Musique Anecdotique, March 16-18 at Links Hall, Chicago

[Eric Leonardson <eleon@ripco.com>]

Dear Friends,

Here's some last minute info on my upcoming and ongoing performances:

10 p.m. tonight, Wednesday March 14th at the Empty Bottle: I’m a guest
musician with Stuck On Ceiling trio from Szczecin, Poland, along with
multi-instrumentalist Kyle Bruckman. Tickets  $10. 1035 N. Western Ave.
in Chicago.  773-276-3600

"Head Poison", original physical theater by Plasticene, featuring my
live and recorded music, opened last weekend and runs through April 1.
At The Storefront Theatre, 66 East Randolph Street in Chicago. Performs
Thursdays, Fridays, & Saturdays at 8pm & Sundays at 3pm. Special Benefit
Performance for Thresholds: March 18th at 3pm. Free Public Workshop:
March 17th from 1pm - 4pm. For Tickets 312.742.8497 or ticketweb.com $15

"Musique Anecdotique",
Curated by Eric Leonardson
A series of electroacoustic music performances by Yasuhiro Otani and
Eric Leonardson, with the premiere of Otani’s "Over the Moonbow", a
real-time, computer sound score for two 16mm films by experimental
filmmaker, Tatsu Aoki.

Time & dates: March 16-18, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., Sunday at

7:00 p.m.
Place: 3435 N. Sheffield Ave., Chicago: Entrance on Newport
Price: Tickets $10. For reservations call Links Hall at (773) 281-0824.


"Musique Anecdotique" Program:

8:00 p.m. Friday, March 16
"El-I"
Yasuhiro Otani: PowerBook G3, real-time sampling/processing software
Eric Leonardson: Springboard, electronics, and environmental sound
A brief intermission will occur between sets

8:00 p.m. Saturday, March 17
"Over the Moonbow"
Live sound by Yasuhiro Otani: PowerBook G3, real-time
sampling/processing software
Films by Tatsu Aoki, Rapturous (1982), and Puzzle (2001).
No intermission.

7:00 p.m. Sunday, March 18
"El-II"
Yasuhiro Otani: PowerBook G3, real-time sampling/processing software
Eric Leonardson: Springboard, electronics, and environmental sound
A brief intermission will occur between sets

Curator’s Statement

My work with Yasuhiro Otani began in 1997, and in some respects carries
on the tradition of musique concrète; a term coined by Pierre Schaeffer
in 1948, to describe his new form of music made of phonograph
recordings. Our music departs from this approach, yet its defining
feature remains its narrative quality—much like a film soundtrack
without the film—or a radio play. Hence it was fitting to name the
series Musique Anecdotique, a term coined by Luc Ferrari for a genre in
electroacoustic music that employs recognizable sounds more for their
"anecdotal" or narrative aspect than for their abstract potential.
Links hall is located in an active urban soundscape where the El,
pedestrian and car traffic, telephones and door buzzers are ever
present. Isolating the room from its environment is not possible, so I
thought we should attempt to use it as a narrative of the present
moment. Otani, using a Macintosh PowerBook with Max/MSP software, and
software of his own design, plays and processes pre-recorded audio with
sounds that are captured live, in real-time. The electronics that
augment the sounds of my Springboard also provide real-time sampling and

time-delays. With these devices, the Links Hall offers a unique and
fugitive sound source that we may, in a sense, be able to transform into

an instrument itself.
Friday evening is to be a set of improvisations that sample, and
generate sonic material to be reincorporated into Sunday evening's
performance; elevating the concert to a series of highly plastic and
dramatic events based in the poetic nature of electroacoustic sound.
This series is as much about watching as it is about listening: seeing
with the imagination and the eyes. Tatsu Aoki’s films are moving
experiments in visual texture produced with hand-processing techniques.
On Saturday two of his 16mm films will be shown, Rapturous (1982), and
Puzzle (2001). For Over the Moonbow Tatsu’s emphasis on texture is
echoed in Otani’s real-time sound score.

