February 18, 2020 @ Boulder Public Library
Canyon Theatre
12:00pm show
free
February 21, 2020 @ Ft. Collins Museum of Discovery
OtterBox Digital Dome Theater
7:30pm doors. 8pm show.
$12
Space and Astronomy has fascinated humans for centuries, but one of the distinguishing characteristics of the 20th Century was humanity’s journey into that great unknown made possible by NASA’s Space Program and others like it across the globe. Our desire to know more about the universe and our place within it touches all aspects of our culture, from music and movies to pop-culture and beyond.
In this fully immersive concert program, The Playground Ensemble closely collaborates with uniquely trained video artists and audio engineers to explore how space exploration and discovery has influenced today’s contemporary classical composers. Program to include pieces by George Crumb and Annie Gosfield, as well as 3 new compositions by Conrad Kehn, Nathan Hall, and Monica Bolles. If attending at one of the Dome locations, your experience will include surround sound using each Dome’s one-of-a-kind array sound system.
You will hear sounds taken from satellites orbiting the planet, and actual astronomical data from NASA will be used to create audio spatialization.
THE PROGRAM
Apollo 11 – Aubrie McFadden
Featuring:
Sarah Whitnah, Violin
The Playground Ensemble's robust K-12 outreach programs focus on encouraging creativity and mentoring composition, bringing awareness to the voices of nearly 5,000 young people annually. Aubrie’s piece is an example of Musical Postcards, which is a spin off of our Young Composers Playground program. A young person writes a short piece and records a video introducing themselves and their work, then a member of The Playground records the piece. We send these recordings to our partners at the New York Philharmonic who in turn have one of their young composers create a response - in effect, young composers trade musical 'postcards'. Aubrie’s piece is featuring on today’s program to highlight both our work with young people, as well as because the title and content fit so perfectly with this concert’s theme.
Collision – Monica Bolles
Featuring:
Sarah Whitnah, Violin
Jake Saunders, Cello
So maybe we are like two black holes orbiting one another. Somehow the intense gravitational field we both exude never lets either one of us fall too deeply into each other’s black nothing. We continue to orbit each other slowly getting closer and closer until maybe one day we will merge sending immense amounts of energy pulsating throughout the universe.
What happens when two Black Holes collide? In 2015 scientists detected gravity waves for the first time in history confirming their existence after only being theorized by Einstein. The gravity waves were detected after the collision and merger of two Black Holes. Collision is the sonic telling of a story about two lovers each with the gravitational force of a Black Hole, slowly orbiting each other over time, getting closer and closer until one day they collide. By combining artistic sonification of data sourced from the current scientific research and the textured bodies of the violin and cello Collision explores the moments right before the two massive bodies merge and the impending aftermath of their collision.
(Un)quiet Sun – Nathan Hall
Nathan Hall’s new work for surround-sound audio and dome video evokes the regular oscillations flowing inside the Sun, which we are slowly learning about through the field of helioseismology. To evoke these folding and unfolding patterns, we hear sounds bubble, move, and drone around the space. The viewer is enveloped in patterns of orange light and NASA footage of the surface of the Sun.
Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites – Annie Gosfield
Featuring:
Sarah Whitnah, Violin
Annie Gosfield, whom the BBC called “A one woman Hadron collider” lives in New York City and works on the boundaries between notated and improvised music, electronic and acoustic sounds, refined timbres and noise. Her music is often inspired by the inherent beauty of found sounds, such as machines, destroyed pianos, warped 78 rpm records and jammed radio signals. Her piece Lost Signals and Drifting Satellites for solo violin and electronics is a prime example of this style for which she has become known. Combining sounds collected from satellites, static, and machines with modern techniques on the violin such as microtones and harmonics, she creates an atmosphere that exists outside of our own atmosphere.
Night of the Four Moons – George Crumb (b. 1929)
Poetry by Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)
Featuring:
Megan Buness, Alto
Sonya Yeager-Meeks, Alto Flute and Piccolo
Colin McAllister, Banjo
Jake Saunders, Electric Cello
Rachel Hargroder, Percussion
Richard vonFoerster, Conductor
George Crumb’s Night of the Four Moons was composed in July 1969, during the historic Apollo 11 mission which culminated in humans first stepping on the moon. The evocative text from the poetry of Federico García Lorca, as well as the otherworldly combination of flute, cello, banjo, percussion, and voice, provide a haunting commentary about the scientific, symbolic, and mystical significance of lunar contact.
La luna está muerta, muerta...
Cuando sale la luna...
Otro Adán oscuro está soñando...
¡Huye luna, luna, luna!...
Through Hardships We Become Stars – Conrad Kehn & Nicole Esquibel
Featuring:
Conrad Kehn, Electronics & Voice
Rachel Hargroder, Percussion
Nicole Esquibel, Video
Commissioned by The Playground Ensemble, Through Hardships We Become Stars is a multi-media work for spatialized audio, live vocals, percussion and video, that features manipulated ‘found object’ content from the Voyager spacecraft Golden Record. This material is reimagined and combined with new material specifically created to be performed in planetarium domes, although flatscreen stereo versions are available.
Musically, the work opens with manipulated Golden Record greetings combined with a recorded quote from Paul Hindemith’s Craft of Musical Composition. A rotating choir inspired by Kepler’s Harmonices Mundi transitions the work to the next section.
Engraved on the record is a binary code pulsar map designed to help alien life locate planet Earth. Using this binary code, pulsar wave length, distance and location as musical parameters the middle of the piece becomes a minimalist Pulsar dance party that eventually gives way to a collage of earth sounds and a Morse code pattern that gives the work its title.
The work closes with an improvised vocal solo over a bed ambient sounds serving as a distress signal to the universe. Although the original messaging on the Voyager was optimistic and welcoming in nature, it seems future messages may be more desperate attempts to find a suitable living space as we continue to endanger our own.
The FCMoD of today was built from a partnership between between the City of Ft. Collins Museum and the non-profit Discovery Science Center. Since opening in 2012 they have welcomed over 700,000 visitors.