Full details: https://www.christopherwilles.com/resonance-gathering


Publisher: Art Metropole, Toronto
Artists: Pauline Oliveros, IONE, Christopher Willes, Public Recordings
Release: June 30, 2023 (Pre-Order Available May 21)
Size: 33 X 33cm (733g)
ISBN: 978-1-989010-11-2
Catalog Number: ArtMetR02
Editions :500 
Format: 2XLP (140g, black); a 64pg book (mix of three colour risograph and full colour digital print) with new writing, previously unpublished text by Oliveros, archival materials, photography, and a transparent Flexi Disc insert; and a custom screen printed transparent envelope.

Description:
Resonance Gathering is a new double LP and book centered on the music of avant-garde composer Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016). Organized by multidisciplinary artist Christopher Willes and the collective Public Recordings, the release documents a large-scale performance project of Oliveros’s music that occurred in Toronto between 2017-2019 which concluded with a dramatic performance at Toronto City Hall. Resonance Gathering shares audio recordings, a new sound poem by IONE (artist and Oliveros’ spouse), writing, photography and more— in a multimodal exploration of how Oliveros’s work continues to resonate with our time.

Side A: The Sound Of Awakening; a new sound poem by IONE (artist, author and Oliveros’ spouse), recorded in their home in Kingston NY, 2021.
Side B/C/D: To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of their Desperation; orchestral work by Pauline Oliveros (1970), recorded in a live performance at Council Chambers Toronto City Hall in 2019 (LP format). 
Book: Writing, scores, a previously unpublished archival text by Oliveros (1979), photography, and a Flexi Disc with listening score.

Credits: 

Project devised by Christopher Willes. Courtesy of The Pauline Oliveros Trust.
Co-produced by Christopher Willes and Public Recordings. Publication design by Jeremy McCormick. Photography by Claire Harvie. Audio recordings by Paul Hodge and J.L Simonson. Audio mix: Christopher Willes. Mastering by Brandon Hocura. Performers: Anne Bourne, Allison Cameron, Victoria Cheong, Ishan Davé, Prices Easy, Ellen Furey, Thom Gill, Claire Harvie, Ame Henderson, Ione, Brendan Jensen, Germaine Liu, Jeremy McCormick, JL Simonson, Kate Nankervis, Pauline Oliveros, Bee Pallomina, Liz Peterson, Heather Saumer, Brian Solomon, Anni Spadafora, Evan Webber, and Christopher Willes. Courtesy of The Pauline Oliveros Trust. Created in partnership with Art Metropole, The Pauline Oliveros Trust, The Music Gallery, Séance Centre, and Happy like a flower. 

Created in partnership with Art Metropole, The Pauline Oliveros Trust, The Music Gallery, Séance Centre, and Happy like a flower. 

Half of the proceeds from this publication are being donated to the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto.

Resonance Gathering

A very quiet piece scored for three piano situated in separate rooms with the windows left open. The audience was positioned outside in the garden. Recorded at PAF (performing arts forum) in St Erme France, 2013.

Public Affections

Wave music for a spatialized ensemble of 10+ instruments w/ sustain and fixed electronic sound (10 channels). 

Live at The Music Gallery, Toronto
January 17th, 2014

Excerpt from 35 minutes

Performers:
Katherine Watson - flute
Anne Bourne - cello
Daniel Harley - violin
Illana Waniuk - violin 
Bram Gielen - double bass
Charlotte Mundy - voice
Isla Craig - voice
Alex Samaras - voice
Felicity Williams - voice 
Nicole Rampersaud - trumpet
Lina Allemano - Trumpet
Tom Richards - trombone
Heather Segger - trombone
Thom Gill - guitar
Christopher Willes - sk1
Brandon Valdivia - percussion
Tania Gill - accordion 

Photo: Claire Harvie

Blow/Draw/Drift (Excerpt - The Music Gallery 01.17.14)

This piece was commissioned for the Music Gallery’s 2013 Emergents Series, which featured the Montreal based Ensemble Paramirabo. six receding backgrounds is for piano quintet and field recordings. The piece is conceived of as part of a series of chamber music works (entitled fictional atmospheres) that work with field recordings inside of chamber ensemble scenarios— treating the audio recordings and concert instruments as an entangled presence.

The score is mainly graphic with some specified pitch frequencies, and the audio recordings are deployed via loudspeakers placed behind the musicians (on the floor). The form of the piece is six miniatures. Each miniature has a continual diminishing structure (decrescendo), creating the impression of one material (the audio recordings) receding into another (the acoustic instruments and the concert hall itself). The players are instructed to attenuate their volume in relation to the audio recordings (represented by the waveform drawing) so that the acoustic sounds of the instruments are slowly revealed, and at times disappear into the audio soundscape.  

Live January 17th, 2014 at The Music Gallery
Performed by Ensemble Paramirabo 
ensembleparamirabo.com

More here: https://www.christopherwilles.com/six-receding-backgrounds

Six receding backgrounds

Graphic score for five instruments and field recordings.

Commissioned for the Arraymusic Young Composers WorkshopPremiered by Array Music Ensemble, 2018

Performers: Stephen Clarke, Colleen Cook, Sheila Jaffé, and David Schotzko. Workshop director: Martin Arnold. Conductor: Richard Sacks.

Program note:
Denge is a “tuned atmosphere”. The piece is conceived of as part of a series of chamber music works called fictional atmospheres, each of which asks the performers to create sonic approximations of field recordings. With these pieces the field recordings are amplified in unusual ways inside of chamber ensemble to create listening scenarios in which audio recordings and acoustic instruments become sensorially entangled. The physicality of sound and the threshold between noise and tone are areas of interests for me with these pieces. Denge uses a variety of methods to explore this, mainly by augmenting the acoustic instruments with audio amplification. For example, by using transducers on the piano strings and bass drum to amplify recordings through the instruments, and using contact microphones on the violin and a turntable to create feedback.  

The field recordings used in this piece were made along the English Channel (UK) in 2016. This coastline is home to a former Royal Air Force base called Denge. It’s also the site of the so called “sound mirrors”— a series of massive concrete objects that were constructed by the English military before WWII, as an experiment using sound to locate incoming aircraft (before the advent of radar). Currently, Denge is the site of an active nuclear power plant. The presence of the power plant has created a bazaar, almost tropical ecosystem in the waterways around Denge. Thermal pollution from the plant warms the sea and unnaturally enriches the biological productivity of the water. This site, and the “sound mirrors”, were part of an exhibition I made in 2016, at 811 Gallery in Toronto, called "Every sound is a small action and broke world".

Fictional Atmospheres: Denge

Excerpt from Reading Listening: Mute Music

Excerpt of a performance with Anne Bourne and subwoofer installation at 8-11 Gallery, Toronto December 13th 2016 as part of the exhibition "Every sound is a small action and broke world".

More here: 
https://www.christopherwilles.com/every-sound-is-a-small-action-and-broke-world

--
December 13th, 2016 
8-11 Gallery
233 Spadina ave. Toronto

satellite: anne bourne (excerpt)

Christopher Willes is an interdisciplinary artist and composer based in Toronto. His artistic works moves across and between experimental music, performance, and visual art forms. He is an associate artist with the Toronto based collective Public Recordings, and regularly works as a sound maker and dramaturge within contemporary dance in Canada and abroad.

christopherwilles

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