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(Hartford) Memory Space

with Joan La Barbara, The Daxophone Consort,

Tongue Depressor, Trevor Saint, Ron Kuivila

Emerson Jenisch, and Sam Boston

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

November 18, 2023

A special presentation of the 1970 musical composition (Hartford) Memory Space by Alvin Lucier (1931–2021). One of the most influential American composers of the last hundred years, Lucier is best known for his works that explore the properties of sound and how we perceive them. (Hartford) Memory Space premiered at Hartford Art School, inviting musicians to recreate the sounds they heard while out in the city. In conjunction with the exhibition, Rules & Repetition, musicians performed across the museum's galleries, creating a conceptual sound map of the city of Hartford. 

Presented in partnership with Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts and Hartford Art School at University of Hartford. The performance was presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Rules and Repetition: Conceptual Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum, with support provided by the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation Fund at the Wadsworth Atheneum.  

Performances by: 

Joan La Barbara, voice

The Daxophone Consort

       Daniel Fishkin, daxophone

       Cleek Schrey, daxophone and violin

       Ron Shalom, daxophone

Tongue Depressor

       Henry Birdseypedal steel guitar

       Zach Rowden double bass 

Trevor Saint, glockenspiel

Ron Kuivila, steel plate with transducer and coffee mugs

Emerson Jenisch, hammered dulcimer

Sam Boston, electric guitar

View the printed program from (Hartford) Memory Space

Lucier-Banner.jpg

Top: Detail, Contact sheet from the Museum Archives Photograph Collection documenting Alvin Lucier’s performance of Music for Solo Performer (1965) at the Wadsworth Atheneum on April 23, 1996. Part of an “Evening Lecture Series” on performance art. Bottom: Performance images, (Hartford) Memory Space, 2023. Images courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

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