Meridian Gallery Concert, Dec 11

My next performance featuring Antarctic compositions will be this coming Wednesday evening at Meridian Gallery in San Francisco...

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2013
7:30pm, $10 general, $8 students/seniors

Meridian Gallery
535 Powell Street
San Francisco, CA

Meridian Music: Composers in Performance
Cheryl Leonard presents music and multimedia works inspired by environments and ecosystems in the polar regions. The evening will include the premiere of Ablation Zone, a new composition about Antarctica's melting glaciers and video/music collaborations with Oona Stern and Genevieve Swifte.


And, if you can't make the Meridian show, next month I'll be performing again in San Francisco...

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2014
8pm, $10-15 suggested donation

Turquoise Yantra Grotto
32 Turquoise Way
San Francisco, CA

Fire and Ice: New Music at Extreme Temperatures
Conceptual sound artist Todd Lerew presents a work of thermoacoustics on his quartz test tube organ. Cheryl Leonard performs a set of music connected to climate change in the polar regions including pieces that explore shrinking sea ice, the collapse of Adélie penguin populations, changing weather patterns, and melting tidewater glaciers.

New Instrument

My latest Antarctic musical instrument, constructed out of driftwood, dried kelp, and penguin vertebrae, is titled Last Flight of the Adélies. To me, the elegant Adélie vertebrae looked like miniscule spaceships, or, seen from another angle, tiny white birds in flight. Thus I mounted the bones in a flock/formation, with swirly, swooping kelp tracing the flight paths of each individual bird/ship. The name of the instrument is a reference to the collapse of Adélie penguin colonies near Palmer Station, plus I like the idea of flightless (yes, I know they are phenomenal underwater "flyers") penguins returning to the sky.

The instrument will be amplified via a contact mic attached to the wood base and played by bowing, tapping, and rubbing the bones and kelp. It will make it's performance debut next week during my concert at Meridian Gallery in San Francisco.

Last Flight of the Adélies in progress

The completed instrument

Exploratorium Performance + LASER Talk at UC Berkeley

Next week is full of Antarctic events here in the Bay Area. I'm giving a free talk at UC Berkeley on Wednesday and then Thursday I'll present a full set of Antarctic works, including one world premiere, at the Exploratorium in San Francisco! Full details below...

Wednesday, October 9th, 6:30-9pm, free
UC Berkeley Extensions
Room 110, Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA

LEONARDO ART SCIENCE EVENING RENDEVOUS at UC Berkeley
Talks about art, science, and technology by:
Zann Gill (former NASA scientist) on "Resolving Prediction's Paradox: collaborative intelligence ecosystems"
Jennifer Parker (UC Santa Cruz) on "Publishing in Public: Breaking Down Academic Silos to Create Trans-Disciplinary Research"
Cheryl Leonard (Composer) on "Music from High Latitudes: Making Music from Sounds, Objects, and Experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic"
Wayne Vitale (Gamelan Sekar Jaya) on "Between Ancient Texts and Three Screens" 

Thursday, October 10th, 7pm
The Exploratorium, Kanbar Forum
Pier 15 (Embarcadero at Green)
San Francisco, CA 94111

RESONANCE CONCERT SERIES: CHERYL E. LEONARD
An evening of Antarctic music including compositions inspired by tidewater glaciers, the Southern Ocean, weather patterns, and wildlife. Cheryl Leonard and Phillip Greenlief perform live on rocks, shells, penguin bones, icicles, kelp, sand, salt, and glass. The concert includes the world premiere of Oceanus Meridiem, a piece about ecosystems, currents, and weather in the Drake Passage.

PLEASE NOTE: SPACE IN THE THEATER IS EXTREMELY LIMITED. ARRIVE EARLY TO SECURE A SEAT.
The Exploratorium is open Thursday evenings 6-10pm for ages 18+ only. The concert is included with evening museum admission: $15 adults/$10 members. You can buy advance tickets here.
Doors to the theater open at 6:15pm. The concert starts at 7pm.

Special thanks to the Eric Stokes Fund: Earth's Best in Tune for supporting the development of two of the pieces we'll be performing: Meltwater and Oceanus Meridiem.


Other events on the horizon:

The score for my piece Point Eight Ice is still on view at the Adobe Bookstore Backroom Gallery. The exhibition is up through October 11th. Stop by the closing party October 11th, 6-10pm.

I'll be playing a set, including Oceanus Meridiem, in Tokyo, Thursday, October 17th, 8pm at Waseda Sabaco! More details coming soon...

