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Tag: Ka Baird

Spotlight On: Ka Baird

Photo: Cameron Kelly courtesy ISSUE Project Room

[RESIDENCY] Ka Baird: centers: 4 channels
Sunday, May 13, 2018 @ 8:00 pm

Tell us about yourself and what you do.

I am a composer and performer living and working in NYC. I am one of the founding and continuing members of the experimental outfit Spires That In The Sunset Rise, founded in Chicago in September 2001. Since relocating to NYC in November 2014, I have set off in numerous directions apart from Spires with new collaborations, as well as honing in on my solo work. My current work explores piano, electroacoustic interventions, extended vocal techniques, physical movement, and the electronic manipulation of the flute. I am interested specifically in performance  /sound as a means to break recurring thought patterns and create passages into pure energy potential. I also co-run the label and concert organizer Perfect Wave with Camilla Padgitt-Coles.

I have toured both nationally and internationally with performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), MoMA PS1 (Brooklyn), Roulette Intermedium (Brooklyn), Issue Project Room (Brooklyn), Fridman Gallery, Cafe OTO (London), and numerous festival appearances with Spires including TUSK (Newcastle, UK), Incubate (Tilburg, Netherlands), and Festival Of Endless Gratitude (Copenhagen, DK).

Describe the project you are developing for Roulette.

I will premiere Centers: 4 Channels, two new pieces incorporating 4-channel synthesis with spatialized light and movement.  The first piece is titled piano:vivification exercises and the second piece is titled voices: visceral illocality.

What is your first musical memory?

Listening to cicadas.

What is influencing your work right now?

Immediacy & energy, rhythm & breath.

What’s your absolute favorite place in the city to be and why?

On the top open deck of the ferry going under the bridges at full speed.

What artists are you interested in right now?

Carolee Schneemann, Julius Eastman, Cecil Taylor, Raul de Nieves, Alvin Lucier, Moor Mother, Jon Mueller, MSHR, Maryanne Amacher, Maya Angelou, Ursula Le Guin.

What are you really excited about right now?

Hieroglyphics, binaural beats, bioluminescence, emergent systems, polyrhythms, chladni patterns.

Ka Baird: centers: 4 channels

What: Ka Baird premieres two piano pieces incorporating 4-channel synthesis with spatialized light and movement.
When: Sunday, May 13, 2018
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost:  $20/15 Door, $15 Online
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368

Brooklyn, NY – Seated at a piano in the middle of Roulette’s concert hall, with the audience in the round, Ka Baird will premiere centers: 4 channels. The program, part of her Jerome Residency at Roulette, will consist of two pieces: piano: vivification exercises with Crystal Penalosa, and voices: source. Both pieces incorporate 4-channel synthesis (in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of the listening space, reproducing signals that are wholly or in part independent of one another), as well as spatialized light and movement.

Ka Baird is a composer and performer living and working in NYC. She is one of the founding and continuing members of the experimental outfit Spires That In The Sunset Rise founded in Chicago in September 2001. Since relocating to NYC in November 2014, she has set off in numerous directions apart from Spires to both pursue new collaborations and hone her solo work. Her current work explores piano, electroacoustic interventions, extended vocal techniques, physical movement, and the electronic manipulation of the flute. She is interested specifically in performance/sound as a means to break recurring thought patterns and create passages into pure energy potential.

Crystal Penalosa is an American artist & interdisciplinary designer based in New York. Their work primarily focuses on performance with modular electronics, utilizing signal processing as a collaborative tool to sculpt sounds in real-time. Penalosa has performed collaboratively and solo in New York at Issue Project Room, Microscope Gallery, Sediment Gallery, MoMA PS1, Experimental Intermedia, and at Spektrum in Berlin. They currently work with the veteran underground record label Generations Unlimited.

Lineup:

piano: vivification exercises
Ka Baird – Piano, Voice
Crystal Penalosa – Electronics, Processing

voices: source
Ka Baird – Voice

Ka Baird: Sapropelicisms

What: Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ka Baird, joined by Marcia Bassett and Camilla Padgitt-Coles, presents experiments in solo voice, piano, and flute.
When: Wednesday, January 18, 2016, 8pm
Where: Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, 2/3/4/5/A/C/G/D/M/N/R/B/Q trains & the LIRR
Cost: $25/20 Online $20/15 Doors
Info: www.roulette.org / (917) 267-0368
Tickets: General Admission $20, Members/Students/Seniors $15, $25/20 Tickets at the door

Brooklyn, NY – Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Ka Baird (aka Sapropelic Pycnic) will explore piano improvisation, electroacoustic interventions, extended vocal techniques, physical movement, and electronic manipulation of the flute to present Sapropelicisms, featuring Marcia Bassett on Buchla Easel and sound reactive projections from Camilla Padgitt-Coles. Baird coined the term “Sapropelicisms” as exercises or rituals that honor the dark rich sludge of our own psyches and the processes by which they are revealed. Sapropelicisms come from the root word sapropel, a contraction of ancient Greek words sapros and pelos meaning putrefaction and mud, respectively.

Ka Baird is one of the founding members of long running avant-psych project Spires That In The Sunset Rise, which has contributed a different slant to the New Folk movement by incorporating various avant-garde and world music influences into their music. Since 2001, the band released eight full length records and several side releases. Since relocating to New York City in November 2014, Baird has set off in numerous directions with new collaborations as well as honing in on her own solo work. Baird released See Sun Think Shadow, an album of piano improvisations in November 2015 and A Love Supreme, a tribute record to John Coltrane in January 2016. She co-runs the Brooklyn-based record label and concert organizer Perfect Wave with Camilla Padgitt-Coles.

As a co-founder of Philadelphia’s shambolic psychonauts un, tectonic drone pioneers Double Leopards, psych-folk drone trio GHQ, and Hototogisu, Marcia Bassett is deeply entwined with the American noise underground. In addition to collaborations with Samara Lubelski, Barry Weisblat and others, she performs solo under the moniker Zaimph and released the album Between The Infinite and The Finite in November.

Camilla Padgitt-Coles is a multimedia artist working in light, sound, video art and audio-visual environments. She makes music solo as Ivy Meadows and participates ambient projects Future Shuttle, Energy Star, Tropical Rock and Non Human Persons.