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We are pleased to announce a new residency programme for performing artists.

The inaugural 2018 Audio Foundation Performance Residency artist is Wellington based musician, musicologist, organiser, and sound artist, Daniel Beban. Daniel will spend a week in residence at the Audio Foundation from May 22, performing each night alongside an array of local and international collaborators.

This programme is inspired by similar series run by the likes of New York's legendary venue The Stone, where for up to two weeks at a time, a single artist is invited to present work in different combinations each night.
For his performance residency Daniel will present some of his longstanding bands and projects (Orchestra of Spheres, The Stinging Nettles, Microsoft Voices) alongside new improvised collaborations with colleagues such as Stefan Neville, Beth Dawson, Chris O’Connor and Paul Buckton and frst time musical meetings with guitarist Kathleen Tomacruz and visiting Italian musician/composer Luciano Chessa.

Each night presents a different facet of Daniel Beban’s artistic repertoire and promises a fascinating and compelling overview of one of New Zealand’s most prolifc and signifcant sound artists.

Daniel Beban’s residency coincides with his exhibition ‘The Middle Kingdom - Made in China 2002-2017 which runs until June 2 at the Audio Foundation.

About Daniel Beban:

Daniel Beban is a musician and sound artist who lives in Wellington. He performs on a number of different instruments in groups including Orchestra of Spheres (with Nell Thomas, Erika Grant and Riki Gooch), Imbogodom (with Alexander Tucker), Sign of the Hag (with Erica Sklenars), The Stinging Nettles (with Tom Callwood and Antony Donaldson), Microsoft Voices (with Nell Thomas and Jonny Marks), Slakes (with Tim Goldie), Sunburst Finish, Little Wet Horse, Secretaries on Standby, The Mantarays and UMU.

He has recorded and released many albums with these groups and others including a recent releases on Fire Records (UK), Thrill Jockey (USA), Entracte (Belgium) and Outside Inside (Italy).

In 2009 Daniel founded the Frederick Street Sound and Light Exploration Society and was director of the associated venue Fred’s. Between 2009 – 2012, Fred’s was an important centre for creative music and arts in Wellington. After it closed the group opened the Pyramid Club, a venue for experimental music and sound hosting performances, exhibitions, workshops and other activities.

www.danielbeban.nz

Audio Foundation presents: Luciano Chessa

We are pleased to announce our 2018 International Artist in Residence, Luciano Chessa.

Luciano Chessa is a renowned musicologist whose scholarly writings on Modern and Medieval European music, as well as the artistic legacies of Futurism and Fluxism have been published widely. He is a performer, composer and conductor who has worked with a number of top orchestras and chamber groups throughout the world, as well as with an array of prominent avant-gardists including Blixa Bargeld, Tony Conrad, Ellen Fullman, Carla Kihlstedt+Matthias Bossi, Pauline Oliveros, Mike Patton, Jennifer Walshe, and Theresa Wong.

During his time in Aotearoa, Chessa will travel throughout the country, presenting concerts, talks and other events on a variety of topics including Futurism and its relation to Italian fascism, legacies of Fluxism in art and music, as well as its influence on modern composition.

Whilst in residence at the Audio Foundation, he will collaborate with renowned New Zealand artist Judy Darragh, producing new sound works which will be exhibited at the Audio Foundation in July.

Luciano Chessa will be in New Zealand from May 28 – June 29.

Luciano Chessa biography:
Chessa studied organ with renowned Italian master Andrea Macinanti at Bologna’s Conservatory and with organist and composer Pellegrino Santucci. Throughout the years, Chessa has performed on organs among the finest in Italy and the United States, including two of Italy’s best Tamburini: the Grande Organo in the Sala Bossi, and Grande Organo in the Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi, as well as the magnificent 7466 pipes Aeolian-Skinner instrument in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral.

Chessa has been commissioned multiple times by PERFORMA, and in 2014 he presented three events at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as part of the exhibition “Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe”. Chessa’s work has been featured in Artforum, Flash Art Internationalt, Art in America, and frieze; and has been featured in Marie Claire and Vogue Italia. Chessa is also a music historian specializing in 20th-century Italian and 21st-century American repertoire.

His compositions include the opera Cena oltranzista nel castelletto al lago—a work merging experimental theater with reality TV which required from the cast over 55 hours of fasting—and A Heavenly Act, an opera commissioned by the SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, with original video by Kalup Linzy.

In 2009, his Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners (OFNI) was hailed by The New York Times as one of the best events in the arts; it continues to tour internationally. Currently an Artist in Residence at the Steel House in Rockland, ME, here he developed the show on view while also preparing the edition of Julius Eastman’s Second Symphony, the world premier of which he will conduct in NYC in September 2018.

Chessa’s Futurist expertise resulted in an invitation to direct the first reconstruction project of Russolo’s earliest intonarumori orchestra, and to curate concerts of music specifically commissioned for this orchestra. This production presented an impressive array of world premieres written by such composers and ensembles as Blixa Bargeld, John Butcher, Tony Conrad, James Fei, Ellen Fullman, Ghostdigital with Finboggi Petusson and Caspar Electronics, Nick Hallett, Carla Kihlstedt + Matthias Bossi, Ulrich Krieger, Joan La Barbara, Pauline Oliveros, Pablo Ortiz, Mike Patton, Anat Pick, Elliott Sharp, Jennifer Walshe, Theresa Wong and Text of Light.