Photos from April 17th Performance

Here are some images from our April 17th performance in 23five's Activating the Medium Festival at the Lab in San Francisco. Our next show will be July 31st in San Francisco.

Live video closeups of the instruments were projected behind us during the set

A.L. Dentel, Cliff Neighbors and Cheryl Leonard perform the wind piece "Greater Than 20 Knots"

Cheryl plays stone slabs from Breaker Island in "Brash Ice"

Felix Macnee on limpet shells and penguin bones in "Point 8 Ice"

Ann hangs icicles during the final piece

Ann and Cliff play beakers and petrie dishes along with drips from the melting icicles

By the end of the show the stage is covered with instruments

Photos by Randy Yau, except the last two which I took.

Penguin Pieces July 31st

My next Antarctic music concert will be July 31st in ME'DI.ATE's Green Sound Festival at the Lab in San Francisco. I'll be presenting a set of pieces inspired by Palmer Station's Adélie penguins, including several world premieres.

Activating the Medium: Ice

This weekend I'm part of 23five's Thirteenth Annual Activating the Medium Festival at The Lab in San Francisco.

On Friday night, fellow NSF Antarctic Artists Lisa Blatt and Michael Bartalos and I will be discussing making art in Antarctica.


Friday, April 16, doors at 8pm, panel discussion at 8:30, music at 9:15
$8 – $15 sliding scale or FREE with membership
G*Park
Joshua Churchill
Adam Sonderberg
Panel / Lecture with Antarctic artists

Then on Saturday night my ensemble (A.L. Dentel, Cliff Neighbors, Felix Macnee) and I will be performing five my Antarctic compositions, including two brand new works featuring penguin bones and icicles played live on stage. This will be your last chance to see some of these Antarctic pieces in the San Francisco Bay Area. After this show I will continue working on Antarctic compositions but I will be writing and performing a new works.

Saturday, April 17, doors at 8pm, music at 8:30
$8 – $15 sliding scale or FREE with membership
Cheryl E. Leonard
Pedestrian Deposit
Jesse Burson
Rale

The Lab, 2948 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

In Rehearsal

Here are a few images from today's rehearsal. Our next performance will be in 23five's Activating the Medium Festival on April 17th in San Francisco.

Instruments for the wind piece "Greater Than 20 Knots"

Setups for the new melting glacier piece

The hanging water drippers will be replaced by icicles when we play live. In this piece water drips down into amplified glass beakers and petrie dishes. The stone slabs, from Breaker Island in Antarctica, will be played by rubbing and clinking ice across their surfaces.

Talk and Instrument Demo Thursday March 11

I'll be discussing my music and demonstrating my natural-object instruments, including several built with Antarctic materials, at this week's meeting of the Bay Area Computer Music Technology Group. It's free and all are welcome.

Presentations by Women Artist Technologists
Thursday March 11, 7pm
Grey Area Foundation for the Arts
55 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
more details

Chattermarks Field Recordings CD

Now available...
CHATTERMARKS: FIELD RECORDINGS FROM PALMER STATION, ANTARCTICA

This new CD is a collection of field recordings of Antarctic wildlife and soundscapes from my January 2009 trip to Palmer Station. Tracks include sounds from Adélie penguins, southern elephant seals, brown skuas, brash ice, icebergs, glaciers, wind, and Antarctic storms.

I went to Antarctica to develop musical compositions, but I began by simply listening. Each day, as Oona and I explored Palmer's landscapes and ecosystems, I studied and recorded the wildlife and natural sounds I encountered. Of course, some of these field recordings I am incorporating into my musical compositions, but many of them are fascinating in their own right. This album is comprised of my favorite undeveloped Antarctic field recordings and I hope you will enjoy listening to the sounds of Palmer Station as much as I did.

You can buy the album as a digital download or on CD through Bandcamp. MP3s can be purchased through iTunes.

Special thanks to photographer Jon Brack whose images are on the cover and back of the CD. Several more of Jon's photos are inside the CD amongst the liner notes. Jon is currently working a second season down at Palmer Station. You can see more of his photographs here.

Recordings of my Antarctic musical compositions will be released in the future.

Activating the Medium Festival April 16-17

I am excited to announce that my next concert of Antarctic compositions will be in 23Five's Activating the Medium XIII, this April in San Francisco. The theme of this year's festival is ICE, so my work should fit right in.

I'm planning to premiere three new compositions in addition to performing the pieces I have already completed. The first new work is inspired by melting glaciers and will feature icicles played live onstage. The second will be a duet for penguin bones and penguin vocalizations, and the third will combine the limpet shell instrument with recordings of underwater ice. More details coming soon...

April 16, 2010
G*Park
Joshua Churchill
Adam Sonderberg
Panel / Lecture hosted by Cheryl Leonard

April 17, 2010
Cheryl E. Leonard- Antarctic works
Pedestrial Deposit
Jesse Burson
Rale

The Lab
2948 16th Street (at Capp)
San Francisco, CA 94103