events
Urban Birds
ENDED
6/26/21, 9:00 PM
Audubon Center at Debs Park
4700 Griffin Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90031, USA
About
Are you longing to hear live music without going inside? Could your endless outdoor meet-ups use a little more pizazz? If so, glide and hop over to Urban Birds, an afternoon of musical performances for kids and adults. Urban Birds takes place at the Children’s Garden in Northeast LA’s Ernest Debs Park. It is co-presented by the Audubon Society and Synchromy, a Los Angeles-based composer’s collective dedicated to making new music accessible. For this event, Synchromy commissioned 10 local composers to create works inspired by birds common to Southern California. The day’s 10 world premieres include Dante De Silva’s Heat Thrasher and Jen Wang’s Monster, an homage to the mourning dove.
Urban Birds offers many ways to engage. The performances are nestled throughout the trees of the Children’s Garden at the Audubon Visitors Center, and you’re welcome to wander through the musical oasis the way you’d wander through the park looking for birds, stopping to listen for a spell and moving along as you please. For adventurous listeners, Deb’s Park offers trails, gardens, and a turtle pond to explore. Our field guide to the featured birds is available as a free booklet in both English and Spanish for birders and the bird-curious alike. Posters throughout the site offer context for the music, and composers will hold a question-and-answer session at the close of the event. For kids inspired by the sounds and sights, we offer take-home activities, such as instructions for DIY binoculars and bird calls made from common household objects.
The event also celebrates the renovation and re-opening of the Audubon Center, a hub of habitat restoration and environmental justice whose primary goal is renewing the connection between people and the land in Los Angeles. Synchromy supports this mission with music, bringing free live performances to Deb’s Park with following wide-winged local line-up:
Heat Thrasher - Dante De Silva
Monster - Jen Wang
Ash Throated Flycatcher - Christopher Adler
Crow Language - Jason Barabba
Mockingbird Hopscotch - Vera Ivanova
California Towhee - Veronika Krausas
Owl’s Breath - Pamela Madsen
Red Shouldered Hawk - Kenji Oh
Call and Echo - Brandon Rolle
Synchopomp - Diana Wade
Performers include Sean Barela (Bassoon), Rachel Beetz (Flute), Luc Kleiner (Voice), Christopher Adler (Khaen), Xenia Deviatkina-Loh (Violin), Brian Walsh (Clarinet), Scott Worthington (Contrabass), Theodosia Roussos (Oboe), Cassia Streb (Viola), and Jennifer Bewerse (Cello). Concert Design by Cassia Streb and Jennifer Bewerse.
This performance was made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the California Arts Council.
KNOWLEDGES
Time & Location
About
KNOWLEDGES at Mount Wilson Observatory brings together a constellation of contemporary Los Angeles artists whose work extends from the nexus of ideas embodied by the Observatory itself: astronomy, scientific discovery, space exploration, optics, recorded observation, philosophical questions of cosmology, the history, aesthetics and ecology of the site and its influence upon the cultural landscape of Los Angeles. The exhibition concept is to create a site-specific dialogue between artists and the working Observatory. Many Los Angeles artists create work that is informed by technological and scientific discoveries that take place right here in Southern California–from the use of new materials created for the aerospace industry to aesthetic sensibilities informed by popular space photography, but they have never investigated their source. KNOWLEDGES’ exhibitions contextualize aesthetics and inquiries developing in art, and how they participate in dialogue with innovations in science and astronomy.
Jennifer will play a new work by Scott Benzel for string quartet, dancers, anvil, and the rotation of the 100 foot telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. Performances will begin at 4:00pm, 5:00pm and 6:00pm.
Admission: Free
For more information and a full schedule of events, visit knowledges.org