San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2020, Fri-Sun, Jan 10-12

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2020
Friday, January 10, 8:30pm
Saturday, January 11, 7:00pm
Saturday, January 11, 9:30pm
Sunday, January 12, 7:00pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street
San Francisco
$20 general ($10 Sat 9:30 concert)
$10 balcony/underemployed
$50 fest pass (general seating all concerts)
advance ticket purchase
or at the door (cash only) the day of show
(box office opens one hour before showtime)

Thinking about what I might play at the San Francisco Tape Music Festival next month I rediscovered a “tape” piece of mine along the way — a musical setting that I wrote 23 years ago for a poem by the Beat author Bob Kaufman. The poem’s title is, “To My Son Parker, Asleep in the Next Room.”

I hadn’t listened to this composition (or read the poem for that matter) for at least a decade, but my inspiration to hear it again came a couple of months ago and from the same source that originally inspired its creation, Bob Kaufman.

I had just heard about the newly published collection from City Lights Books of all the surviving as well as some never-before published poems by this late great poet of North Beach fame who died in 1986. He had so inspired me with his words, which I only happened to hear on KPFA one morning during my drive to work. But that’s another story…. (Thank you Vic Bedoian!)

So I got quickly reacquainted with my own composition which like the poem reemerged from the shadows like an old friend from the past. I realized pretty much immediately that I wanted to share them both with you — Bob Kaufman’s poem and my setting of it.

And so in homage to Bob Kaufman and his words, recited perfectly by Roscoe Lee Brown, that moved me in 1995 first to tears and then directly into my studio, I’ll be playing the piece on the Saturday night, 7:00 PM program.

I hope you’ll be there to hear it. It will be in very fine company as you’ll see from the full lineup available at SFTMF.

Here are two radio interviews that SF Tape Music Collective has given prior to past Festivals.
 



Spot on KQED’s “California Report” by Sam Harnett

Spot on KDFC’s “State of the Art”

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Recital at the Prelinger Library, San Francisco, October 27th

I’ll be giving a late afternoon recital of solo prepared and improvised electro-acoustic
pieces at the Prelinger Library in San Francisco on Sunday, Oct. 27.

The first work Nature or nurture is a suite of four pieces for prerecorded and live-processed sound. The structures are prepared and the details are improvised. The second piece Conjuring waves/Soniferous climates is sonic alchemy, conjuring and coaxing the sound through live processing of the Library’s space.

Charles Kremenak, my cohort in the Klooj ensemble, will also present a piece on the program.

Prelinger Library
301 8th Street
Suite 215
San Francisco, CA 94103

Sunday, October 27, 2019
4:30-6:00 PM

Free or with donation to the Prelinger Library

Thom Blum (solo, electro-acoustics)
Nature or nurture
Conjuring waves/Soniferous climates

Charles Kremenak (media performance)
MEMORetc.: lost communications & memory detritus in mail-art

This performance is one of the 2019 series by Klooj and Si-si D for their Prelinger Library Residency.

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San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2019

sfSound and The San Francisco Tape Music Collective present The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2019

I’ll be premiering a work titled epenthesis, for electroacoustics and drum kit, on Friday January 4th at 9:00 PM.

Friday, Jan. 4 (9:00 PM)
Saturday, Jan. 5 (8:00 PM)
Saturday, Jan. 5 (10:30 PM — FREE TO ALL!)
Sunday, Jan. 6 (8:00 PM)

16th Street Victoria Theater
2961 16th Street
San Francisco

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Cascade plays at SF Tape Music Festival and Stanford

On January 6, 2017, my new electroacoustic composition Cascade was diffused live over 20 loudspeakers at the 2017 San Francisco Tape Music Festival at The Victoria Theater.

On March 17, 2017, Cascade was again diffused over the same CCRMA-hosted speaker network, but this time in its home location at Bing Concert Hall, Stanford University. CCRMA curated the two-night concert. Other composers included John Chowning, Natasha Barrett, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, Eoin Callery, and co-SF Tape Music Collective members Matt Ingalls, Cliff Caruthers, and Maggi Payne, as well as others.

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Spanish Panoramas – Guided Improvisations with SoundFisher

I performed my improvisation + fixed media composition, Spanish Panoramas – Guided Improvisations with SoundFisher at the 16th International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference in Malaga, Spain on October 28, 2015. The concert was held in the 15th Century building that houses the contemporary Sala Unicaja de Conciertos María Cristina. I shared the bill with composers Roger Dannenberg, Nadine Kroher, José López-Montes, Bill Manaris, Takuro Shibayama, Yuri Spitsyn, and Sever Tipei.

A purely fixed media version of the piece will be made available on my SoundCloud page later this month.

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The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2016

sfSound, The San Francisco Tape Music Collective, and Gray Area Arts present:

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The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2016

I’ll be playing a new audio postcard, Spanish Panoramas, at The 2016 San Francisco Tape Music Festival on Saturday January 9th at 8:00 PM.

Friday, Jan. 8 (8:00 PM)
Saturday, Jan. 9 (8:00 PM)
Saturday, Jan. 9 (11:00 PM)
Sunday, Jan. 10 (8:00 PM)

Grand Theater / Grey Area Arts
2665 Mission St.
San Francisco

$15 [$10 underemployed] each concert
$40 festival pass
advance tickets: http://www.ticketfly.com/event/1025355-tape-music-festival-san-francisco/

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My second “audio portrait” for the SF Asian Art Museum

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 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.

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J-Wake performed at the Hörlursfestival 2015

My piece J-Wake was performed at the Hörlursfestival in Solleftea, Sweden, on July 4th. HorlursFestival_Sweden_2015
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.

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Sound portraits for the San Francisco Asian Art Museum

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.

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World premiere of Walkways of the Hopeful and the Hopeless, San Francisco Tape Music Festival

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.

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