The Contemporary Austin Presents Music for Wilderness Lake at Laguna Gloria
May 22, 2014
Austin, Texas — The Contemporary Austin presents Music for Wilderness Lake, a free outdoor musical performance at Laguna Gloria on June 27 and 28, 2014. Canadian composer and sound theorist R. Murray Schafer wrote Music for Wilderness Lake for trombones to perform at sunset and sunrise around a body of water. Adapted for Laguna Gloria’s Sound Series, the performance takes advantage of Austin’s waterfront art-in-nature site and allows the audience to experience the piece from multiple perspectives around a lagoon.
Music for Wilderness Lake (1979) is a seminal work of “environmental music” in which the natural atmospheric conditions contribute to the experience of the performance. Dramatically, a cast of a dozen accomplished Texas trombonists arranged around the perimeter of a body of water will be conducted via flags from a boat floating in the middle of the water. Half of the musicians play toward the water and trees from the water’s edge of Laguna Gloria, while the other musicians play back from neighboring docks on the other side of the lagoon. The dispersed trombonists may not see one another, but a conductor on the water keeps time from a wooden canoe, which has been hand-crafted by Austin-based artisan Aldo Valdés Böhm. The Contemporary Austin’s performance of Music for Wilderness Lake will also activate artist Orly Genger’s monumental outdoor installation Current. The newest commission for the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria, Current comprises painted woven rope that cascades down the hill of the amphitheater and tapers off onto a platform in the lagoon—all the while inviting visitors to walk in and around the installation. The changing atmospheric sounds and light at the ecologically vibrant Laguna Gloria site, along with multiple and dynamic listening perspectives, will make the dusk and dawn performances distinct.
Music for Wilderness Lake will be performed at The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, 3809 W. 35th Street, on Friday, June 27 at 8:15P (Dusk), and Saturday, June 28 at 6:30A (Dawn). It is a free Sound Series performance suitable for audiences of all ages.
Also on View at Laguna Gloria:
Orly Genger: Current, through August 24, 2014.
David Leddy’s Susurrus, a site-specific audio play, available June 14 – 28, 2014. $10/$5 members.
In conjunction with performances of Music for Wilderness Lake, Susurrus hours will be extended on June 27 (10A–7P) and June 28 (7A–4P).
R. Murray Schafer is Canada’s pre-eminent composer who, in an era of specialization, has shown himself to be a true Renaissance man. Schafer has won national and international acclaim, not only for his achievements as a composer, but also as an educator, environmentalist, literary scholar, visual artist, and provocateur. After receiving a Licentiate in piano through the Royal Schools of Music (England), he pursued further studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto, followed by periods of study in Austria and England. On the occasion of the composer’s 80th birthday, Music for Wilderness Lake was performed at the Lake in New York City’s Central Park in 2013.
Steve Parker is a member of Ensemble Signal (NYC), on the faculty of the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Artistic Director of SoundSpace at the Blanton Museum of Art. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America, collaborating with leading figures of contemporary art and music. Parker has produced numerous large-scale and unconventional concerts, including works for 80 trombones, 100 marching tubas, and 99 percussionists. Currently, he has several instrument sculptures on display at the Austin City Hall Parking Garage.
Funded in part by the Texas Commission on the Arts.
ABOUT THE CONTEMPORARY AUSTIN
The Contemporary Austin reflects the spectrum of contemporary art through exhibitions, commissions, education, and the collection. The museum consists of two primary locations, the downtown Jones Center at 700 Congress Avenue, and Laguna Gloria, a twelve-acre site on Lake Austin at 3809 W. 35th Street, which is home to the Driscoll Villa, the Art School, and the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria.
IMAGES: Music for Wilderness Lake. Courtesy Make Music New York, Inc.; Orly Genger, Current, 2014. Lobster rope and latex paint. Dimensions variable. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin. Courtesy the artist. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.
For additional information and to request media images, please contact:
Andrea Mellard
Director of Public Programs
amellard@thecontemporaryaustin.org
512 453 5312 x 101