
By providing a venue where Latino artists can experiment and grow,
Galería
sustains the ongoing evolution of Latino art. This project is an outgrowth
of its new “Youth and Media Community Art Program.”
Guillermo Galindo’s composition
work spans from the field of orchestral and symphonic composition
to the domains of musical computer interaction, electro-acoustic
music, opera, and sound design. His music has been performed at
major festivals
throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
During the past ten years, Mr. Galindo has been composing music
for the San Francisco based Asian
American Dance Performances Unbound Spirit Dance Company. He also
works as a sound specialist at the California Library of Natural
Sounds and at the Oakland
Museum of California. Galindo has written music for more than 20
independent films, multimedia projects, and has designed sound
for radio, museum dioramas,
and sound installations. He currently teaches Sound and Technology,
and Latin American Music and Cultural History at the California
College of Arts and Crafts
in Oakland.
Recent Projects
- Collaborative Sound Design pieces with Lourdes
Portillo, Gustavo Vasquez, and Guillermo Gomez Pe_a, “Chicano
Now” exhibition,
Smithsonian Institution, 2003
- Collaborative “Transmission Series” Sound
pieces with Chris Brown, 2002-03
- Orchestral composition, Ome
Acatl, based on the proportions
and symbols of the Aztec Calendar, premiered by UNAM
University Philharmonic Orchestra,
Mexico City date?
- Sound Sculpture, (T) our Time (1997-2002) (constantly
evolving nature sounds), San Francisco Ferry
Building with subsequent installations through towers
and public
buildings in
Mexico and the
United States Opera composition, Califas 2000,
with Guillermo Gomez Pe_a, 2000-01
- Opera composition, Decreation,
with Anne Carson, 2000-01
Awards, Grants and Commissions
- California
Arts
Council
Composers
Fellowship, 2000
- American Composers
Forum Continental Harmony Grant, 1999
- Residency for Composition, Banff
Center for the Arts, 1999
- Meet
the Composer Grant, 1997
- ASCAP Special Awards, 1995-00
- Jovenes Creadores
Grant from the Fondo Nacional
para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994
- Elizabeth Crothers Mills
Award for Excellence
in Composition,
1993
- www.galindog.com
Chris Brown’s music has evolved within the intersections
of many different traditions and styles. Following early training
as a classical pianist, he was
influenced by studies of Indonesian,
Indian, Afro-American, and Cuban music’s,
and then experimented with
inventing and building a personal
electronic instrumentation.
At first
these
were amplified
acoustic devices. He went on
to build analog
circuits that modified their
sounds, and custom-made computer
systems that interactively
transformed them.
More recently he has
extended this fascination with
instrument building to the
design of computer network
systems that interact with
acoustic musicians and with
other computers and musicians
connected over the Internet.
Collaboration and improvisation
have been
primary in the development
of his music for various traditional
instruments
and interactive electronics.
Selected Activities
- Collaborations
with
Guillermo
Galindo, “Transmission Series,” 2002-2003
- Composer,
concert
series, “Inventions,” using
the polyrhythm
generating
software,
in
progress
Commissions:
Rova Saxophone Quartet,
the Abel-Steinberg-Winant
Trio, the Berkeley
Symphony Orchestra
Ensemble Member, The Hub, computer
musicians
who
developed “Computer
Network Music,” 1986-97.
- Ensemble
Member, Room,
with William Winant,
Larry Ochs,
and Scot
Gresham-Lancaster
(1984-94)
- Pianist, Glenn Spearman
Double Trio, performing
and recording
music in
the free jazz tradition
- Performances
and Recordings with
prominent and
varied improvisers,
such as Anthony
Braxton, Wadada
Leo
Smith, Ikue Mori,
and John Zorn
- Pianist,
performing music of such
composers as
James
Tenney,
Henry
Cowell, Christian
Wolff, John
Coltrane,
and Terry
Riley
- Sound
Installation Artist, “Talking Drum,” produced
in Montreal,
San Francisco, and Holland
- “Eternal Network Music,” using Grainwave instruments to produce simultaneous,
collaborative concerts
between California, Germany, and the East Coast
|
