Eric Leonardson

Upcoming performances in October and November 2008

I have six performances scheduled for October and November, with more being planned. Three happen in the Third Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival (CCAF3), presented in various locations from October 1—12. Look further down for my other three post-CCAF shows held at Enemy, Myopic, and Elastic. Please check the CCAF3 Schedule page and this web page in case of last-minute schedule changes.

    Performances following CCAF3…

  • Auris performing at krannert museum 20088:00 p.m. Sunday, October 12 with AurisJulia Miller (guitar), Christopher Preissing (flute, voice, electronics), and Guillermo Gregorio (clarinet) on a bill with Unhappy Atlas and Bokeh

    Enemy
    1550 N. Milwaukee Ave., 3rd floor
    Chicago IL 60622
    www.enemysound.com (please bookmark the new url)
  • 7:30 p.m. Monday, October 20 with Brian Labycz (electronics)

    Myopic Books
    1564 N. Milwaukee Ave
    Chicago, IL 60622
    www.myopicbookstore.com
    Free admission, donations welcome
  • 9:00 p.m. Friday, November 14 with Auris: Julia Miller (guitar), Christopher Preissing (flute, voice, electronics), Guillermo Gregorio (clarinet)

    ELASTIC
    2830 N. Milwaukee Ave., 2nd floor
    Chicago, IL 60618
    www.elasticrevolution.com
    $10 suggested donation

Performing solo at the Hyde Park Arts Center

monica_herrera_stringsAt 2:30 on Sunday afternoon, September 28, I will give a short performance on Monica Herrera’s Strings, her sculptural sound installation at the Hyde Park Arts Center (HPAC):
http://www.hydeparkart.org/exhibitions/2008/07/strings_by_monica_hererra.php

2:00-5:00 p.m., admission FREE, Asian food provided.

Hyde Park Art Center
5020 South Cornell Avenue
Chicago, IL 60615
773-324-5520
www.hydeparkart.org

Monica Herrera is a recent graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA 2008). My performance is one of many in the Chicago Artists Month Opening Celebration at HPAC.HPAC

Over the weekend there will be a mix of exhibitions and free performances to kick off Chicago Artists Month, including a concert by the Black Monks of Mississippi, portrait drawings by Dale Washington, Butoh dance by Nicole LeGette, and free outdoor concerts by Fred Anderson, Corey Wilkes and Kahil El’Zabar as part of the 2nd Annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival.

Tom Jaremba 1938-2008

School of the Art Institute of Chicago Professor Emeritus, Tom Jaremba died on August 31, 2008. He was my friend and my graduate adviser at SAIC (when I was a student there from 1981-83). Tom was a teacher to nearly all of us who were active in Chicago’s small but thriving performance art community in the 1980s. In 1986 I worked with Tom on his adaptation of Orphee, by Jean Cocteau, performed at Lodge Hall in Wicker Park and the State of Illinois Center [now the James R. Thompson Center]. My friend, fellow student, and performance artist, Brendan de Vallance has attempted to archive this period and the participants in the community.

Lisa Wainwright, Acting Dean of Faculty at SAIC, wrote:

“Those of you who knew Tom remember a tall and ebullient man who was inquisitive and generous with all students and all of us.  He gave much to this institution coming to us from the Goodman Theater and founding the Design and Communications Department with [the late] John Kurtich in the late 60s and then the Performance Department a few years later.  His commitment to the body as an instrument of expression in art impacted generations of artists and still holds a critical place in the aesthetic mandate for performance art at the School.”

The Chicago Tribune obituary about Tom is linked below…

Performance art teacher, devotee

By Trevor Jensen
Chicago Tribune reporter
September 5 2008

“Thomas A. Jaremba helped start a department to teach performance art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and staged his own wildly eclectic shows that mixed dance, dialogue, video and music.”

The complete article can be viewed on the Chicago Tribune website:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-hed-jaremba-05-sep05,0,7132232.story

Sunday, August 24 @ Elastic with Los Cuatros Demonios

Concluding a busy month of performances, Los Cuatros Demonios opens for Terry Dame’s Electric Junkyard Gamelan, a band from New York who perform original music on invented instruments.