Performance Tomorrow at Cal Academy of Sciences + Ongoing Exhibition at Adobe Books

I'm busy making icicles right now for tomorrow night's performance/installation of my piece Meltwater at the California Academy of Sciences. Musician/composer extraordinaire Phillip Greenlief will be joining me on stage in the African Hall near the African penguins (Yay! Penguins!). In between our performances you can try your hand at playing some rocks from Antarctica, icicles, and scientific glassware.

SAN FRANCISCO ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVAL 2013
NIGHTLIFE AT THE ACADEMY
Thursday September 12, 2013, 6-10pm, $12 admission

California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Drive
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA 94118

- Water-inspired performances by Maggi Payne and Lucky Dragons in the Coral Reef
- Performances and interactive presentations by instrument designers Donald Swearingen (gesture controllers) and Cheryl E. Leonard with Phillip Greenlief (Antarctic ice piece Meltwater) in the African Hall
- Modular synthesizer workshops with I/O Music Technology
- Screenings of the math-meets-music show Chaos and Order in the planetarium
- Music from DJs Geeta Dayal, Dominique Leone, and Joshua Kit Clayton

I would like to once again give special thanks to the Eric Stokes Fund: Earth's Best in Tune for supporting the creation of my piece Meltwater.

ALSO...the score of another one of my Antarctic compositions is currently on view in the Experimental Notations Exhibition at the Adobe Books Backroom Gallery in San Francisco. You can check out all the funny squiggles I came up with to represent various ice, penguin bone and limpet shell sounds in my piece Point Eight Ice, and then listen to a recording of the piece and follow along on the score. Of course I recommend checking out all the other neat graphic scores/pieces in the exhibition!

EXPERIMENTAL NOTATIONS: AN EXHIBITION OF GRAPHIC NOTATION & SOUND
September 7 - October 11, 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 7, 6-10pm
Closing Reception with live performances: Friday, October 11, 6-10pm

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
3130 24th Street
San Francisco, CA
co-presented by Soundwave Festival

Artists: Canner MEFE, James Cordas, Chris Duncan, Gretchen Jude, Nicholas Kanozik, Cheryl Leonard, Sarah Lockhart, Collin McKelvey, Jeff Ray, Ben Tinker with Sharmi Basu, and Voicehandler.

FURTHERMORE... Next month on October 10th I'll be performing a set of Antarctic works at San Francisco's Exploratorium in their lovely state-of-the-art new theater, the Kanbar Forum. Word is there will be a live webcast of the show too, so even if you are far away you'll be able to watch it. More details coming soon...

Antarctic Instruments at Touch the Gear this Sunday

If you've ever wanted a chance to play my natural-object instruments come to Outsound's Touch the Gear Expo this Sunday. I'll have several of my Antarctic instruments (penguin bones, rocks, and shells) set up and perhaps a few other goodies. This is a super fun, FREE event in which you get to see and try out a wide range of unusual sound-producing gizmos.

SUNDAY, JULY 21, 2013, 7-10pm
free

San Francisco Community Music Center
544 Capp Street @ 20th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

Outsound New Music Summit: Touch the Gear Expo
A hands-on, family friendly event that allows the public to roam among 25-30 musicians and inventors with their various configurations of "gear" - everything from oscillators and electronics to planks of wood with strings attached. Exhibitors: Douglas Benner, Amar Chaudhary, Bob Marsh, Joe Lasqo, Matt Davignon, Tom Nunn, Bill Hsu, Philip Everett, David Samas, Bryan Day, Lindsey Walker, Doug Lynner aka Synthesizerman, Dr. Martin DeVideo, Ari Lacenski, Cheryl E. Leonard, Nick Wang, Andrew Wayne "Chopstick".

And I have a couple of exciting Antarctic music gigs coming up this fall so save the dates!

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2013 -  SFEMF 2013 NightLife at the Academy, California Academy of Sciences, installation/performance inspired by Antarctica's melting glaciers, with Phillip Greenlief

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013 -  Resonance Music Series at the Exploratorium, concert of my Antarctic/Arctic music, performed by Phillip Greenlief and I

Concert May 2nd in Richmond, CA

THURSDAY MAY 2, 2013
doors 7pm, show 7:30pm
$5-10

The Schoolhouse
5523 Santa Cruz Ave. Apt #1 (ground floor)
Richmond, CA 94804

First Thursdays at The Schoolhouse
Music and video works by Cheryl E. Leonard and Betsey Biggs. I'll be presenting Meltwater, a new composition for icicles, stones, and scientific glassware. This piece is inspired by Antarctica's melting glaciers, especially the Marr Ice Piedmont which is right next to Palmer Station. Phillip Greenlief will be joining me onstage to perform this new piece. I'll also be playing Lullaby for E Seals. 

I'd like to give special thanks to The Eric Stokes Fund "Earth's Best in Tune" for supporting the creation of Meltwater.