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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > May > 20 > Entry
Ceremony Hall to fill with immersive sound art on Saturday
In the last few years, sound art has rippled at the edges of Austin’s contemporary culture scene.
Now, Austin’s New Music Co-op brings some serious talent to town.
Love the sound of leaves rustling in the wind? What about the soft clink of a handful of small river stones? Then prepare for an immersive sonic art experience. And prepare to listen closely like you might never have listened before.
Arizona composer and sound artist Jeph Jerman has spent 10 years presenting different iterations of his ‘Animist Orchestra’ project. The orchestra exists wherever Jerman fiinds artist willing to go down the same creative path as he.
He found like-minded artists in New Music Co-op — the first ensemble for which Jerman has specifically written a piece.
On Saturday Jerman, along with the collaboration of 20 Austin musicians will coax polyphonic masses of sound out of natural found objects (animal bones, seeds, leaves) culled from around Austin, as well as some from Arizona. Jerman’s score will direct the ensemble in the creation of soundscapes that are carefully wrought yet also spontaneous, wholly natural and at the same time artificial.
Jerman’s ultimate question — what happens when we listen? Two of the project’s primary goals are to let the sounds be themselves and to listen. As Jerman writes, his aim to “remove, as much as possible, the intent to ‘make music’ or ‘express ourselves,’ and just let the sounds be.” Jerman issued the simple instruction to continually re-listen and to turn one’s attention ever toward the sounds.
‘Animist Orchestra.’
8 p.m. Ceremony Hall, 4100 Red River St.
$15. www.newmusiccoop.org.
“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”
— John Cage
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