February 23, 2020
Jacob Kirkgegaard and Mariel Roberts
with special performance by Matt Barbier
Danish sound artist Jacob Kirkgegaard and NYC cellist Mariel Roberts
will perform at Automata, as the final stop along the route of the proposed border wall.
Between February 17th and 22nd American cellist and composer Mariel Roberts and Danish sound artist and composer Jacob Kirkegaard are embarking on their first collaboration to create an electro-acoustic, evening length work in response to the border "wall" which is meant to divide the US and Mexico.
Using extra sensitive equipment, Kirkegaard and Roberts are traveling in the border region between Texas and California to capture the sound of the objects and atmospheres which define the experience of the region. The source material for this work is captured by attaching vibration sensors directly onto the border fence, which make it possible to hear the resonances of the various types of metallic structures which make up the barrier. The piece is being created during this one-week field trip along the over 600 mile border fence. The resulting performance will be a dialogue between the cello and with the internal sounds of the open environment as well as the inner subtle vibrations of the wall.
At Automata Mariel and Jacob will be giving the first public presentation of this work. Trombonist Matt Barbier will open for them presenting solo works based in physical phenomena of instruments.
TICKETS
$15 General Admission
$10 Members, Students, Seniors
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
American cellist Mariel Roberts is widely recognized not just for her virtuosic performances, but as a “fearless explorer” in her field (---Chicago Reader). Her ravenous appetite for collaboration and experimentation as an interpreter, improvisor, and composer have helped create a body of work which bridges avant-garde, contemporary, classical, improvised, and traditional music. Roberts is widely recognized for her “technical and interpretive mastery” (I care if you listen) and for performances which seethe with “excruciating intensity” (The Whole Note).
Roberts has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across four continents, most notably as a member and co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble (named “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018” by The New York Times), as well as with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Mivos Quartet, Bang on a Can All Stars, and Ensemble Signal. She performs regularly on major stages for new music such as the Lincoln Center Festival (NYC), Wien Modern (Austria), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), and numerous others. Roberts has been featured wide variety of outstanding recordings, and her compositions have been performed at venues such as Merkin Hall and Miller Theater in New York City.
Roberts has released two solo albums of new works commissioned for her. The first, “Nonextraneous Sounds” (2012), was noted for it's “technical flair and exquisite sensitivity” (Composers Forum). 2017's “Cartography” (2017), solidified Roberts' position as “one of the most adventurous figures on New York’s new music scene—one with a thorough grounding in classical tradition but a ravenous appetite for and tireless discipline in new work.” (Bandcamp). Her close collaborators have spanned a wide range of genres and include some of the most important figures on the contemporary and experimental scene, such as George Lewis, Alex Mincek, Tim Hecker, Nate Wooley, M. Lamar, Patrick Higgins (Zs), Ingrid Laubrock, Jeffrey Mumford, Sam Pluta, Eric Wubbels, and Ambrose Akinmusire.
The sound art of Jacob Kirkegaard explores ways to reflect on complex, unnoticed or unapproachable conditions and environments. One of contemporary sound art's most subtle, intriguing figures., his works have treated themes such as radioactivity in Chernobyl and Fukushima, melting ice in the Arctic and border walls in Palestine. His two recent works are immersive acoustic explorations into global waste management and of processes generally unfolding when a human being dies. Since 2006 Kirkegaard been extensively researching, recording and creating works using otoacoustic emissions; tones generated from the actual human ear. The core element and method of his work derive from the use of sound recordings of the tangible aspects from its intangible themes.
Kirkegaard has presented his works at galleries, museums, biennales and concert spaces throughout the world, including MoMA in New York, LOUISIANA - Museum of Modern Art and ARoS in Denmark, The Menil Collection and at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, The Sydney Biennale in Australia, Aichi Triennale in Nagoya, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan. Jacob Kirkegaard has gallery representation through Fridman Gallery (New York, USA) and Galleri Tom Christoffersen (Copenhagen, DK).
Kirkegaard's sound works have been released on labels such as Important Records (USA), Touch (UK), mAtter (JAP) and Posh Isolation (DK). He is a founding member of the sound art collective freq_out as well as the not-for-profit arts organisation TOPOS.
More artistically minded than field recordings, more naturally hewn than noise tapes, Kirkegaard amplifies hidden worlds into evocative drifts. (Rolling Stone, December 2015)
Kirkegaard has countered Duchamp’s dictum, “One can look at seeing, one can’t hear hearing.” (Douglas Kahn, Earside Out, 2014.) His work channels an access to an inner world. (A.H. Neset, The Wire, 2009)
Matt Barbier is an LA based musician focused on experimental intonation, noise, and the physical processes of his instrument. His playing has been described by the LA Times as being "of intense, brilliant, virtuosic growling that gave the striking impression that Barbier was dismantling the instrument while playing it," by the Wire as “exploring the nooks of instrumental tone far beyond the reach of most mortals,” and by the New Yorker as being a "diabolically inventive trombonist-composer."
Matt engages in collaborative relationships with a range of musicians including Michelle Lou, David Brynjar Franzson, Catherine Lamb, Kevin Drumm, and Katherine Young. As an interpreter he has also given world premieres by a broad spectrum of composers including Liza Lim, Richard Barrett, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Jacob Kirkegaard, and others. Matt is a member of RAGE Thormbones, gnarwhallaby, wasteLAnd music, wildUp, and is an active soloist on low brass instruments. He teaches at CalArts and Los Angeles City College (LACC).
Matt has presented work for the Monday Evening Concerts, LA Phil's Green Umbrella, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Spor, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Bludenz Tage zeitgemäßer , Indexical, and numersous other venues. He has been in residence at Harvard (HGNM), UCSD, Stanford, Princeton, UCSC, Columbia, NYU, and UCLA, and released work on Carrier, Populist, Mode, Hat Hut, Innova, Faux Amis, and Kairos Records. Additionally, he has released a technical manual for trombonists on the production and integration of lip multiphonics and split tones.
Matt has written music and created sound installations for the Factory Seconds Brass Trio, WasteLAnd, gnarwhallaby, the Exploritorium, RAGE Thormbones, the Museum of Jurassic Technology, SASSAS, Machine Project, LACMA, and the Getty Villa, as well as with digital media artist Tom Leeser.