About the Artists

Soizic Lebrat
French cellist Soizic Lebrat from France studied cello and classical music in music schools and academies and won several cello and chamber music first prizes. Meeting Joëlle Léandre in Périgueux in 2001 proved to be a major watershed in her musical evolution. She then rediscovered free musical practice and thus became a music improviser of extended cello techniques. Soizic is committed to explore the different sounds of her instrument, to elaborate her own musical language and to experiment various tools, structures and systems like microphones, speakers, sound transformers or the electrification of her cello. Her work "Bleu Solo" will be performed with a video by Montrealer Yan Breuleux who specializes in video experimental animation. His immersive environmental pieces have been seen in Festivals all over the world. http://www.ybx.ca/ Simorgh by Soizic Lebrat:

Chris Kubick
Chris Kubick is an artist, composer and sound designer whose work generally traces the edge that separates sense from non-sense, signal from noise, representation from formlessness. Much of his recent work deals with the meanings associated with "sound effects", those sounds that are seemingly not "sound" enough to simply be called sounds. Chris will be performing a body of works called "So-called Sounds" which comprise of "hum -human", "hiss", "4:33" and "many, many, more than one" Strangers on a Train by Chris Kubick

California E.A.R. Unit
The California E.A.R. Unit (core players Eric Clark - Violin, Vicki Ray - Piano and Amy Knoles – Percussion) is a chamber ensemble dedicated to the creation, performance, and promotion of the music of our time. The Ensemble is comprised of performers and composers that began with the goal of developing the first true repertory ensemble for new music in Los Angeles, in its 26 years of performing all over the world, they have earned an international reputation as one of America’s finest contemporary chamber ensembles. The “Roadworks” program will feature: the world premiere of Spill Out/Fish Tank by Linda Bouchard and Kim Turos, Tricomatic by Clay Chaplin and Belgo by percussionist Amy Knoles. http://www.earunit.org/ Belgo by Amy Knoles:

Clay Chaplin: Tricomatic
Tricomatic is a structured improvisation in three short movements. The piece is freely based on the notion that human color vision involves three types of retinal sensory receptors. Each movement highlights one instrument in the ensemble, and the sonic material for the "soloist" is derived primarily from the color, speed, and mood of the video, creating a loosely defined part for the "soloist." In each movement, a rhythmic map, predetermined by edit points in the video, creates a score for the ensemble. This rhythmic map connects the video with the ensemble while leaving space for each ensemble member to make sonic choices. The video images are not intended to provide a narrative, but are used to create the energy, mood, and space for improvisation. Clay Chaplin is a composer, improviser, curator, and audio engineer from Los Angeles who explores the realms of audio-visual improvisation, sound synthesis, field recording, electronics, and computer processing for creative sonic expression. Throughout his career he has worked on many projects involving experimental music, video, audio recording, and interactive computer systems. Clay is currently the Director of the Computer Music and Experimental Media studios at the Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts. He is also a member of the composition/experimental sound practices faculty.

