piano: vivification exercises
Ka Baird – Piano, Voice
Crystal Penalosa – Electronics, Processing
voices: source
Ka Baird – Voice
Read our Q&A with Ka here.
For her Jerome Foundation Residency at Roulette, Ka Baird will premiere centers: 4 channels, two pieces incorporating 4-channel synthesis with spatialized light and movement. The first part of the evening will premiere piano: vivification exercises, a vibrant, energetic work written for piano and electronics that plays with dissonance and consonance of tone, interference patterns between frequencies, repetition, rhythm, and chromatic stumbles. Crystal Penalosa will add additional electronics for the last exercise of this piece.
The second half of the evening will premiere voices: source, a 4 channel performance that highlights Baird’s 3.5 octave vocal range with various extended vocal techniques. The piece focuses heavily on rhythm, breath, spacialization, microtones, and vocal textures. The piece will involve live vocals with two microphones interweaving with a prerecorded quadrophonic vocal design by Ka.
Both pieces will be performed off the stage and in the center of Roulette’s performance space with chairs surrounding. Light design by Camilla Padgitt-Coles on piano: vivification exercises.
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 with new collaborations as well as honing in on 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 reoccurring thought patterns and create passages into pure energy potential. She has 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). She also co-runs the label, concert organizer and magazine Perfect Wave with Camilla Padgitt-Coles.
Crystal Penalosa (they/them) 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.
This residency and performance is made possible, in part, by the Jerome Foundation. The Jerome Foundation, a long-time supporter of young composers, was a mainstay in Roulette’s early development and continues to help us fulfill our mission by presenting ambitious work by promising artists. Each year, the Jerome Foundation supports five artist residencies and four commissions at Roulette.
This performance is presented through GENERATE.
