Generative, Animated, Graphic Scores for Parking Ramp Project

Posted on September 12, 2018 by John CS Keston

This video is one of the six generative, animated, graphic scores that I have composed for Parking Ramp Project. The music was performed live and recorded while the screen was being captured. This piece is called Connected. Colored circles are generated on the screen with connecting lines. One of the three colors is randomly selected to change the color of circles with which it collides. Once all the circles are the same color they fade away and a new set is generated with a different color as the changer. This continues for seven minutes.

Musicians respond to this score by producing a sound event when circles of their assigned color collide with another circle or the boundaries of the screen. This process produces phrases with arbitrary yet continuous rhythmic patterns. The dimensions, velocity, x-axis, and y-axis of each circle serve as parameters that can be interpreted and applied to the frequency, timbre, dynamics and/or duration of the sound event. This interpretation is left up to the discretion of the musicians.

Purple = Peter Hennig (Drums)
Grey = Cody McKinney (Bass / Electronics)
Green / Cyan = John C.S. Keston (Rhodes / Synths)

Bloodline will be performing the music live for the piece, directed by Aniccha Arts choreographer Pramila Vasudevan, with nearly fifty dancers at a parking ramp near the Mall of America, September 29th and 30th, 2018. Learn more about Parking Ramp Project below: Continue reading →

Panic by Proxy at the Walker Art Center

Posted on August 21, 2018 by John CS Keston

PANIC BY PROXY is an audiovisual composition produced in collaboration with Syrian architect and multidisciplinary artist Khaled Alwarea. The piece is a long distance response and “musical” reimagining of Alwarea’s film Panic Attack. I will be making the debut performance of the piece at the Walker Art Center this Thursday, August 23, 2018.

The performance will feature audiovisual objects provided by Alwarea projected and amplified while being granulated in real-time along with electronic accompaniment. The dissonance, distortion, and uncanny synchronization illicit feelings of disturbance and confusion as an expression of the artist’s anxiety.

This video is a 0:45 clip from the 30 minute piece that demonstrates the audiovisual granular synthesis technique used to process the video in real-time. Ginormous thank-you’s go to Esmaa Imady for inviting me to participate in the event, Khaled Alwarea for his amazing film work, and Emily Gastineau at MN Artists for organizing the event.

Read more about Esmaa Imady and the other artists participating in this event on Hyperallergic.

Sound / Simulacra: Davu Seru

Posted on July 3, 2018 by John CS Keston

On Wednesday, July 25th, 2018 Sound / Simulacra at Jazz Central Studios will feature Davu Seru. This monthly series in collaboration with Cody McKinney explores musical improvisation as a “faithful and intentionally distorted” representational process. Sound / Simulacra brings together some of the Twin Cities most unique voices to “recreate, distort, and create the hyperreal.”

Set I – Davu Seru (percussion)

Set II – Davu Seru (percussion) + John Keston (piano, Rhodes, synthesizers, electronics) + Cody McKinney (bass, voice, synthesizer, electronics)

Improvising musician, percussionist, and award-winning composer, Davu Seru, performs regularly in the Twin Cities and abroad as a jazz musician. Like many jazz-rooted musicians influenced by “new music” experiments with extended technique, his approach to the drum set is as much nostalgic as it is technophilic. Consequently, his style is striking for its attending to sound, silence and melodic line as much it does rhythmic pattern—and as a skilled ensemble player he is known for his “big ears.” In the past fifteen years those ears have afforded Davu the opportunity to perform and record with musicians such as Milo Fine, Anthony Cox, George Cartwright, Dean Magraw, Paul Metzger, Jack Wright, Douglas R. Ewart, Evan Parker, Donald Washington, Nicole Mitchell and Rafael Toral.

Beside any number of spontaneous ad-hoc groupings, Davu currently leads No Territory Band and works in a trio with French clarinetist Catherine Delaunay and French bassist Guillaume Seguron. He has also curated concerts series for improvised music (in Chicago and Minneapolis) and collaborates in multi-media performances with dancers and visual artists.

Sound / Simulacra: Lucas Melchior

Posted on May 18, 2018 by John CS Keston

This Wednesday, May 23rd, 2018 is Sound / Simulacra at Jazz Central Studios featuring Lucas Melchior. Lucas and I have worked together in many capacities over the last 6 or more years. Last summer at Northern Spark Lucas was an integral part of Un:heard Resonance along with Mike Hodnick, Chris LeBlanc, and myself. It will be a pleasure to host Lucas at Sound / Simulacra. This is a monthly series in collaboration with Cody McKinney which explores musical improvisation as a “faithful and intentionally distorted” representational process. Sound / Simulacra brings together some of the Twin Cities most unique voices to “recreate, distort, and create the hyperreal.”

Since 2006 MKR has been writing and performing electronic music in the Twin Cities. Winner of the Minnesota Emerging Composer Award in 2012, his music exists at the intersection of dance music and more ambient and experimental styles. Oscillating between extremes, lush downtempo break beats evolve and yield to breakneck rhythms, melodies, and bass. At times warm, simple, and human and at others cold, digital, and impenetrable the music of MKR revels in its influences and exposes a broad spectrum of timbres and moods.

Set 1: Lucas Melchior (electronics)
Set 2: Lucas Melchior (electronics) + Cody McKinney (bass, voice, electronics), John C.S. Keston (Rhodes, piano, synthesizers, electronics)

http://bit.ly/soundsimulacra

Sound / Simulacra: Mankwe Ndosi

Posted on April 12, 2018 by John CS Keston

On Wednesday April 25th, 2018, 8:30pm at Jazz Central Studios Sound / Simulacra will commence featuring Mankwe Ndosi. I have had the pleasure of playing music with Mankwe on several occasions, but I am particularly excited to hear what happens in the context of improvised experimental music. During the second set Cody McKinney and myself will join Mankwe as a trio.

Mankwe Ndosi is a Twin Cities-based performer and composer who uses an expanded vocabulary of singing to express emotion, story and spirit. She works with artists in all media, and living beings of all kinds. She performs nationally and internationally, and has appeared with Nicole Mitchell, The Give Get Sistet, Mike Ladd, Sharon Bridgforth, Laurie Carlos, George Lewis, Medium Zach, I-Self Devine, Ananya Dance Theatre, Atmosphere, and Douglas Ewart – stalwart of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Music. Ndosi is a Wild Plant Woman and a Culture Worker who uses creative practice to nurture human connections to others, our ancestors, and the earth. –Ananya Dance Theatre