Saturdays
April 2, 9, 16, 23 & 30
3 PM - 9 PM
Dan Joseph
Periodicity Piece #6
a continuous
sound installation with occasional live performances
by musicians from Joseph's ensemble
(flute, electric guitar, piano and cello)
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Periodicity Piece #6 combines extensive pre-recorded musical/sonic materials, live digital processing, and four live instrumentalists (flute, electric guitar, piano and cello) in the realization of a strictly arranged time-based score. The goal of the work is to establish multiple rates of periodicity, ranging from short musically metrical repetitions, to longer patterns of recurrence. The resulting experience of these simultaneously unfolding yet unrelated rates of periodicity, is to give the listener a rich and complex sense of passing time on multiple planes.
The work makes extensive use of the unique multi-channel environment of Diapason Gallery for Sound and spatially locate the pre-recorded material and the live instrumentalists in fixed positions within the room, thus establishing an architectural context within which the work unfolds. The interplay between the periodic musical structure and the fixed distribution of the sounds in space reinforces the simultaneous perception of multiple rates of periodicity that is the subject of the work.
Dan Joseph (b. 1966) is a free-lance composer based in New York City. He began his career at 16 as a drummer in the vibrant punk scene of his native Washington, DC, most notably with the band 9353. During the late 1980s, he was active in the international cassette underground, producing several releases of experimental tape compositions for independent labels in the U.S. and abroad. He moved to California in 1991 where he remained for 10 years, earning composition degrees from CalArts and Mills College. His principal teachers include Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, Mel Powell and Michael Jon Fink. As an artist who embraces the musical multiplicity of our time, he works simultaneously in a variety of mediums and contexts, including traditional instrumental composition, free improvisation, algorithmic composition and experimental electronica. His work has been presented in a variety of venues, including at Merkin Concert Hall (NYC), Roulette (NYC), Lotus Fine Arts (NYC), Deep Listening Space (Kingston, NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), New Langton Arts (SF), California Institute of the Arts and Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito).
Since the late 1990s, the hammer dulcimer has been a primary vehicle for his music. As a performer on this instrument, he is active with his own ensemble, The Dan Joseph Ensemble, as well as in various improvisational collaborations and as an occasional soloist. Recently he was Composer-in-Residence with New York's Gamelan Son of Lion for whom he composed Lion Stepsfor hammer dulcimer and Javanese Gamelan. Also active as a concert presenter, he is a co-founder of the popular San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (www.sfemf.org), and currently serves as the Coordinator of the acclaimed Interpretations series produced by the World Music Institute.
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