This concert marks the birth of the newly launched duo between Sarah Grace Graves and Eda Er, both singers and composers in the composition PhD program at UC Berkeley who each stumbled upon experimental music somewhat unexpectedly: Graves began her artistic path as a choral singer, Er as an actor. In combining Graves’ innocent virtuosity with Er’s disarming honesty, the two hope to build a narrative, aesthetic, and technical habitat for stories only they can tell.
Sarah Grace Graves is a singer, composer, and improviser connecting the physical and emotional landscape of the performer with the inner life of the listener through intimate and rare uses of the voice. A composer by formation, she has spent the past several years building an experimental vocal practice mining layers of unstable vocal sounds and now works as a freelance composer-performer, drawing upon both pools of knowledge to compose music that is body-centered, person-centered, and site-specific.
The artistic practice of composer/vocalist Eda Er is informed by her training in experimental theater. Her musical adventures started when she began to write casually experimental pop songs, and she now often improvises with interactive electronics and visuals. Her pieces often deliver a direct, witty narrative that tackles relevant issues such as heartbreak, body image, and societal expectations with wry humor and disarming honesty.
In the inaugural concert of their brand-new duo, the two of them hope to build a narrative, aesthetic, and technical habitat for stories only they can tell.