Surround Sound Salon Series (SSSS) #3 – Recalling Fields

Please note:

Masks are required for all in attendance.
Attendees are required to be fully vaccinated.
Audience capacity is reduced, so purchase your tickets early!

This monthly series that began in January 2020 and was pre-empted after its first two shows by Covid-19, reawakens this month with the first of two previously curated programs. It features two fixed media audio pieces, by Maggi Payne and Chris Brown, originally created for the Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza and commissioned by the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission. Oakland composer-performer Michelle Moeller presents an electroacoustic work based on a field-recording of her daily bicycle commute.

The musicians will mix their pieces from the center of the space, and the audience is free to choose their own listening location, and to move within the space to hear the music from different vantage points.

T.D. Skatchit (Tom Nunn and David Michalak) & Company will perform Ear of the Storm Suite (2013). Ear of the Storm was conceived for 20 acoustic and electronic musicians and arranged, recorded and mixed for surround sound by David Michalak who will be presenting a new 8 channel live mix.

This turbulent piece is based on an extended skatchbox arrangement and inspired by the wild rhythms of tornadoes, hurricanes, and thunderstorms. The listener is in the Ear of the Storm, where music is born out of the elemental noise only to be whisked away by the wind.

The Players in the Storm feature a cast of Bay Area improvisers, including: Aurora, Bob Marsh, Ron Heglin, Kyle Bruckmann, Rent Romus, Bruce Ackley, Phillip Greenlief, Tom Djll, Thollem McDonas, Polly Moller, Scott Looney, Gino Robair, Tim Perkis, Jacob Felix Heule, Doug Carroll and Jonathan Segal. Nunn and Michalak play the “Big Orange” (or “Coffin”) skatchbox throughout.

Eight-channel versions of T.D. Skatchit’s Battle in the Birdhouse and Forbidden Revisitation (with Chris Brown) will also be presented as part of the Suite.

Admission is limited to half-capacity. Evidence of Covid-19 vaccination and wearing masks are required of all.