Digital Echoes
Aaron Wyatt with Speak Percussion
Presented by Arts House and Melbourne Fringe
Thursday 17 – Sunday 20 October 2024
Thu – Sat, 7.30pm
Sun, 5pm
50 minutes
Post-show Artist Talk – Sound Unheard
Fri 18 October
Tickets
Standard $35
Reduced $20
BLAKTIX $10
A small transaction fee will be charged per order.
Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne
A concert for viola, percussion and electronics exploring the transformation of sound, messages and meanings displaced by time and space.
In Digital Echoes, melodic fragments of a viola are sent via internet connection to five different locations around Australia.
The captured sound is then sent back to the performance space where it resonates percussion instruments, blending into the live soundscape.
As the viola echoes, bouncing around the country, in and out of the live performance, its journeys create unpredictable timings, mapping the unseeable landscapes of our information highways.
Digital Echoes explores translation and what is lost and gained through coding and decoding. Inviting reflection about the history and future of internet and interstellar communication, this new work from Aaron Wyatt and Speak Percussion combines remarkable technology, contemporary classical music and percussive art to create an enthralling and otherworldly score.
About the artists
Aaron Wyatt, a Noongar, Yamatji, and Wongai man, is a violist, composer and software developer. A member of Decibel New Music ensemble, he created their animated graphic notation app, the Decibel ScorePlayer. Since 2020, Aaron has been a major contributor to JackTrip, a system for high-quality audio network performance over the internet, initially developed out of Stanford University, USA. Aaron is a rising star in the contemporary classical world, having worked with Deborah Cheetham, Cat Hope, Electric Fields and the Western Australia, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney Symphony Orchestras plus many more. Aaron is Speak Percussion’s Artist In Residence: an ongoing position that empowers first nations artists to self determine projects with the full support of the whole company.
Eugene Ughetti
Eugene Ughetti, the Co-Artistic director of Speak Percussion, explores the materiality of percussion, engaging with broad ideas such as drumming aged rum, supersonic performances and the percussive military. He is known for tackling complex and ambitious art music projects whether as director, composer, performer or conductor.
He includes Pierre Boulez, Liza Lim, Steve Reich and John Zorn among some of his many collaborators.
Eugene founded Speak Percussion in 2000.
Eugene has worked closely with Aaron on Digital Echoes as both performer and collaborator.
Speak Percussion
Speak Percussion takes percussive art to its physical and conceptual extremes. We shape the sounds of 21st century Australian percussion music through the creation and presentation of ambitious arts projects. Internationally recognised as a leader in the fields of experimental and contemporary classical music, Speak redefines the potential of percussion. From solo concerts to massed sound events, interdisciplinary projects to sound installations, participatory work to album releases, our “breathtakingly impressive” (The West Australian) work is presented locally and globally in concert halls, theatres, galleries and site-specific locations.
Artist statement
With thanks to Speak Percussion and Deadly Fringe, Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Artistic credits
Collaborating Artist / Performer: Eugene Ughetti
Collaborating Company & Producer: Speak Percussion
Details
Presented by Arts House and Melbourne Fringe
Thursday 17 – Sunday 20 October 2024
Thu – Sat, 7.30pm
Sun, 5pm
50 minutes
Post-show Artist Talk – Sound Unheard
Fri 18 October
Tickets
Standard $35
Reduced $20
BLAKTIX $10
A small transaction fee will be charged per order.
Arts House
North Melbourne Town Hall
521 Queensberry St,
North Melbourne
Digital Echoes has been supported by Arts House through City of Melbourne. This project received Cash to Create through the Fringe Fund, as part of Deadly Fringe.
Image credit: Darren Gill
Image description: A performer plays a viola on a dark stage. The image has been digitally altered so that there is a semi-transparent second version of them in an identical stance. Their silhouette fills a screen behind them.