FW18 & Libraries

Lampo announces its FW18 season, running from September through December. Artists include Oren Ambarchi, Jeff Witscher, Alan Licht, Madalyn Merkey and Carl Stone.

On September 15, Oren Ambarchi plays the U.S. premiere of Sbagliato—his new work for two guitars (Graham Foundation).

In October, Jeff Witscher aka Rene Hell premieres a new performance for Lampo, constrained by the space of our 10 x 20 foot office. Variations in Pathological Sound Music is a two-day, multi-part live computer work, with elements for piano, radio, computer synthesis and rewired text-to-speech software. In this weekend matinee, Witscher performs for four hours both Saturday and Sunday. Each section of the work is offered as a 25-minute, one-on-one listening experience, limited to 8 people per day and 16 people overall (Oct 20 & 21, Lampo Annex).

November begins with Alan Licht’s long overdue return to the Lampo series. Licht plays two new solo electric guitar works, with reference points back to his 2001 Lampo concert, when he performed solo for the first time in Chicago (Nov 3, Bond Chapel), presented with the Renaissance Society.

Ahead of his Bond Chapel performance, Licht discusses music, personal and public libraries, access and ownership. He considers the different relationships he has formed with music, whether borrowed, bought, or only heard, and what makes a music “collection.” This conversation is the first of three Lampo talks this fall that touch on library experiences (Nov 2, Lampo Annex).

Oakland-based Madalyn Merkey premieres Digital Concert Creatures, a quadraphonic work for synthetic computer sounds and voice (November 17, Graham Foundation). In addition to her work as a composer, Merkey is also the English translator of Due scuole di musica elettronica in Italia (1968), an electronic music text written by Enore Zaffiri, which she discovered while spending some dedicated time in the Mills College library. On the Friday before her concert, Merkey presents an artist talk about Zaffiri’s early work, with unreleased historical recordings from the first Turin course of electronic music (Lampo Annex).

Carl Stone closes the season, performing unreleased recent works, in this very special concert (Dec 1, Graham Foundation). The computer music pioneer last performed in Chicago in 2006. On November 30, Stone shares his own life-changing library story, when he was a CalArts undergrad in the 1970s (Lampo Annex).