Three soloists take on Vancouver's largest pipe organ, May 28
Sarah Davachi, Stefan Maier, and George Rahi perform at Pacific Spirit United Church via Vancouver New Music
George Rahi, Music for the Augmented Pipe Organ.
Vancouver New Music presents Sarah Davachi + Stefan Maier + George Rahi at Pacific Spirit United Church (2195 W 45th Avenue) on May 28 at 8 pm, with artist chat at 7:15 pm
THESE AREN’T YOUR “typical” pipe-organ sounds. From computer control of the pipes to vast dronescapes, artists Sarah Davachi, Stefan Maier, and George Rahi team up for an evening of distinct solo performances on the largest instrument of its kind in Vancouver.
Davachi is a composer and performer whose work, according to Vancouver New Music, “is concerned with the close intricacies of timbral and temporal space, utilizing extended durations and simple harmonic structures that emphasize subtle variations in texture, overtone complexity, psychoacoustic phenomena, and temperament and intonation.” Davachi will present a long-form performance for solo acoustic organ featuring new compositions as well as works from the albums Cantus, Descant (2020) and Antiphonals (2021).
Creating across experimental electronic music, sound art, installation, and contemporary classical music, Maier will employ a spatialized loudspeaker for a new work that will instrumentalize Pacific Spirit United Church in conjunction with the organ itself. “From the Venetian polychoral tradition, to the implied divine spatialities in the work of DuFay’s Nuper Rosarum Flores, by drawing on the history of spatial and architectural composition,” VNM states, “he will explore the prospect of a multi-modal spatial listening.”
Rahi, meanwhile, presents Music for the Augmented Pipe Organ, a collection of compositions that merge the pipe organ’s acoustics with approaches to electronic and post-digital music. “Exploring new affordances and anomalies of the organ, the performance intertwines digital processes of machine listening and controlled feedback to respond to the resonances between each instrument and space,” VNM notes on its website. “Following this process of hybridizing acoustic and digital performance modalities, the performance unfolds radical possibilities for the world’s oldest mechanical synthesizer.”
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