The University of Alabama’s Sonic Frontiers concert series presents its first concert of the “California Experiments” 2016-2017 season on Friday, November 4th at 7:30 pm. Composer/performer/instrument builder Cheryl Leonard will present her work Antarctica: Music from the Ice at the University of Alabama School of Music Recital Hall.
Cheryl Leonard’s music finds its raw materials just about anywhere: glass shards and glaciers, pinecones and boxspring mattresses, a flock of accordions, a pod of whales. From these diverse sources come works that embrace the spectrum of musical possibilities: improvised to composed, acoustic to electronic, diaphanous to bombastic, notes to noise. Over the last decade the San Francisco Bay area-based artist has focused on investigating sounds, structures, and objects from the natural world. Her projects cultivate stones, wood, water, ice, sand, shells, feathers, and bones as musical instruments, and feature one-of-a-kind sculptural instruments and field recordings from remote locales. Leonard is fascinated by the subtle textures and intricacies of sounds, especially very quiet phenomena. She uses microphones to explore micro-aural worlds hidden within her sound sources and develops compositions that highlight the unique voices they contain. Leonard’s musical forms reflect, model, or demonstrate themes connected to natural phenomena and processes. Most of her recent projects relate to climate change in the polar regions and California.
Antarctica: Music from the Ice is an evening-length concert featuring sound and video from Antarctica. Leonard will perform on instruments crafted from objects she collected in Antarctica including rocks, feathers, shells, penguin bones, and icicles. These sounds are combined with field recordings Leonard collected onsite. The work grew out of a residency supported by the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program.
Sonic Frontiers is a cutting-edge concert series of innovative and experimental music that enriches the cultural life of West Alabama and invites creative exchange between world-class performers of adventurous music, students, and the greater community through public performances and lively post-concert discussions. All Sonic Frontiers events are free and open to the public. This event is sponsored by the University of Alabama’s New College and the College of Arts and Sciences. For more information: http://sonicfrontiers.ua.edu
Up Next for Sonic Frontiers: Electronic musician and network music pioneer, Tim Perkis on Friday, January 27 2017.
FREE