Eric Leonardson, March 12, 2001

Biographies:
Yasuhiro Otani lives and works in Tokyo. Starting as a jazz guitarist
who studied with the late Masayuki Takayanagi, Otani also collaborates
with dancers and choreographers, and started to play in his original
style (solo) in 1991. He was deeply influenced by contemporary music,
free music, folk music, collage, noise, music concrete, popular music,
experimental music, and improvised music. Otani has become an
internationally recognized musique concrète computer artist and has
performed with many notable composers and musicians, among them: Otomo
Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Martin Tètreault, Elliot Sharp, Jim O’Rourke, TV
Pow, Carl Stone, and Tatsu Aoki.

His recent recordings include Brain-Wash, a solo CD on Innocent Eyes &
Lenses (IEL) and Dial, with Tatsu Aoki on Asian Improv Records;
Experimental Tokyo (IEL), Cathode with Otomo Yoshihide (Tzadik), Four
Focuses: with Martin Tètreault, Sachiko M, and Otomo Yoshihide
(Amoebic), and the Pendler compilation (The Tyte Institute/Alteration).
Web page: http://member.nifty.ne.jp/yotani/

Tatsu Aoki works in a wide range of music styles from traditional Asian
music and jazz to free and experimental music, mainly focusing on
improvisation. He is the founder and artistic director of the Chicago
Asian American Jazz Festival, which debuted in October 1996.

With works ranging from solo to larger ensemble, from mainstream to
avant garde, Aoki has worked with many musical legends such as Fred
Anderson, Von Freeman, Afifi Phillard, Mwata Bowden, Francis Wong and
Malachi Favors. Known for breaking new ground for the bass as a lead
instrument. Aoki is one of the leading artists on the Asian American
creative music scene. He has recorded six solo bass albums, five duet
albums with various other artists; six ensemble works as leader, and has

appeared as a guest artist on over thirty other albums. Among the
variety of works produced in the last 15 years, his solo bass
performance and recordings are internationally acclaimed, known for one
of the most innovative approaches of the bass instrument.

As a producer, he has produced a number of projects in the Asian
American arts such as film series, albums and concert series. Born in
Japan, he is a graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
where he received Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees, and where he

currently teaches.
Web page: http://www.avantbass.com/

Eric Leonardson is an electroacoustic composer, radio artist, sound
designer, instrument inventor and improvisor. In the early-1980s he
received an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and later

co-founded the Experimental Sound Studio, where he coordinated "Sounds
>From Chicago," one of the city’s first internationally broadcast radio
art programs. Over the past decade he has produced concerts, toured, and

performed throughout North America, Japan, and Germany.

Leonardson’s interest in creating new sounds for performance and studio
composition led to the invention of the Springboard, an electroacoustic
percussion instrument made from found objects and recycled materials
whose sounds belie its humble origins.
His frequent collaborators include experimental vocalist Carol Genetti;
percussionist Toshi Makihara; avant-bassist Tatsu Aoki; audio artist
Steven A. Barsotti; free improv legend Jack Wright, and
multi-instrumentalists Jim Baker and Bob Marsh.

Leonardson is probably best known in Chicago as a composer and performer

for the physical theater company Plasticene, which he co-founded in
1995. The company’s latest piece "Head Poison" has just opened and runs
through the month of March at the Storefront Theater, Gallery 37 Center
for the Arts. [Contact: http://www.plasticene.com/]

Many of Leonardson’s compositions for film, video, theater, dance, and
radio are featured on his solo CD Radio Reverie In the Waiting Place
(1999) and Animus (1998) features his work with Carol Genetti.
Leonardson also teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
and Columbia College.

For more info, contact:
Eric Leonardson
Tel/fax: 773-342-5012
Email: eleon@ripco.com

--

sound thinking: http://pages.ripco.net/~eleon/
upcoming dates: http://pages.ripco.net/~eleon/whatsnew.html