Our regular listen to and look at living, breathing composers and performers that you may not know yet, but I know you should… And can, right here and now, with so much good listening online:
sound. from SASSAS (Los Angeles)
In 1998, L.A. artist Cindy Bernard and friends started a series of concerts and installations that became the non-profit organisation SASSAS, the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound. Their goal is “to serve as a catalyst for the creation, presentation, and recognition of experimental art and sound practices in the Greater Los Angeles area”.
Most of the concerts are held at the landmark Schindler House, a mid-century experimental home that has sliding walls opening the whole structure up to the back garden area. It provides an airy, casual and free-flowing space for both the artists and audience. Lately SASSAS has also been able to run a few concerts as well at both the Ford Ampitheater and REDCAT.
The list of performers is long and varied, from Pauline Oliveros and James Tenney to Chas Smith and Rick Cox; Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman to Jessica Rylan and Tom Grimley; Harold Budd, Petra Haden, Tetuzi Akiyama, Phil Gelb, etc… even my much-admired internet buddies Johnny Chang and Jessica Catron. If you’ve been spending all your time sitting in the concert hall listening to Wuorinen, here’s you’re chance to loosen up — and catch up — on all kinds of other vital forms of new music in the here-and-now.
Because SASSAS hasn’t just been presenting these concerts; they’ve also been pretty diligent about documenting them with recordings, photos and even video! The link in the title of this post will take you to the sound. mainpage. There you’ll see links to streaming Quicktime archives of many of these concerts, plus scrapbooks of notes and photos from them as well. And over on YOUTUBE, you’ll find another whole archive of video, that’s just begun and is sure to grow.