Submissions for scores and applications for guest artists are open on our website! Click here if you have a score you'd like us to play for our New Music Festival on October 15th-16th, 2022, and click here if you're interested in performing a 30-minute set on one of the concerts. The Festival will feature three concerts in downtown Eugene, from the Park Blocks to the First Christian Church and the New Zone Gallery. The Light and Art show in the Park Blocks will draw on the energy of ArtCity's BEAM, with amplified music and an interactive light exhibit for audience members. Our audience participation concert draws trained and untrained musicians alike into a collective sound-making space at the First Christian Church, and our concert at New Zone will set pieces for the ensemble in an inviting visual atmosphere. The Call for Scores closes June 1st, and the Guest Artist Application closes July 1st.
EUGENE GARBAGE PROJECT
The first major project of Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble.
Presented in collaboration with Eugene Contemporary Art.
Featuring guest artist Emma Rose Lynn.
The Eugene Garbage Project is an experimental sound/music multimedia work that promotes environmental awareness by transforming local trash into a concert-length work for voice, live electronic sound manipulation, and interactive video. In so doing, we call into question preconceptions of “disposable” items by reusing them towards creative ends.
From August 2020 to March 2021, we collected trash from local Eugene residents. We then recorded sounds with that trash and captured photographs of it. These recordings and images were transformed into a concert-length work for voice and live electronics. Our guest vocalist, Emma Rose Lynn, controlled the electronics with the blue and yellow gloves on her hands. These colors were in turn picked up by a camera, and a computer program converted the coordinates of each glove location into different musical characteristics, like volume, panning, pitch, and timbre. Animations made from the images accompanied her performance.
The premiere concert was streamed live from Eugene Contemporary Art's ANTI-AESTHETIC gallery on May 7th, 2021, and rebroadcast as a part of Brainrave in July of that year. On October 8th of that year, we brought an interactive installation version of the Eugene Garbage Project to ArtCity's annual BEAM showcase. Passersby controlled the sounds for themselves with a blue and yellow ball, freely switching between effects and imagery.
