Photo by Tobias Feltus
Monday, November 22
8pm CT
Streaming on YouTube
FREE, $10 suggested donation
Option Talks Music: Lauren Sarah Hayes
Meet Scottish improviser and sound artist Lauren Sarah Hayes. A sculptress of sound, Lauren’s exploration of the relationships between sound, space and audience have been described as ‘tantalising, engaging physically with the listener’ by the Herald Scotland. Commissioned by major festivals including the London Jazz Festival and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Lauren’s unique, physical and multi-faceted approach to experimentation has given her a well-deserved place among the leading figures in contemporary music.
Tune in on Monday, November 22nd at 8pm Chicago time to hear the discussion, ask questions in the chat, and listen to Lauren present and discuss her creative ideas.
The Option series is presented as part of Experimental Sound Studio’s virtual concerts every Monday. Link to this program, with the interview led by Ken Vandermark, below.
About Lauren Sarah Hayes
Lauren Sarah Hayes is a Scottish improviser and sound artist. Her music is a mix of experimental pop/live electronics/techno/noise/free improvisation and has been described as 'voracious' and ‘exhilarating’. She is a sculptress of sound, manipulating, remixing, and bending voice, drum machines, analogue synths and self-built software live and physically. She is excited by what can happen in the vulnerable relationships between sound, space, and audience. Her shows are highly physical, making the performance of live electronic music more engaging for audiences. Over the last decade she has developed and honed a deliberately challenging and unpredictable performance system that explores the relationships between bodies, sound, environments, and technology.
She has been commissioned by major festivals including the London Jazz Festival, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival with a live BBC Radio 3 broadcast as part of its 2017 International Showcase, and Sonica, for which she gave four sold-out performances inside Hamilton Mausoleum, Scotland, famous for once holding the longest echo of any manmade structure. Hayes was an Air Time (Serious/London Jazz Festival) artist for 2015-2017, and part of the hcmf// International Showcase cohort of artists in 2017. She has performed extensively across Europe and the US and The Wire described her 2016 album MANIPULATION (pan y rosas discos) as “skittering melodies and clip-clopping rhythms suggesting a mischievous intelligence emerging from this web of wires”. Her recent 2021 release Embrace (Superpang) was included in Bandcamp’s Best Experimental Music of February 2021.
She is an educator and researcher in the interdisciplinary School of Arts, Media & Engineering, Arizona State University, where she leads the research group Practice and Research in Enactive Sonic Art (PARIESA). Since 2009, she has developed haptic technology to explore the tactility and tangibility of digital sound for both the performer and her audiences. Her scholarly research spans the fields of embodied and enactive music cognition, live electronic musical improvisation, and site-responsive sonic art. She is Director-At-Large of the International Computer Music Association, and a member of the New BBC Radiophonic Workshop, with whom she has been involved in the Oram Awards, responsible for promoting forward-thinking work from women and gender marginalized artists.
www.laurensarahhayes.com
@elleesaich