What the cuckoo knows


cuckoo_clock_face

Saturday night, as part of my tenure as SOCAN composer in residence at Deep Wireless Festival of Radio and Transmission Art here in Toronto during the month of May, I’ll be doing a live solo show:

May 4, 2013, 8pm

Artscape Wychwood Barns, NAISA Space #252, 601 Christie Street, Toronto.

Toronto-based audio artist D. Burke Mahoney is also on the bill that night.

What the cuckoo knows/collecting clocks and losing time (2013)

In a country with deep forests and high mountains cuckoo clocks make their home, nesting in trees in flocks. Once upon a time, a cuckoo clock flew away on a long and perilous journey across many zones of soft time, until one day it encountered the factory where errant robotniks manufacture atomic time.

This solo performance utilizes recordings from my late father’s collection of antique clocks, with live instrumentation of mbira, sruti box, harmonica, Tetrax, electronics, and shortwave. Originally conceived in the studios of Ö1 ORF Kunstradio, Austria. Thanks to Martin Leitner and Elisabeth Zimmermann. The radio piece will air in 5.1 in summer 2013 on ORF Kunstradio.

Sunday May 19 I’ll be back in Toronto for the Trans-X Symposium to give a keynote talk at 10:00 in the morning (hello early birds!) and perform with Kristen Roos in the evening, a live piece under the rubric of Short Horizon. We’ll have a microwave oven, some FM radios, walkie talkies, and an HF “diviner”. Catch it at 20:00, the Artscape Wychwood Barns, Theatre Direct Space, same address as above.