Friday August 29, 2025
7:30 PM
Leon Art Gallery, Denver, CO
The Playground and Leon Gallery present an annual evening of experimental and improvised electronic music created and performed by Playground Ensemble composers. Interesting sounds in interesting spaces; interactive electronics, manipulated voice, uniquely created instruments, and more.
Doors at 7:00 PM, show at 7:30 PM.
Program
How the Light Loves to Fall by Silen Wellington
Alia Goldfarb, Vocals
Silen Wellington, Electronics
“This is what we have forgotten about the sky (that we have made Overlord without consulting him), how much it desires to fall like the angels ... How much it desires to spill its sunlight and its starlight into the inky darkness forever. How much it desires to quench the soil with its sky waters.”
~ Lee Morgan, Standing and Not Falling
How the Light Loves to Fall is an emotional exploration of cosmologies that disrupt false binaries between above and below.
Written for two voices and electronics, this piece is a wordless, immersive experience designed to invoke light pouring into the velvety dark soils. It is a meditation that calls to those spirits and ways of being that wed the land and the sky.
You’re invited to close your eyes, focus on your breath, let your mind wander as you fall into sonic enchantment.
Known Input is a multimedia experiment for no input mixer, reactive video, live performers, and audience. Conrad started working with no input mixer in the summer of 2024. The process is simple. Take the outputs of a mixing console and run them back into the inputs creating a perfect feedback loop. Every knob turned or fader adjusted adjusts amplitude and frequency in the most perfectly unpredictable ways. Over time Conrad has fallen in love with these sounds. Such rich textures, piercing, grinding, deep and beautiful.
Over top of the no input mixer a manipulated recording of Allan Kaprow's 'How to Create A Happening' adds an anti-art narrative, and a set of audio reactive videos clips support that narrative via unrelated synchronicity.
Lastly members of the audience are encouraged to participate based on a set of note card instructions creating…… well…… a happening.
chorale_prelude no. 3 by David Farrell
chorale_prelude no. 3 is an ambient work for live electronics. Composed in 2025, the work presents fragments of music from a chorale by JS Bach alongside a range of varied harmonic and textural backgrounds. The work follows a quasi-improvised path, with the performer having a palette of sounds to freely choose from.
Shadow Speak by Ryan Fiegl
This pieces uses generative feedback loops. The sources include live input guitar and various premade and live samples.
For this year’s performance of Unchambered, the Playground Ensemble is pleased to also present the following guest artists:
improvisation by Jakey Wherry
Jakey enjoys improvising using a series of samplers and loopers. Melodic and harmonic ideas are captured, then shifted and manipulated, providing a new landscape for ideas to develop. The synthesizer provides the opportunity for surprise; not knowing exactly where a road will lead keeps Jakey listening and responding in the moment.
According to Dissonance by David Britton
ac·cord·ing
/əˈkôrdiNG/
in a manner corresponding or conforming to.
"cook the rice according to the instructions"
to
/to͞o/
approaching or reaching (a particular condition).
"Christopher's expression changed from amazement to joy"
dis·cord·ance
/ˌdiˈskôrdəns/
the quality of sounding harsh and jarring because of a lack of harmony.
"fast songs can go through slow phases, and minor keys and discordance may be employed"
Composers’ Bios
Silen Wellington
Silen Wellington (they/he) is a sculptor of sound, artist of people, storyteller, and genderqueer shapeshifter, among other things. Avidly interdisciplinary, they like to combine music with other art mediums, be that spoken word, visual art, ritual performance, loud and fiery eye contact, otherworldly and melting trysts, or something else entirely. They make art as an act of service, healing, disruption and magic, weaving together disciplines of poetry, acoustic sound, electronics, ritual, and performance art.
Outside of the arts world, Silen directs a nonprofit in Northern Colorado called the Yarrow Collective, offering mental health peer support run by people with lived experience. Besides composing and performing, Silen enjoys writing poetry, harvesting stories, unhinged-unfettered-unapologetic dance, and falling in love. You can listen to more of their work at SilenWellington.com and follow them on Instagram: @silen_creature.
Conrad Kehn
Conrad Kehn is a composer, performer, educator, and an arts administrator. He is the founding Director of The Playground Ensemble.
An award-winning composer, Conrad’s output includes traditional and contemporary chamber music, experimental and multi-media works, and popular music.
As a vocalist, Conrad specializes in electronic music, improvisation, and contemporary chamber music. He gigs regularly with a quasi-improvised Ableton set that combines digitally manipulated live vocals and found content from older media formats. He participates regularly in low latency networked music performances, a process allowing performers in different locations to make music as if they are in the same room.
More info can be found at: conradkehn.com
David Farrell
David E. Farrell (b. 1982) is a composer based in Denver, CO. David’s music has been performed by ensembles across the United States, including the Perrysburg Symphony Orchestra, North/South Chamber Orchestra, The Playground Ensemble, the Sam Houston State University Percussion Group, the University of Iowa Center for New Music Ensemble, and the University of Illinois Chamber Orchestra as winner of the University of Illinois Orchestra Composition Competition. His works have been featured at the SCI National Conference, The Electroacoustic Barn Dance, DomeFest West, The Playground Ensemble’s Colorado Composers Concert, Sam Houston State University Contemporary Music Festival, the Midwest Composers Symposium, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chamber Music Institute, and the University of Cincinnati’s Music07 Festival. His music can also be heard on Meerenai Shim’s album The Art of Noise, The Playground Ensemble’s 8-Bit X-Mas, and Patricia Surman’s New American, Vol. 1.
David studied at the University of Illinois and at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where he earned a D.M. in Composition. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music at Metropolitan State University of Denver and a longtime part of The Playground Ensemble.
Ryan Fiegl
Ryan Fiegl is a guitarist, composer, arranger, and educator from and currently based in Denver.
His music is rooted in immersive sound design to create environments and affects that are often intense and abrasive with contrasting sparse minimalistic textures and sublime soundscapes. Current work explores disquieting themes paired with audiovisuals that invite the listener/viewer to interpret their own narrative from imagery and sound.
Ryan is an active member of The Playground Ensemble as a composer, performer, and an educator. He is a collaborator with the immersive theater and dance collective Control Group Productions, regularly works with longtime friend and mentor William Hill, and has played in a number of rock and jazz centric groups in Denver.
Ryan currently serves as faculty at The University of Denver, Regis University, and The Community College of Denver and was formally educated at Metro State University and The University of Denver in guitar performance and composition.
Jakey Wherry
Jakey is a Denver based musician. They are an MSU Denver Alum, and participate in a variety of musical communities in the Denver area including; Gamelan Tunas Mekar, Anthony Ruptak, Witches & Science, and other improvisatory platforms.
David Britton
David Britton is a Denver based multimedia artist and musician. The soundscapes he creates are often culled from field recordings, repurposed electro-acoustic devices, and the rewired circuitry of small electronics, resulting in a rich tapestry of unheard sounds. He is a long-time member of several local musical acts including ANIMAL/object, itchy-O, and Pythian Whispers and has shared the stage with Violent Femmes, Moon Duo, David Byrne, Devo, and Alexander Hacke & Danielle De Piccoiotto.