Party of Special Things to Do Festival

Events

Party Of Special Things To Do Festival Of Sonic Delights 2017

By Reuben Derrick

The Party Of Special Things To Do Festival was a series of sonic events running between February 8th and 11th, 2017. Christchurch’s community of sound artists and improvisational musicians joined forces with guests from Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, Melbourne and Vienna.

In the tradition of previous POSTTD events most performances featured selected first-time groupings of participants,  while others encompassed solos or established bands.

Austrian violinist Irene Kepl opened the festival with a solo in the  Auricle gallery, followed by a Dunedin-Christchurch-Wellington collaboration between Motoko Kikawa, IRD and Bridget Kelly. Melbourne musician and Anita Clark presented their duo project in the Darkroom. The first day closed with an ambient set from Vantablack.

Day 2 began with a piece by David Kahn in which the audience and the space itself became the performers. A short and gritty guitar duet between Toshi Endo and Tony Miles preceeded  solos from grvdggr, Gemma Syme and Blues Professor and a free-jazz set from Gerard Crewdson, Ivan Mršić and Reuben Derrick

The third day commenced with a late afternoon performance of Ivan Mršić’s Kako-Otautahi-phonia, for large ensemble, outside the Christchurch Art Gallery.

Kako-Otautahi-phonia

Reuben Derrick’s recording used a moving microphone.

The evening performance was hosted by Free Theatre, across the road in the Arts Centre, beginning with an acoustically enveloping set from Les Baxters.

Les Baxters

Gerard Crewdson then presented an enchanting narrative with accompanying music and artwork. Emma Johnston, Nic Woollaston and Mike Minchington closed the day with two improvisations.

Emma Johnston (voice), Mike Minchington (piano and drums) and Nic Woollaston (electronics)

The final day was hosted by local artist Chris Reddington at his historical church in North Canterbury. Adam Willetts opening the afternoon with a Taonga Puoro performance.

Adam Willetts

Chris Reddington and Tom Phillpotts presented a duet using percussion, piano and home made instruments. After a picnic lunch, Irene Kepl and Reuben Derrick were joined by Motoko Kikawa and Gerard Crewdson in a musically and spatially progressive improvisation, which led the audience out in to the garden to close the festival.

Video by Motoko Kikawa

POSTTD Special Guests

Irene Kepl (Vienna)
http://www.irenekepl.at/Irene_Kepl/next.html

Violinist and composer Irene Kepl studied classical violin and jazz in Linz and she now lives
in Vienna. Her work focuses primarily on contemporary classical music, free improvisation, composition, Jazz and groove based musics. She has performed at many prestigious venues and festivals including: Klangspuren Schwaz, Festival 4020, Festival Unlimited, 12 points Festival/SE, Donau Festival Ulm, DanceKiosk Hamburg/GER, Java Jazz Festival, Jazzfest Vienna, Jazz Festival Petrovac/ME. Her music has been broadcast on various radio stations in Austria and abroad. She has received the fellowship “Music OMI” New York, Gustav Mahler Composition Prize, the national scholarship for young musicians, the talent development award for composition from Upper Austria and the Theodor Körner Prize for composition.
Commissioned works for Brucknerfest Linz, ORF Musikprotokoll and Wiener Festwochen. She has worked with Joëlle Leàndre/FR, Malcolm Goldstein and George Cremaschi/USA, Korhan Ehel/TR, Petr Vrba/CZ and Moe Staiano/USA amongst others. She is also the founder of the monthly held concert series “Musik in Raum” in Upper Austria which will feature many different projects. Further work includes commissions for theater, film and sound installations.

Gerard Crewdson (Wellington)

My beginning was doing a vocal piece, spoken and sung, with the Primitive Art Group in a performance they did at Rawa House, which still survives and is in upper Cuba Street. There was a space two floors up which was run by the Orange People which was a group set up by a guru, his name’s something like Bagwan Rajneesh. Eventually he was convicted for fraud and various misdemeanors by the United States Government which really doesn’t say anything necessarily about his guilt. But the Orange People, it was like a libertarian, hippie, Hindu combination, hedonism but with Hindu spirituality thrown in. They had this space set up, a restaurant with vegetarian food and this great space. That was my first experience of actually performing with the Primitive Art Group. They did some great performances up there and also there were these two guys that were really good at dancing, which I was also doing, so it was really fun because at that time there was nothing else like that in the sense of a kind of freedom and totally going into a void.
Ivan Mršić (Auckland)

Ivan Mršić is a Croatian New Zealand interdisciplinary artist, percussionist, composer and improviser. His work crosses many disciplines, he builds his practice on notions of avant gardé transforming them into contemporary dialogue. He has a fascination and annoyance with consumerism, waste and excessive energy consumption.

 Motoko Kikawa (Dunedin)

Motoko is a Dunedin based artist who works across many fields. We look forward to her magical and spontaneous violin.

Seth Rees (Melbourne)

Seth Rees is a sound artist who action paints with detuned guitars, multi-effects and feedback to create detailed sonic compositions of textured tone, movement and stasis. His prismatic sound portraits speak the echo and fall of lost time. Originally from Christchurch, Seth now lives in Melbourne and has forged his unique sound upon the Melbourne music scene. As well as being a solo artist he also plays / played in bands such as, Amplifier Machine, The Spheres, This is your Captain Speaking, and I want a Hovercraft. His albums have been respected worldwide on labels such as 12K (US), and Resonant (UK).

Bridget Kelly (Wellington)

Bridget Kelly tenor sax, clarinet, bass clarinet Originally from chch, based in Wellington last 20 years. Bands include The Troubles, Balkanistas, The Fourtet, Village of the Idiots, Dreamville, Zirkus.

Vantablack (Dunedin)
Vantablack are William Meung and Brendan Jon Philip.

grvdggr (Dunedin)

 

Grvdggr is the solo sound project of Dunedin based artist Brendan Jon Philip.

 

 

Facebook event, two, three, four

Wed 8th (Darkroom / Auricle) 8pm
Irene Kepl
Motoko Kikawa, Bridget Kelly, IRD
Seth Rees/Motte
Vantablack
Thurs 9th (Darkroom / Auricle) 8pm
David Khan
Tony Miles, Toshi Endo
grvdggr
Ivan Mrsic, Gerard Crewdson, Reuben Derrick
Gemma Syme
Blues Professor
Fri 10th (outside art gallery) 5:30
Ivan Mršić’s Kako-Otautahi-phonia
Fri 10th (Free Theatre) 8pm
Les Baxters
Gerard Crewdson
Mike Rofone, Emma Johnston, Nic Woollaston
Sat 11th (Sefton) from noon. BYO picnic
Adam Willets
Chris Reddington, Tom Phillpotts
Irene Kepl (Austria), Reuben Derrick, Motoko Kikawa, Gerard Crewdson
And more!