7:00 p.m., Sunday, August 24 at ELASTIC Arts Foundation

Los Cuatros Demonios is Tomeka Reid (cello), Carol Genetti (voice), Guillermo Gregorio (clarinet), Eric Leonardson (springboard), and Dan Godston (trumpet, percussion)

ELASTIC Arts Foundation
2830 N. Milwaukee Ave., 2nd fl. (above Friendship Chinese Restaurant)
$10 suggested donation

Related links:

http://www.elasticrevolution.com/

http://www.myspace.com/electricjunkyardgamelan

http://www.myspace.com/cellomama

http://www.carolgenetti.net

http://www.myspace.com/dangodstonmusic

http://www.myspace.com/ericleonardson

Sarah’s Sound Script: New Blog on Sound

Carol and Eric performHave a look at the new blog by Sarah Mann-O’Donnell. “Sarah’s Sound Script” blog is an online venue for her poetic writings on sound. Sarah is a philosopher and poet who writes about sound. She’s a newcomer from Philadelphia.

I met Sarah Mann-O’Donnell at two of my concerts last week, and she wrote about:

Monday’s concert at Elastic with Carol Genetti

…and:

Friday’s concert at AV-aerie with Eric Glick Rieman.

I shared the bill with The Young Equestrians and Fred Lonberg-Holm, whom Sarah also wrote about.

Performing with Eric Glick Rieman at AV-aerie

Eric Glick Rieman, from Berkeley with his prepared Rhodes piano, will be performing with me this Friday, 8:00 p.m. at the AV-aerie, 2000 W. Fulton Street, Chicago, IL 60612, (312) 850-4030. $8 suggested donation.

This show is a double bill with The Young Equestrians from Brooklyn.

(If you know you can attend, please send me a message. Thanks to the
grief that the City of Chicago has given the folks at the AV-Aerie about
a license, they must promise this is a private party.)

Upcoming Chicago performances in August 2008

Sunday, August 3, 10:00 p.m.–2:00 a.m. on Something Else WLUW 88.7 FM Independent Community Radio, with Chicago Phonography / Live stream at http://wluw.streamguys.net/listen.pls

Related links:
http://chicagophonography.com/
Listen to Chicago Phonographers’ first live performance 

Monday, August 4, 7:30 p.m. at Myopic Books, 1564 N. Milwaukee Ave., with Jerry Bryerton (percussion) and Christopher Bruce (percussion), free

Related links:
http://www.myspace.com/jeromebryerton
http://www.myspace.com/christopherabruce

Monday, August 11, 9:00 p.m. at ELASTIC Arts Foundation 2830 N. Milwaukee Ave., 2nd Fl., with Carol Genettti (voice), double bill with Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello) solo, $7 suggested donation

This concert follows the opening reception (8:00—9:00 p.m., admission free) for Elastic Sound and Vision Gallery’s new exhibition, Unfinished Logan Square, featuring work by visual artist Tracy Kostenbader.

Friday, August 15, 8:00 p.m. at the AV-aerie, 2000 W. Fulton, with Bay Area composer and instrument inventor Eric Glick Rieman (prepared Rhodes electric piano), double bill with the Young Equestrians from Brooklyn, $8 suggested donation

Related links:
http://www.myspace.com/ericglickrieman
http://www.myspace.com/shaynadulberger
http://www.myspace.com/avaerie

Eric Glick Rieman lives in Berkeley, California where he composes music in many genres and improvises on a redesigned Rhodes electric piano, among other instruments. He has studied with Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Maggi Payne, Eliane Radigue, Alvin Curran, Chris Brown, J. D. Parran, Douglas Ewart, Steed Cowart, and John Bischoff. He has organized the Thingamajigs festival. His 2003 CD on Accretions, “DalabaFrithGlickRiemanKihlstedt” was recorded with Lesli Dalaba (trumpet), Fred Frith (guitar), and Carla Kihlstedt (violin) , and “Lung Tree” (on ReR recordings in 2005) was recorded with Lesli Dalaba (trumpet), and Stuart Dempster (trombone).

