TechnoSonics 2023
The Composition and Computer Technologies (CCT) program in the Department of Music will present their annual festival of new electronic music, intermedia, and sound art. This year’s events will feature guest artists Maria Chavez (experimental turntablist and sound artist) and Jordi Wheeler (multi-instrumentalist and improviser), as well as new works by the faculty, staff, and graduate students of the CCT program. Chavez and Wheeler will perform a collaborative composition on October 13 and offer an all-ages workshop on experimental turntablism and improvisation on October 14. All events are free and open to the public.
TECHNOSONICS SCHEDULE:
- Friday, October 13, 8pm, at Old Cabell Hall: Concert 1
- Saturday, October 14, 2-3:30pm at Visible Records at 1740 Broadway: Experimental Turntablism Workshop by Maria Chavez & Jordi Wheeler
- Saturday, October 14, 8pm at Visible Records at 1740 Broadway: Concert 2
Maria Chavez is an improviser, curator and sound artist from Lima, Peru. Her sound installations, visual objects and live turntable performances focus on the values of the accident and its unique, complicated possibilities with sound emitting machinery like the turntable. Influenced by improvisation in contemporary art, her work expands outside of the sound world straddling different disciplines of interest. The sound installations and live turntable performances of Maria Chavez focus on the paradox of time and the present moment, with many influences stemming from improvisation in contemporary art.
She was awarded the Jerome Foundation’s Emerging Artist Grant by New York City’s Roulette Intermedium in 2008, and in 2009 she became a recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship by The Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of the New York Community Trust.
For her experimental turntablism, Chavez uses new and broken needles (the latter of which she refers to as 'perfect to ruin' needles), on a collection of vinyl she uses to build a sound palette.Chavez's compositions are created for specific locations, and their acoustic characteristics allow for the ambiguity of reverberation, reflection, and refraction to enter into each composition.
Maria was an artist in residence with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Clocktower and the Dia:Beacon Museum. Chavez has also been an artist in residence at Issue Project Room, and played in Christian Marclay's Screenplay at the Whitney Museum in 2010.
In 2012, Chavez published her first book Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable, which she wrote and illustrated herself. The book serves as a how-to manual for those interested in learning the abstract turntablism techniques that she developed with the turntable. This book is considered the first sound related release by Chavez since her solo album release in 2004. In 2019 the Macro label released an album by Chavez based on treatments of the empty locked grooves of a vinyl record by Stefan Goldmann.
Jordi Wheeler is a multi-instrumentalist working in the periphery of New York City and currently residing in Valencia, Spain. His work engages with the idiosyncratic languages of individual instruments by focusing on active listening, breadth of dynamic range, and timbral flexibility during his performances. His solo work serves as long-form meditation, where he “becomes his ears.” Wheeler performed a solo concert as part of Circuito Bucles (Centre de Carmen Museum, Valencia, Spain, 2022) and has performed in the ongoing "Dialeg Obert" series (Centre de Carmen Museum, Valencia and El Teatre Musical, Valencia.) He has also contributed music to the artist Cate Giordano’s film REX. In group contexts, he has recorded and performed with Amen Dunes on the records Freedom (Sacred Bones, 2018) and Love (Sacred Bones, 2014), Mike Wexler on the records Syntropy (three:four, 2016) and Dispossession(Mexican Summer, 2012), and Psychic Ills (2013). Wheeler received a BA in English literature at New York University (2000).
Biographical information culled from websites about artists.
Old Cabell Hall is located on the south end of UVA's historic lawn, directly opposite the Rotunda. Parking is available in the central grounds parking garage on Emmet Street, in the C1 parking lot off McCormick Rd, and in the parking lots at the UVA Corner. Handicap parking is available in the small parking lot adjacent to Bryan Hall.
Visible Records is located at 1740 Broadway, is housed within a multi-use warehouse in the Carlton/Belmont neighborhood of Charlottesville, VA.
All programs are subject to change.
Contact the UVA Music Department (music@virginia.edu, or 434.924.3052) for more information.