Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/23/2014
7:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Location
Canessa Gallery
Category(ies)
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Meridian Music: Composers in Performance Series relocates to its new site at Canessa Gallery in North Beach for its 2014-2015 season. This move from our Union Square home to another lovely old historic building creates continuity for our 18-year-old New Music program, launching with the internationally acclaimed composer, educator, and electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros. On November 23rd at 7:30pm, Oliveros and friends will perform from her Anthology of Text Scores, choosing from more than 100 pieces composed between 1971 and 2013. The performance will feature Horse Sings From Cloud as a meditation on sounding for loving.
Pauline Oliveros is a revered treasure in New Music. In 2012 she was awarded the John Cage Award from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts. Oliveros is a Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, and the Darius Milhaud Artist-in-Residence at Mills College. For four decades she has explored new avenues of sound, introducing the method of incorporating environmental sounds into performance and forging new ground in composition and sonic experience. Her concept “Deep Listening” comes from her childhood fascination with sounds and from her works in concert music with composition, improvisation and electro-acoustics. Oliveros is founder of Deep Listening Institute, formerly Pauline Oliveros Foundation, now the Center For Deep Listening at Rensselaer. Focused concentration, skilled musicianship and strong improvisational skills are the hallmarks of Oliveros’ form. Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she has created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly affects those who experience it.
With composers Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, and later Terry Wiley and Steve Reich, Oliveros was integral in founding the San Francisco Tape Music Center in early 1960s. Oliveros also became the first director of the Mills Center for Contemporary Music.
The intimate acoustic experience, which Toyoji Tomita had encouraged and helped to protect at Meridian’s former location, continues on at Canessa, which, like our previous Powell Street site, has multi-dimensional historic architecture and a rich and storied past. The Canessa Building, built in the late 1800’s, is an official San Francisco landmark that once housed printing presses. In the 1920s, sculptor Ralph Stackpole and painter Timothy Wulff turned the building into artists’ studios. For the next 35 years, artists, including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, William Gerstle, Caroline Martin, and others, worked in what they called the “Ship Building,” so-named because a ship’s hull is incorporated into the structure of the building. This diminutive gem known as Canessa has survived these many decades and is still home to the gallery and is the working space of several creative professionals.
Please join us for this special, groundbreaking night of music with a cherished pioneer of the contemporary music world. Seats are limited to 35, so early ticket purchase is advised.