Lovers parting during a rainy night — symbolizing a musical mode (Lalita Ragini), circa 1700. India; Rajasthan state. Opaque watercolors on paper. Courtesy of Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Gift of Dr. Narinder S. and Satinder Kapany, 2004.76. Photograph © Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
Lovers Departing in the Rain — an audio portrait © 2015 by Thom Blum
For the full experience, go to the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s Picturing Sound, Creating Mood exhibit, through November 22, 2015.
My piece J-Wake was performed at the Hörlursfestival in Solleftea, Sweden, on July 4th. 
The theme of the Festival was “water soundscapes” and, according to the organizers, Like Now, the sixth annual Festival took place, “under the dome coupole in Sweden, Västernorrland and live on internet streams” on July 4, 2015, from 13:00 to 21:00.
I am creating some sound portraits to go along with specific paintings in the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s current exhibition, “Picturing Sound, Creating Mood”, which runs from March 23 – November 22, 2015. The small paintings are from 18th and 19th Century Rajasthan, India. My goal is to create intimate soundscapes that fuse with their paintings and lure a viewer into exploring more of the paintings’ fine and delicate details.
This video, introducing the exhibit, was created by the Museum’s Lorraine Goodwin, Interpretative Media Specialist.
I’ve just completed a new electroacoustic composition that will have its world premiere this Saturday night, January 10, 2015, 8:00 PM at the San Francisco Tape Music Festival. The Festival includes four distinct concert programs and spans three nights (January 9-11). It will feature 32 compositions by as many composers and is a must hear event for any devotee of the artform, as well as anyone with open ears and a mind for an immersive and expansive sound experience.
The March 10, 2014 premiere performance of the Soundscraper project — live-streamed, crowdsourced soundscaping — took place as planned. Over twenty people participated by streaming live sound from their environments. Excerpts from the 90-minute recording of the performance are now available on SoundCloud and at the following Soundscraper post.
The next Soundscraper performance is now being planned. Check out the Soundscraper web site for details.
The first performance by the Soundscraper project will take place at Center for New Music in San Francisco, California on Monday, March 10, from 8:00 to 10:00 PM PDT (March 11, 3:00 to 5:00 AM GMT). The mixer-performer for the night will be Thom Blum (San Francisco, California, USA).
If you cannot be at Center for New Music you can tune into the performance as it is streamed live to the following Web page http://www.ustream.tv/channel/soundscraper1.
Live sound streams that will be mixed and processed during this performance will be provided by the following participants from their locations: Officerfishdumplings (Casablanca, Morocco), Jim Bisso (El Cerrito, California, USA), Matt Ingalls (Oakland, California, USA), Constantine Katsiris (Vancouver, B.C., Canada), Laura Krasnow (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), Stefani Ku (San Rafael, California, USA), Keith de Mendonca (Bangalore, India), Suki O’Kane (Oakland, California, USA), Jon Panther (Sydney, Australia), Ron Pelletier (Kensington, California, USA), Tim Perkis (Albany, California, USA), Jim Schrempp (San Carlos, California, USA), Scott Steelman (Columbus, Ohio, USA), Eric Steinberg (San Francisco, California, USA), Sami Tabla (San Francisco, California, USA), Jim Wheaton (Sebastopol, California, USA).
Visit the Soundscraper site for details about the Soundscraper project and to learn how to participate in future live soundscaping performances.
Soundscraping — using the Internet to share, play, process, and mix live sounds from the world at large.
There is a call for worldwide participation for a series of “live crowdsourced soundscaping” performances, beginning in San Francisco, California this March. Click the image below for all the info about the Soundscraper project including the goals and inspirations behind it, as well as the immediate “call”, instructions, and performance schedule/score.
Soundscraper
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The order of programs for each night of the Festival has now been determined. My piece, pharm J-Wake: In memory of Steve “Jake” Jacobson, will be played on the Saturday night concerts, January 4, at both 7:00 and 9:30 PM.
For the complete program, visit the sfSound website.
San Francisco Examiner music critic Stephen Smoliar wrote a great preview about the upcoming SF Tape Music Festival. See it here.
I recently added a couple new field recordings to my SoundCloud page. One is a thunderstorm, this with some impressive thunder claps, seek that I recorded one evening in the countryside surrounding San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The other is a soundwalk through the Sunday market in the small World Heritage town of Atotonilco, Mexico. Here the collection of field recordings here.
The 2014 San Francisco Tape Music Festival is happening early this time, doctor January 3, 4, and 5. Note that the Festival will be in a new venue for us, Z Below. This theater is on the small side, with a maximum capacity of about 90 people, so please purchase your tickets in advance to ensure you get in.
I’ll be diffusing a recently revised but older piece of mine, J-Wake: In memory of Steve “Jake” Jacobson (2001).
We have not yet finalized the nightly distribution of pieces, so please visit the sfSound website where we will post these details as soon as possible.
I hope you can attend all three nights It’s going to be a sterling Festival!
