George Washington University: Instruments in the 21st Century - Expanding Sounds Workshop & Performance
Fri, Oct 06
|Salon Dore, GWU (use New York Ave door)
Natalie Chami, Alma Laprida, and Heather Stebbins present their different instruments, techniques, and musical technologies. Workshop Time: 3-5p Performance Time: 7-8:30pm * You can attend both events, choose to partipcate in the workshop only, or enjoy the performance in the evening.
Time & Location
Oct 06, 2023, 3:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Salon Dore, GWU (use New York Ave door), 500 17th St NW, Washington, DC 20006, USA
About the event
Instruments in the 21st Century: Expanding Sounds
Presenters: Natalie Chami, Alma Laprida, Heather Stebbins
Date: Friday, Oct 6
Workshop Time: 3-5p
Performance Time: 7-8:30pm
* You can attend both events, choose to partipcate in the workshop only, or enjoy the performance in the evening.
Location: Salon Doré, Flagg Building, Corcoran School of the Arts & Design
Natalie Chami, Alma Laprida, and Heather Stebbins each generate music and sound art using different instruments, techniques, and technologies. Through a blend of listening sessions, performance demonstrations, and collective sound creation, participants will gain insights into the diverse compositional practices of the presenters. Together we will explore the questions of what is a musical instrument, what is sound technology, and how we affectionately relate to them to generate musical experiences.
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Bios
Natalie Chami, aka TALsounds, is a musician, educator, and Product Manager at Korg USA. Chami released her first TALsounds LP, "Love Sick," with New York’s Ba Da Bing Records. Her second LP, "Acquiesce," arrived in 2020 on NNA Records. Commentary on the music of TALsounds has appeared in publications including Pitchfork, NPR, The Fader, and Chicago Reader. Chami has performed across America and Canada, traveling to Europe in 2018 for a string of dates with Chicago composer Haley Fohr (Circuit Des Yeux). "Head to Head" is Chami’s first full-length documentary film composition. She is Lebanese, was born in Ontario, and while in Chicago, was a founding teacher and lead of the Vocal Department at the Chicago High School for the Arts. Since February 2021, Chami has had a position with KORG USA as a Product Manager. Through this collaboration, she has the opportunity to expose larger - and welcome new - audiences to the world of synthesizers and improvisational music making. https://www.talsounds.com
Heather Stebbins is a sound artist and educator based in Washington, DC, where she is Assistant Professor of Electronic and Computer Music at George Washington University. She works with sounds created by instruments, found objects, nature, and voltage to generate musical experiences ranging from notated works for chamber ensembles to improvised performances on modular synthesizers. Really wonderful people and ensembles have performed her music in a lot of neat places, and she is grateful for that. Her recent album, At the End of the Sky (Superpang, 2023), is available on Bandcamp and streaming platforms. Other recordings are available on New Focus Recordings, Not Art Records, SEAMUS, and Coviello labels.
Alma Laprida is a multi-disciplinary artist whose creative pursuits encompass composition, improvisation, performance, installation, and radiophonic pieces. Armed with unconventional instruments and objects such as the trumpet marine, field recordings, synthesizers, megaphones and the lyre, her explorations traverse diverse realms in the pursuit of creating captivating sonic experiences. Alma has released three solo albums, collaborated on two others and contributed to various compilations. In 2021, after a decade of creative work and life in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Alma relocated to Maryland.