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Closing the Loop

Gentle Gazzetta Readers,

A month and a half ago, I drove halfway across the country in "Yoko", my trusty Honda Civic Hatchback with the Audio Art vanity plate. I drove from San Francisco to Minneapolis to begin my two-month American Composers Forum/McKnight visiting composer residency in Minnesota. It amounted to four days of driving – broken up by a stop in Colorado, where I still have family. Now, with only a few weeks remaining in my Minnesota stay, I'm hard at work editing sound in Pro Tools –– creating clips of the voices of farmers, animals, chefs, prep cooks, servers, and eaters who I've been visiting with, interviewing, and recording during my time here.  I am composing a work called Closed Loop that I will present in progress in a couple of weeks at Studio Z (no relation) in Saint Paul.

From Memory Trace to Closed Loop

In late July, right before embarking on this major road trip, I performed a 3-night run of another new work, Memory Trace, at San Francisco's intimate Royce Gallery, where I regularly present my avant-chamber ROOM Series. It's a solo work, but I've created an "ensemble" of sorts using video of a remarkable cast of dreamers and rememberers who make virtual appeances throughout the piece. I will be presenting a large-scale, more developed version of Memory Trace next spring at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In the middle of the show, there is a short video segment that could be considered the cornerstone of the piece – featuring the face and voice of my dear mother. She made her graceful departure from this world in August – about half a day before I was able to reach Colorado.  After spending some family time with my sisters in Evergreen and Denver, I continued my journey to the land of 10,000 lakes.

Art & Food in the Twin Cities

My lodging while in the Twin Cities is a room in the Minneapolis home of composer Mary Ellen Childs. Shortly after I arrived, I had the pleasure of hearing members of her Crash Ensemble perform some of her works at a fundraiser/salon in her beautiful upstairs studio here.  My residency time has been split between going to Twin Cities restaurants and cafes and to rural and urban farms to record interviews and sounds for my new piece, editing and composing in my little make-shift studio, and going out to take in local music and visual art.

I've seen a few concerts and informal music evenings at Studio Z (headquarters of the Saint Paul contemporary music ensemble Zeitgeist) – including a performance by German avant gardist Gerhard Staebler and his partner Kunsu Shim – and I attended a performance event at the Walker Art Center celebrating the work of painter Jack Whitten, who currently has a solo retrospective there. I also had an opportunity to spend a day with my old friend composer/installation artist Philip Blackburn, who gave me a private tour of his public art work The Scope at Beacon Bluff and accompanied me to the Minnesota State Fair where we saw livestock, baked goods, jams & preserves, butter sculpture, and crop art (including a seed portrait of Leon Theremin!) on display, and encountered endless stands purveying foods – savory and sweet, fried and fresh – often served on a stick.

In great contrast to the deep-fried cheese, corn dogs, and mini-donuts of the fair, I've been delighted by some excellent fine dining in the twin cities. And, in the course of doing research and making recordings for Closed Loop, I've learned a great deal – thanks to the good people at Wise Acre Eatery, Tangletown Farm, Buffalo Creek, and Tiny Diner – about the "Farm to Table" movement and about farming and sustainable food production. I've met some very happy cows, chickens, pigs, and sheep, and I've spent some time with happy humans who seem to be genuinely passionate about their jobs.

Just when I was starting to feel a little self-conscious about the fact that beneficiaries of sustainable food practice seem to disproportionately be people who can afford upscale restaurants and CSA subscriptions, I encountered Frogtown Farm, a new urban farm in Saint Paul that not only endeavors to involve the low-income community of the surrounding multi-cultural neighborhood, but is actually initiating affordable CSA and family "pick your own" programs. It made me feel more hopeful about the spread of sustainable food practices.

Brief Jumps to the Coasts

I slipped away from my Minnesota residency for a few days a couple of times. I flew to New York to attend an orientation for awardees of the Doris Duke Artist Impact Award of which I was a recipient this year. It was great meeting and celebrating with the other artists and with the DDAIA and Creative Capital staff. While there, I also saw the Yoko Ono retrospective at MoMA and the "China: Through the Looking Glass" exhibition at the Met Museum. In the same month, I flew home for a few days to attend and work the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival – of which I've been an organizer since its start 16 years ago. The festival was just great this year! From the opening night multi-channel diffusion of Charles Cohen and Tom Dimuzio's analogue synths to the perfect close with Olivia Block's cinematic surround piece, it was well worth the trip.

Performing again...

I've enjoyed a bit of a respite from giving public performances since the closing night of my summer run of Memory Trace, but my usual crammed schedule is coming back with a vengance starting with the mid-October Closed Loop presentations in St Paul, continuing through a New York shared evening with Miguel Frasconi in late October, and exploding out of control in November, when I'll have performances and public appearances every week – sometimes twice in a week – and on both coasts without cease right up until Thanksgiving. Read on or scroll down for the details of my upcoming events.

Closing the Loop

So, as you read this, I am trying to prepare for the upcoming presentations of my new work, and very soon I'll be preparing to pack all my things, fill up Yoko's tank, and begin my long cross-country trek in reverse – back to San Francisco.

PZ performing Memory Trace

I hope to see many of you at the various events I'll be doing in the coming weeks. Happy autumn to all! Happy harvest.

Love,

PZ

PZ at the American Composers Forum

PZ in Memory Trace at the Royce

Crash Ensemble in Mary Ellen Childs' Studio

Philip Blackburn w/PZ under the Scope

Leon Theremin done in seeds

Butter artist at work at MN State Fair

Chefs and line cooks at Wise Acre Eatery

Yoko Ono white chess table at MoMA

The Barringers, who I interviews on their farm

Whitten exhibition at the Walker

With my sisters in Colorado

Mural of a Ravel piano score in downtown Minneapolis

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