Austin Wulliman: The News From Utopia
Free
- Austin Wulliman, violin
- Alec Goldfarb, guitar
- Christopher Otto, violin
- John Pickford Richards, viola
- Jay Campbell, cello
Austin Wulliman — BLINK (world premiere; for string quarter, electric guitar, & electronics)
Austin Wulliman — Down Pat (US premiere; for electric guitar & electronics)
Austin Wulliman — The Late Edition (world premiere; for string quartet)
Austin Wulliman — Lost One (world premiere; for string quartet)
Austin Wulliman — The Docks (world premiere; for string quartet & electronics)
Austin Wulliman — como se vive (world premiere; for string quartet & electronics)
Austin Wulliman — The News From Utopia (world premiere of live version; for string quartet & electronics)
The News From Utopia is the title of violinist Austin Wulliman's debut release as composer. This concert presents and celebrates the premiere of seven works by Wulliman, including the adaptations of the News. The News From Utopia is a solo project built from multi-tracked layers that Wulliman composed, recorded, and mixed. The live experience will incorporate electronics built of samples from the album as well as live performances from JACK Quartet and a video premiere by Argentinian multimedia artist Iván Decoud on the track BLINK. Additionally, the concert includes the US Premiere of Wulliman’s Down Pat for electric guitar and electronics, written for the unique talents of guitarist and improviser Alec Goldfarb.
The News From Utopia is built from a web of musical conspiracy theories that coalesce into imagery and a nonlinear network of narratives. A field of pixels comes into focus, a series of images scroll past your phone screen, a dark veil falls over the noonday sun, a desert nightscape melts into the sea roiling with whitecaps and you wake up with your heart racing, eyes wide. Down Pat tunes the guitar to the electrical ground, using a MIDI interface to control an extended ratio-based tuning system. 50 hz, 60 hz, 440 hz and an increasing concatenation of 11s and 5s and 3s build a network of polyrhythm, harmony, and scalar logics. The Late Edition and Lost One dive into Wulliman's musical relationship with his bandmates, wrangling the material built for this recording project into newly imagined works for live players unfolding webs of rhythmic and harmonic ratios.
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.