Event

Southland Ensemble Presents Christian Wolff's Changing the System

The Southland Ensemble focuses on performing music from the experimental tradition, specifically music that primarily deals with graphic and textual notation. The ensemble is flexible in size, with a core of eight members who possess a vast amount of experience within this musical tradition. The Southland Ensemble seeks to collectively share their experiences through the mediums of interactive concerts, workshops and lectures.

Southland Ensemble is excited to perform CHANGING THE SYSTEM, Christian Wolff's iconic experimental composition from the early 1970s, at AUTOMATA in Los Angeles. They will be amplifying objects on a table via contact mics; diversifying their voices through instrumentation and spoken word; and showing large versions of the score on the wall. The audience is highly encouraged to walk around and peruse the score, performers and instruments/objects throughout the performance. Come join us in a thoughtful performance of this wonderful composition!

The members of Southland Ensemble are:

Casey Anderson, Matt Barbier, Eric Kenneth Malcolm Clark, Orin Hildestad, James Klopfleisch, Jonathan Stehney, Cassia Streb, Christine Tavolacci

About Christian Wolff:

Christian Wolff was born in 1934 in Nice, France. He's lived mostly in the U.S. since 1941. He studied piano with Grete Sultan and composition, briefly, with John Cage. Though mostly self-taught as a composer, the work of John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor and Earle Brown have been important to him, as well as long associations with Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski. A particular feature of his music is the various freedoms it allows performers at the time of performance as well as the variable results possible for any one particular piece, for which various new notations have been invented. Underlying notions in the work are shared freedom, self-determination and democratically-spirited collaboration.

Artwork credit: posters of the Wolff score created by Eric Kenneth Malcolm Clark (with permission from the composer)