SoundSpeak – A night of word/voice/and sound
8:00pm Ear Spray with Mark Briggs
8:35pm Alden Jenks/Anthony (Tony) Gnazzo
9:10pm Drunken Fish = Sounds and Words with C.J. Reaven Borosque & Jim Ryan
Earspray is Ann O’Rourke, percussion. Carlos Jennings, electronics. Mark Briggs, improvised spoken word.
They use cymbals and drums as speakers for the electronics plus striking, rubbing, synth, and sound exciters to turn cymbals into speakers with teeny wires!! Also, mostly metal, found objects with effects along with circuit bending…
Alden Jenks studied at the Aspen Institute, Yale University, and the University of California, Berkeley.
Outside of these institutions he also worked with composers Karlheinz Stockhausen, David Tudor, and John Cage. He created the performing group �Deus ex Machina” in collaboration with Canadian composer Martin Bartlett, and subsequently became involved in a (somewhat expensive) scheme to create a huge (for its time) digital synthesizer called �The Grand Canonical Ensemble”.
Much of his work has emphasized electronic sound (his tape piece Nagasaki was a prize-winner at the prestigious Bourges Festival); rather than rely upon preset sounds (in only one piece, “Menage”, has he done so) he continues to insist upon sound designs that are unique and intrinsic to each composition. His life-long interest in poetry has led to an increasing number of vocal pieces. Many of these have precipitated a different style, less concerned with experiment and more concerned with expression and communication.
Jenks is Director of the Electronic Music Studio at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he teaches both studio and live-electronic techniques. He is a member of the American Composers Forum and the American Music Center; and he is a member of ASCAP.