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.
WISC: Fellows-in-Residence Concert and Conversation
Time & Location
About
Rachel Beetz and Jennifer Bewerse are Autoduplicity, an exploration of music for bodies and speech, our shared instruments. Their concerts investigate how these ordinary sounds can be transformed into powerful musical ideas reflective of the human experience. They began the Autoduplicity project to explore what would happen when the performer was separated from traditional instruments. From this separation, fundamental relationships between the performer, audience, body, and voice are revealed.
At the Women's International Study Center (WISC) residency this September, New Zealand composer Celeste Oram joins Autoduplicity. Over the course of their residency, they have collaborated on a new musical work for the duo exploring themes of multiplicity, identity of bodies with regard to musical instruments, sounds of centuries past, and alter egos. This new work will serve as the center of a full length concert reflecting on identity alongside pieces by Beetz, Bewerse, Bengt af Klintberg, and Taka Iimura.
Rachel, Jennifer, and Celeste will present their work at the Acequia Madre House Tuesday September 27, 2016 at 5:30pm.
Register at the link HERE or via email to info@wisc-amh.org
For more information, visit wisc-amh.org