Virtuoso trombonist/composer Weston Olencki (Chicago) joins local experimental sound initiative Null Point for an evening of recent works for modified brass instruments, ensemble, live electronics, and video under the title Artificial Life: New Works for Brass Instruments, Ensemble, Electronics, and Video. Works by George Lewis, Michelle Lou, Colin Tucker, and Weston Olencki explore limit situations of live performance, activating thresholds of audibility, endurance, sonic instability, and ensemble interaction.

Program

George Lewis, Artificial Life (2007) for ensemble of improvisers

Michelle Lou, HoneyDripper (2016) for trombone, transducers, materials, fx pedals, feedback

Weston Olencki, for melodicas (carbonic render) (2018) for melodicas, electronics, video (US premiere)

Colin Tucker, center unmoored in the presence of infinite fringes (2016) for prepared euphonium (world premiere of version for prepared euphonium)

Featured soloist:

Weston Olencki, trombone, euphonium, electronics, video, melodica

Preview

Bios

Weston Olencki is a New York City based trombonist/composer specializing in the performance and production of experimental music & art. Weston is a member of Ensemble Pamplemousse and the Wet Ink Large Ensemble, one half of RAGE THORMBONES and People Making Sounds, and has performed with Ensemble Dal Niente, ICE, wasteLAnd, wildUP!, Fonema Consort, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Talea Ensemble, sfSound, Wild Rumpus, Eco Ensemble, Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW, and a.pe.ri.od.ic – under conductors Alan Pierson, Enno Poppe, Steven Schick, and Marino Formenti. He was awarded the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis for Performance [2016] and a Stipendiumpreis [2014] from the Darmstadt Ferienkurse.
His compositional work has been performed/commissioned by the Talea Ensemble/Earle Brown Music Foundation, Pamplemousse, Bass2Bass [Michelle Lou + Scott Worthington], People Making Sounds, and soloists Matt Barbier, Jesse Langen, and Lester St. Louis.

Null Point is an initiative for new concert music and sound art in Buffalo, NY. Null Point’s events re-imagine musical and sonic presentation formats, focusing on works by emerging artists that are neglected by normative arts institutions. Past projects have included new site-specific sound works written for presentation in vacant historic industrial sites, thematically-curated concerts focusing on limit situations of performance and audition, and participatory workshop-concerts in working-class neighborhoods. A null point is a location where vector fields (e.g. magnetic fields) have zero strength, where fields cancel each other out.