WEST OAKLAND SOUND SERIES
a weekly new music and experimental sound series presented by sfSound
RACHEL BEETZ + ANNE HEGE + JULIE HERNDON
KEN UENO + MATT INGALLS
RACHEL BEETZ performs Pareidolia, for perfectly tuned oscillators with glacial transformations. The piece explores the phenomenon where our brains attempt to make patterns out of random information: auditory pareidolia. As a composer, flutist, and improviser, Beetz explores presence through sound and listening. Her works recreate physical atmospheres based on her deep listening adventures in the wild, exploring hidden worlds of nature and machines. Combining experimental field recordings and electronically modified flutes, her works examine community, environmentalism, and women’s work through sound, textiles, and lighting. Her projects have been featured in concert halls and galleries in Australia, Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. You can hear her on Orenda, Blue Griffin, iikki, Neuma, and Populist record labels. She is currently a co-director of the Wasteland Music and Populist Records.
ANNE HEGE performs a short set of works for her live-looping instrument, The Tape Machine. First constructed in 2009, the Tape Machine is a portable instrument created with three hacked cassette players––one recording tape head and two playback points running a handmade tape loop. In simple terms, it is an analog, live-looping instrument where the listener, by sound alone, can identify the transparent process and technology. There is no hidden processing, just the magic of a single blank tape loop. Born in Oakland, Hege has composed for film, installation art, dance, and concert settings. The New York Times praised her score for Carrie Ahern’s dance installation SeNSATE, as “convincing” and “strangely environmental.” Influenced by Hege’s deep listening practice, her latest compositions range between ritual, music, and theater, with some homemade instruments thrown in for good measure. Hege is currently the artistic director of the Peninsula Women's Chorus. She performs regularly in her electronic duo, New Prosthetics, and the laptop ensemble Sideband. Her latest work, an opera for laptop orchestra and live voices, The Furies: A Laptopera, premiered at Stanford's CCRMA in November 2022.
JULIE HERNDON performs Electronic Etudes: a collection of pieces that seamlessly integrate keyboard instruments and live electronics, from acoustic piano to analog and digital synthesis. Herndon is a composer, performer, and sound artist exploring the body’s relationship to sound. Her electroacoustic work has been described as “truly brilliant” (Kulturpunkt), “like a signal from another world” (Tages-Anzeiger), and “blended to inhabit a surprisingly expressive space” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Her compositions and installations have been presented at MATA Festival and National Sawdust in New York, Artistry Space in Singapore, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca in Mexico, Music Biennale Zagreb in Croatia, Sogar Theater in Switzerland, and by Forest Collective in Australia. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Technology and Composition at Cal Poly.
Beetz, Hege, and Herndon conclude their set with an improvised trio.
For over a decade, the duo of KEN UENO (vocals) and MATT INGALLS (clarinet) has presented their unique arsenal of extended techniques for an experience that defies classical expectations of sounds that can be made on voice and clarinet. Composer/vocalist/sound artist Ueno is a recipient of the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize and currently a Professor at UC Berkeley. He sings overtones, multi-band multiphonics, sub-tones, and throat sings. Oakland-based Ingalls' clarinet technique includes circular-breathing, multiphonics, various breath effects, and a unique hybrid-timbre polyphonic effect.