Sonic Pavilion Festival

Featured Artists (in order of play):

Whitney Johnson (Matchess)
I Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda & Bill Parod
Stephan Moore
Kitundu
Kioto Aoki
Natalie Chami (TALsounds)

Commissioned works were 20 minutes each
All artists were presented daily

Sonic Pavilion Festival is developed by Experimental Sound Studio and is presented by Millennium Park and the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

More Info:

Kioto Aoki, Sonorous Admittings 

About the work:
Sonorous Admittings is a sonic landscape that accentuates the taiko drum’s most fundamental and captivating element: acoustic resonance. The simple phrasing played by the artist on the odaiko (larger taiko) and smaller shime taiko enunciate the textural and tonal shifts of assonant sound between silence, and recreates what it feels like to play the odaiko and be completely surrounded by thunderous reverberations.

About the artist:
Kioto Aoki is a visual artist and musician descending from the Toyoakimoto performing arts family in Tokyo with roots dating back to the Edo period. Studying under her Tokyo-born father, Aoki is carrying on the family lineage in Chicago as a taiko artist while also playing shamisen and tsuzumi. She plays in both traditional and contemporary musical contexts and is active within the experimental and creative music communities in Chicago and the Bay Area.

Natalie Chami (TALsounds), Along Dusk

About the work:
This is the last piece I have the honor of creating before my move away from Chicago after making this city my home and community for the last 16 years. I struggle with transitions, and the monumental energy and perseverance I have needed to get through this move can be traced throughout the piece. The first movement is probably the most recognizable for anyone familiar with my music, with the use of my analog synthesizers; the middle two movements start to touch at a newer sound I'd like to continue to explore more, as I'm now working with more digital synthesizers at KORG; and the last movement I recorded in the depths of feeling very tired, and the improvised lyrics are about coming out of the pandemic and focus on the hope that all of us can learn to be more compassionate with ourselves.

About the artist:
Natalie Chami is a proud Canadian-born Lebanese American who adopted the TALsounds moniker in 2009 for her explorations in the drone, ambient, and improvisational disciplines. Since choosing the TALsounds moniker, Chami has spent over a decade building a brilliant career as a solo artist in Chicago and beyond. Through her masterful synth work, operatic vocals, and nuanced sculpting of mood and atmosphere, Chami’s music strikes a balance between the extremely personal and the selflessly transportive. She spirals effortlessly through a never-ending carousel of solo improvisations and collaborations with other artists, and she seems to evolve with each performance, no matter how lofty and grandiose or humble and intimate those performances may be. www.talsounds.com

Whitney Johnson (Matchess), Almost Gone

About the work:
"Almost Gone" was conceived in 2017 during 10 days of silence at the Dhamma Vaddhana Vipassana Meditation Center in Joshua Tree, CA. After hearing tinnitus, breathing, heartbeat, and the nervous system, I listened to the death of music weaving through cognitively dissonant noise and disequilibria. Thanks to Haley Fohr, Tim Kinsella, Brian Sulpizio, Rob Frye, and Kalina Malyszko for performing the score and all the caretakers of forthcoming manifestations.

About the artist:
Whitney Johnson is an artist living in Chicago. As Matchess she composes, performs, improvises, and collaborates with the viola, as well as the Ace Tone combo organ, electronics, and vocalization. In tandem with her sound practice, she received her doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago in 2018 and continues to study the relation between language and sensory perception in sound art. She is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Sound and Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Lecturer in the Media Arts and Design Department at the University of Chicago.

I Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda & Bill Parod, Yudha Hati

About the work:
“Yudha Hati” means fighting with heart through joy, sadness, and death. This special performance for the Jay Pritzker Pavilion is from an upcoming Wayang Kulit (Balinese Shadow Puppet) performance planned for Fall 2021 at The Chicago Laboratory For Electroacoustic Theater at Elastic Arts, Chicago. The story is from the Sanskrit epic Ramayana and tells of the conflict between rival siblings Sugriva and Subali, the turmoil their ongoing war inflicts on the forest animals, and the alliance of gods Rama and Hanuman formed to restore peace to the kingdom. An expansive cast of gods, birds, monkeys, and environmental forces descend from the Pavilion’s “canopy” along with Balinese gamelan and dalang in this animated forest drama. 

Credits:
Indonesian Dance of Illinois
I Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda  - Instrumental and vocal performances, sound design
Bill Parod - Spatial music software, field recording, and sound design

Experimental Sound Studio
Alex Inglizian - Recording engineer for all instrumental and vocal tracks

Special thanks to Stephan Moore and The Chicago Laboratory For Electroacoustic Theater at Elastic Arts, Chicago for his vision, joy, and sharing that critical facility for developing spatial music.

About the artists:
I Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda is a Chicago-area Balinese Dance master renown in Bali and The U.S. He is founder and Artistic Director of Indonesian Dance of Illinois.

Bill Parod makes things to listen to using his computer at Earful.be.

Alex Inglizian is a sound artist, musician, and beloved recording engineer in high demand at Experimental Sound Studio and throughout the sound arts community.

Kitundu, ...fulcrum...

About the work:
A flock of birds appears to fly around and through the trellis at the great lawn. The sound was created from the garments of one of Kitundu's mentors, the late Carei Thomas, a jazz pianist, composer, educator and community arts organizer with strong ties to Chicago. Kitundu sends his heartfelt appreciation to Joyce Thomas, Carei's beloved wife and best friend, for aiding in the creation of this memorial.

About the artist:
Walter Kitundu is a Tanzanian-American multidisciplinary artist and educator. He creates sculpture, sound installations, and large scale public art works that address place, history, nature, and community. Kitundu also builds extraordinary musical instruments and mechanical devices when he isn’t obsessively documenting the natural world as a bird photographer. http://www.kitundu.com

Stephan Moore, Overlays

About the work:
Throughout the pandemic, I have tried to maintain a vigilant observation of the internal soundscape of my mental state, through periods of solitude without loneliness, and loneliness without solitude. This piece attempts to engage some of these observed sonic constructions with the awakening city’s soundscape, forming an audible public interaction where the piece is completed by the intervention of the surrounding urban sounds.

About the artist:
Stephan Moore is a sound artist based in Chicago. His creative work manifests as electronic studio compositions, improvisational outbursts, sound installations, scores for collaborative performances, algorithmic compositions, interactive art, and sound designs for unusual circumstances. In 2019, he co-founded the Chicago Laboratory for Electro-Acoustic Theater, which operates a unique multichannel audio system at Elastic Arts in Chicago. He is also active as a curator, scholar, audio engineer, and freelance technician and problem-solver for a multitude of artistic projects. He is a Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Associate Professor of Instruction in the Sound Arts and Industries program at Northwestern University. More information at oddnoise.com.

Year of Chicago Music:

In support of Chicago’s diverse and legendary music industry, Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events have designated 2021 as the “Year of Chicago Music.” This citywide focus on music is one of the first of its kind in the U.S. The City of Chicago and its partners working with the local music industry will present "Chicago In Tune" (August 19 – September 19), a new annual music festival; launch a major marketing campaign for Chicago music; provide additional financial grants for musicians and music projects; encourage dialog around inclusion and equity; and call on civic, philanthropic, arts and business leaders to support the music industry. Learn more at chicago.gov/music.

Lead presenting partners:

Sonic Pavilion Festival is developed by Experimental Sound Studio and is presented by Millennium Park and the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.