Amy Knoles: Belgo 2010 (trio version)
When I first began to work on this piece for pianist Vicki Ray (who so generously commissioned it), my thoughts wandered to the joys of traveling and I remembered an evening when we were shopping in the SOHO district of London on a day off during an EAR Unit tour, where Vicki spotted a champagne/oyster bar which seemed a necessary evil at that point in time. From there we went on to a favorite restaurant of mine named Belgo. Belgo is a Belgian restaurant with waiters in monk's clothing, and has very strange words indented into the walls, wrapping around the room, "Tittletattle, Calabrese, Cocklicrane, Coldeel...", which, after some investigation, I discovered that these were the names of the Chefs that went into battle against the Chitterlings in F. Rabelais' work Gargantua and Pantagruel. As far as what happened after our meal at Belgo, I'm terribly sorry, but you'll have to ask Vicki about that. I decided to listen to music of the late 15th century to surround myself in a "Rabelaisian" atmosphere, I believe that there is some evidence of that as well as the influence of composers such as Louis Andriessen and Arthur Jarvinen. I sampled the text (voices of Don Preston, Richard Hines and myself), as well as a few tunes sung by my Cockatiel "Crow". The piano part at several points in the piece is in duet with the sampled text and bird song to convey the free spirit of Rabelais. You'll hear fairly elaborate variations (mathematical schemes) on some very simple melodies, Rabelais was also very clever. I feel he embraced all that life had to offer and would have loved to hear the pianist "kick it" in the end.
Amy Knoles is a multimedia artist/percussionist/composer who tours globally as a soloist performing computer assisted live electronic music with electronic percussion controllers and linear/interactive video. Amy is the Exe.Dir. of the California E.A.R. Unit, she also works with Natural Plastic, Kronos Quartet, Squint, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, Collage Dance Theater, the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Ensemble Modern of Frankfurt, The Bang On A Can All Stars, and Basso Bongo. Amy has worked with John Cage, Elliott Carter, Morton Feldman, Louis Andriessen, Don Preston, Frank Zappa, Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Tod Machover, Flea, Quincy Jones, Milton Babbitt, Charles Wournien, M. Kagel, John Luther Adams, John Adams, and many others.

Linda Bouchard & Kim Turos: Spill Out/Fish Tank
Spill Out - Fish Tank is a 14 minute multi-media work with video by Kim Turos. An earlier work called "Spill Out" for violin and piano was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Composed for the Canadian Duo Concertante, it was premiered at the Newfoundland Sound Festival in August 2006. Spill Out has been especially re-orchestrated for the California E.A.R. Unit and Fish Tank has been composed for E.A.R Unit. In Spill Out, the role of the electronic part is to serve as a resonant support for the harmonic material of the acoustic instruments. It creates a subtle shadow echo that transforms and gives a different reading to the written material. Specific samples from the original violin and piano parts have been processed through MaxMSP and are triggered using Ableton Live during the performance in order to keep the live musicians at the center of the flow of the piece. The visual artist Kim Turos shot the video images while travelling in the Pacific Northwest, Southern California and Tokyo. Falling, crashing, rushing, streaming, flowing, marking time horizontally against vertical movement, the water is used as a metaphor for time moving forward and the wide range of perception we experience in that ineluctable reality and the impact of human beings on the natural flow of water. Fish Tank is contrasting to the first part. This time the electronic part is denser, loud and continuous. The movie of the “fish tank” is claustrophobic and powerful: taken in Japan from the street, looking into a restaurant through the window display of a large crowded fish tank. A powerful dramatic narrative unfold by the juxtaposition of the first part: flowing water in nature and in urban environment and the second part: “nature” being captured in a fish tank for human consumption.
Kim Turos is an artist and landscape architect known for sculpture and site-specific installations. She took classes at the McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, as a child. She received a B.S. in landscape architecture from Texas A&M University, College Station, in 1978. In 1985 she moved to San Diego, California and to San Francisco in 1987. From 1988 to 1991 she resided in both Berkeley, California and Munich, Germany, where she held a residency. Turos studied at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1988-1989 and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, in the summer of 1989. She held a Project Space residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California, in 2001, and earned an Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts grant the same year. Kim Turos is married to physicist John Gilleland
Linda Bouchard, is a composer and NEXMAP's founder and artistic director. She has composed over 70 works in a variety of genres, from orchestral and chamber works to dance scores, concerti, and vocal pieces. Bourchard lived in New York City from 1979 to 1990 where she composed, led contemporary orchestras. From 1990 to 1992 Bouchard was guest conductor at l'Université de Montréal, and served as artistic coordinator of FORUM 91 for le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. From September 1992 to August 1995, she held the position of Composer in Residence for the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. Since 1997, she has been living in San Francisco with her husband and her son. After a Stage d’Informatique Musicale at IRCAM in 2001, Bouchard has been progressively integrating electronics into her works.