Sunday, August 24 7:00 p.m. at ELASTIC Arts Foundation, 2830 N. Milwaukee Ave., 2nd fl., Los Cuatros Demonios opens for Terry Dame’s Electric Junkyard Gamelan

Los Cuatros Demonios is Tomeka Reid (cello), Carol Genetti (voice), Guillermo Gregorio (clarinet), Eric Leonardson (springboard), Dan Godston (trumpet, percussion), $10 suggested donation

Related links:
http://www.myspace.com/electricjunkyardgamelan
http://www.myspace.com/cellomama
http://www.carolgenetti.net
http://www.myspace.com/dangodstonmusic
http://www.myspace.com/ericleonardson

World Listening Project developments

[This is an edited version of the July 28th blog post on my MySpace Music profile, and a follow-up to the July 9th post here.]

On July 1st I began work on new project called the World Listening Project. It was formed by small group of musicians and sonic artists under the initial goal of collecting field recordings from every country in the world and then presenting them on a web-based sound map for the Chicago Calling Festival (October 1–11, 2008). The festival director, Dan Godston cited R. Murray Schafer’s ideas and the World Soundscape Project as inspiration, as well as the work of Bernie Krausse of Wild Sanctuary. We’re excited have Bernie’s providing his ideas and support to the World Listening Project as we begin.

World Listening Project logo proposalOn the left is a proposed logo for the WLP, designed by Noé Cuellar.

Many sound mapping sites and interfaces exist on the web, among those I’ve noted often are SoundTransit, Locus Sonus Audio Streaming Project Map, and the recent Mississauga Sound Map. With this in mind our initial mission, as stated above, is now under discussion. Rather than being solely a field recording and sound map website, a broader range of practices, areas of investigation, and modes of presentation are being considered. The discussion on revising the WLP’s mission is public. Your participation may help if you subscribe to the World Listening Project’s (Yahoo! Group) listserv.

Among the ideas for project may include research and initiating geo-tagged audio projects, such as on Freesound.org. The WLP can promote investigations into the meaning, methods, and relations of information gathering through sound. We are also registering a non-profit organization to support this effort. Happily, we have many noteworthy artists and thinkers participating in this discussion. And, the membership of the listserv continues to grow.

I can mention many more fields of knowledge and practice that the World Listening Project can encompass, but I’d like to keep this post brief. Your participation can play a important role influencing the future of practices involving sound and listening in and of the world. If you wish to learn more about the discussion, or even join the worldlistening Yahoo! Group, please visit this link: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/worldlistening/

Monday, July 21 @ Brown Rice

Open HarpOn Monday I will perform at Brown Rice with instrument inventor Laura Emelianoff, maker and performer of the Open Harp.

Brown Rice
4432 N Kedzie Avenue
Chicago IL 60625
www.brownricemusic.org

8:00 p.m.
$5 suggested donation

1st set
Larry Sawyer — poetry
Dan Godston — trumpet, small instruments
2nd set
Laura Emelianoff — open harp
Eric Leonardson — springboard

Directions: Brown Rice is small storefront located a half block north of the Montrose-Kedzie intersection, a few blocks south of the Kedzie station on the CTA Brown Line. There is a small sign over the entrance that reads “Perfect”. View Map.

Read the rest of this entry »

World Listening Project

I’m working on a new project initiated by Dan Godston called the World Listening Project. What is it?

The goals of the World Listening Project are to collect field recordings from every country on earth, to create a sonic map of the world, and to archive those recordings on a website. Many of the recordings for WLP have already been recorded, but many more will be recorded and archived. The WLP website is a work in progress, and it will be part of the Third Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival (October 1–12, 2008). It will continue to be developed into the future.

The Chicago Calling festival was started by Dan Godston. A Yahoo! Group called worldlisteningproject is where a large and growing number of people are joining together on the Internet to realize the World Listening Project. Among the group’s esteemed members we have the natural soundscape researcher and recordist, Bernie Krausse. He is a musician, ecologist, and author who has been working in the field of natural soundscape recording since 1968. Bernie is author of several books, the latest is Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of Natural Soundscapes (Wilderness Press, 2002). Visit his website Wild Sanctuary to learn more about his work and media company. Bernie has a sound map here: http://earth.wildsanctuary.com/

In addition to the worldlisteningproject Yahoo! Group, Dan Godston has started a World Listening Project blog: http://worldlisteningproject.blogspot.com/

Use this link to join the Yahoo! Group:

Click here to join worldlistening
Click to join worldlistening group

Visit this link for an update on the World Listening Project.