AUDIOPOLLINATION CONCERT 2
FEATURING GLEN HALL + ELIZABETH LIMA & HERACLITUS AKIMBO + PATRICK O’REILLY
(livestream)
DECEMBER 10, 2021 @ 8PM ET
FREE
CURATED BY MICHAEL LYNN
Audiopollination is a monthly free improvisation series in association with Arraymusic featuring a smorgasbord of spontaneous/improvised/instantly composed music. The series has been running since December 2012 focusing on allowing a safe-space for artists to experiment and further their practice through improvisations in duos or trios.
Pre-Covid the series has been self-curated where artists sign up themselves to play–often with artists they had not performed with in an attempt to democratize the curation process. This season the series is focusing on presenting extended sets by improvisational artists across a variety of improvisational sensibilities in duets or trios.
PROGRAM
SET 1: HERACLITUS AKIMBO & PATRICK O’REILLY
Performing a series of open scores composed by Patrick and Joe, this set will include pieces from Patrick’s “Chorus Spoon Dance” series and Joe’s book of” Lyre Etudes”, as well as a piece by Ken Aldcroft, and possibly some improvisations.
SET 2: GLEN HALL & ELIZABETH LIMA
ABOUT
HERACLITUS AKIMBO (JOE STRUTT)
After buying a guitar in a fit of panic when he realized he was turning thirty, Joe Strutt was once a barely semi-competent bedroom musician. But for over a decade, making music was then pushed aside in favour of work as a “citizen archivist,” maintaining long-running music blog Mechanical Forest Sound. Documenting ephemeral moments, he has posted more than 4,500 live recordings, mostly of local, independent artists.
In 2015, after the sudden passing of his father, he found himself in the possession of a beautiful guitar (an original edition Fender Starcaster) and some other sundry gear. In an attempt to learn how to use a Boss RC-2 Loop Station, he plugged it into his old Radio Shack keyboard and began noodling. The result of this was A Part of My Inheritance, an album of gauzy ambient sounds that was (to his surprise) released as a tape by Arachnidiscs Recordings in an “extra limited run” that quickly sold out two editions.
Further sonic explorations added many inexpensive guitar pedals and found sounds (such as shortwave “numbers stations” and the mysterious online phenomena known as Unfavorable Semicircle) and eventually some fancier pedals. Solo performances lead to collaborations, including duo sets with artists such as Paul Newman, Allison Cameron, Jason Doell and Laura Swankey. From there came group encounters: co-founding the “improvised kosmische” rock unit Stargoon, convening group-drone Cosmic Homeostasis sessions and joining forces with Liz Lima and Del Stephen to explore clarinet, spoken word and tape loops in Our Way to Fall.
Pandemic isolation has led to more long walks, more esoteric pedals and new sound sources, including lyre and lap steel. Sounds continue to be heard, stretched and processed.
MORE
https://www.facebook.com/drones.h.akimbo/
MUSIC
https://heraclitusakimbo.bandcamp.com/
PATRICK O’REILLY
“I compose and perform community based music. More often than not improvisation is a salient feature of this music. I am interested in creating music and musical situations that work to eliminate barriers of accessibility in order to bring together a wide breadth of artists and listeners… Joe and I share a love of electronics and improvisation. We are both improvisors in all aspects of our lives, as such much of what we do will be spontaneous. One thing is for sure though, there will be many many wires! Joe is tireless in his search for beauty, and he surprises and delights me every time I hear him. I very much look forward to letting his seemingly endless palate of sound inspire me in the moment, and push the pieces into new sonic territory.”
— Patrick O’Reilly
Patrick O’Reilly is a composer, guitarist, and sonic explorer. A community-driven fixture in the Toronto creative music scene, Patrick’s open-minded approach embraces both beauty and brashness; he is Co-curator of the Furniture Music and Ornate Presents concert/workshop series and operates the W/DRWN record label. His trio Wire Circus have released two albums showcasing Patrick’s compositions alongside the pixilated/frenetic improvisation that is the culmination of their longstanding collaborative history that aims to challenge while also communicating with and engaging listeners.
A sought-after collaborator, he contributes to a diverse range of projects that have all added to the rich musical landscape of his own work, including indie-pop group Language Arts, afro-dub-tryp band D’bi & The 333, Robert Diack’s modern jazz quartet, folk-leaning tunesmith Cassie Norton’s band, Stefan Hegerat’s Icterus, and Eastern-European Inspired Ensemble DoVira
His most recent release is For Laika the debut album by Cosmic Homeostasis, an eighteen-piece electro-acoustic drone ensemble. The album features Patrick’s thirty- minute extended composition from which the album takes its name alongside group improvisation. 2022 will see him releasing a full-length album of his compositions as performed/interpreted by the late Justin Haynes early in the year, releasing a cassette tape with vocalist/electronic artist Laura Swankey in the summer, and playing socially distanced concerts with WAPAMA exploring freedom of expression through rhythm, melody, & harmony
Patrick holds a bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Music from Humber College, and a Master’s in Musical Arts degree from the University of Toronto where he is currently completing a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree.
MORE
@wire.circus
patrickoreillymusic.com
GLEN HALL
Glen Hall is a Canadian composer/multi-instrumentalist and journalist who incorporates live electroacoustics with compositions, free jazz and improvisation. Hall has done residencies at STEIM (Amsterdam), Electronic Music Foundation (New York), and Matralab (Concordia University).
He has studied composition with Gyorgy Ligeti, Maurcio Kagel, Deep Listening with Pauline Oliveros, and the Kyma Sound Design Workstation withJoel Chadabe. Hall has done recordings with Gil Evans, Roswell Rudd, Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo.
He received a Chalmers Foundation Arts Fellowship using it to do research at IRCAM (Paris) in cataRT concatenative synthesis software and the Omax artificial intelligence system. Hall is also a literary scholar having written his thesis on the cut-up technique of William Burroughs.
MORE
www.glenhall.com
https://www.facebook.com/glen.hall.5855
ELIZABETH LIMA
Elizabeth Lima is a vocalist, clarinettist, improviser and composer working in a full range of genres. The centrepiece of her work is the emotional response to sound: the human experience and interconnection shared amongst musicians and with the audience. She creates performances in which traditional and extended techniques are combined with theatrical elements.
In 2016, she perfected vocal improvisation with Maggie Nicols and Phil Minton (UK).
In 2017 she was selected for the improvisation Montreal-Vancouver exchange, Trading Places organized by Suoni Per Il Popolo, Western Front, Coastal Jazz, Music on Main, NOW Society Present. She performs regularly as an improviser and with ensembles such as Montreal based Land of Kush, conducted by Sam Shalabi (Constellation Records) and Joker : chorale bruitiste, conducted by Joane Hétu (DAME). She is co-founder of the duo Porketche with Gabriel Dharmoo (DAME), performance duo Riot Pousse with Sarah Albu and duo Écureuil with Kayla Milmine (Toronto).
In 2018 she co-founds experimental vocal ensemble Phth, who performed at Suoni per il Popolo (Montreal) and NUMUS (Waterloo). Recently, Elizabeth has performed and soloed in Opus Prize winning Opera “À chaque ventre son monstre,” by Gabriel Dharmoo, as well as Jennifer Walshe’s Live Nude Girls, live arts production “Mythe” by Mykalle Bielinski and interdisciplinary art performance by Yannick Desranleau and Chloë Lum.
She has presented her solo “Lyrebird Motel” at Festival de Musiques Créatives in Jonquière and Women from Space (Toronto). Elizabeth offers improvisation workshops to musicians and non-musicians alike.