03.18.2010 post on Margaret Noble’s blog, a showcase for recordings of all types from around the world. Visit and listen…

Springboard Solo

Categories: Unusual Instruments & Gear

Kuro Neko Music has released a recorded live performance of Fred Lonberg-Holm’s “Lightbox Orchestra” at the Elastic Arts Foundation, in Chicago. I performed in the orchestra along with…

Fred Lonberg-Holm - lightbox operator
Todd A. Carter – electronics
Michael Colligan - dry ice and implements
Rob Drinkwater – electronics
Abe Gibson - guitar and electronics
Brian Labycz – electronics
Frank Rosaly - percussion and electronics
Vadim Sprikut – electronics
Aaron Zarzutzki - snare drum

Listen and download the album and others from http://www.kuronekomusic.com/lightbox-at-elastic-arts-3

Sonic Playground with Eric Leonardson

An interactive music performance using the new Lake Crescent playground. Curated by Inferno Mobile Recording Studio.

Tuesday, August 25
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Admission Free
Location :

Lake Crescent #532

1061 E. 41st Street

Chicago, IL 60653

Phone: 312-747-6446

View Chicago, cool and useful places in a larger map

About the Park District’s Concerts in the Parks series:

Join Eric Leonardson in sonically activating the Lake Crescent Playground. This event is a part of the Park District’s “Concerts in the Parks” series, offering Chicago families a fun, affordable way to spend an evening in their own community. Bring a lawn chair or blanket, but prepare to play and listen to the playground in a totally different way. All concerts are FREE!

(more…)

The World Listening Project has built a public sound installation for the Synesthetic Plan of Chicago, co-curated by Annie Heckman and Daniel Godston, in the Visitor Information Center, at the Chicago Cultural Center (77 E. Randolph Street).  My Flickr photostream shows the construction of the WLP’s installation entitled the “Acoustic Mirror of the World.” (more…)

My photos of last Sunday’s Chicago Phonography performance in Exquisite City are now on my Flickr photostream. (more…)

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:

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

Here is a download link to a 6-minute, 19-second excerpt from my binaural recording of this year’s unofficial 4th of July fireworks displays happening all around my home on the west side of Chicago (64 MB WAV file): https://download.yousendit.com/RXNoeFVRcG9Fc0xIRGc9PQ

I recorded this on my old Sony TCD-D7 DAT “Walkman” with my new in-ear binaural mics from Sound Professionals. Last year I recorded the fireworks with an AT-822 placed in a stationary position on the front porch. This year my partner and I went for a walk
around the block, past the Conservatory, into to Garfield Park and back.

The excerpt I selected to upload for you is fairly rich with activity. Aside from the near and distant sounds of fireworks all around, you’ll hear:

• cars passing
• several overly excited little children with toy horns
• interesting echoes of the fireworks bursts that bounce off the
  railroad viaduct to create unusual “chirping” sounds

As we walk underneath the viaduct you can hear the acoustics change from
open air to a steel and stone passage way and out while the children
play ahead of us, cars pass at our side, and the freight train rumbles
overhead.

This link has limited number of downloads, available on YouSendIt.com until July 20 (unless I move it to another site).

Rarebit

by Steve Barsotti and Eric Leonardson

Transparency CD0125

Performed and recorded with Steve Barsotti at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. From 1994 until 1999 we performed as a duo, and with other local and internationally known artists, including Dan Burke (Illusion of Safety), Carol Genetti, Fergus Kelly, Tatsu Aoki, Chris Heenan, Yuko Nexus6, Yasuhiro Otani, Satoru Wono, Claude Wiley, and many more.

Description:

Rarebit is the culmination of a four-year project in electroacoustic music by sound artists and instrument inventors Steve Barsotti and Eric Leonardson. Their self-built instruments produce remarkable sounds that belie their humble origin. Barsotti and Leonardson’s sense of musical form arises from their deep attention to the individual essences of sounds, rather than the conventional grid of harmony and meter. What results is abstract sound composition that possesses a communicative style. Rarebit will draw comparisons to the sound palettes and ethereal soundscapes of such intrepid purveyors of “left field” and exploratory music as Hal Rammel, Hugh Davies, and Bob Rutman. Nine tracks. Running time 72 minutes.

Rarebit can be purchased from Transparency for $15 ($12 plus $3 postage) to meridianavenue@yahoo.com via PayPal.