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Thinking Spaces: Lucy Rupert, Lisa Hirmer, and Christina Kingsbury “Interdisciplinary Improvisation & Ultrasonic Moth Songs”

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph

In August 2024, dancer Lucy Rupert, musician Ben Finley, as well as artists Christina Kingsbury and Lisa Hirmer, collaborated on the interdisciplinary performance Ultra-sonic Moth Songs. Audiences present that magical summer evening experienced improvised music and movement among the moths at the Moth Garden! Join us to watch some of the beautiful archival video of the event and talk about the process of creating this environmentally inspired, multi-disciplinary improvised performance.

Free

LITHOPHONICA | CD Release, Concert/Discussion

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph

Please join us on Thursday, June 12 at 7:00 PM (ET) to celebrate the release of the marvellous, eccentric Lithophonica I & II (Bedrock Resonances) by Gayle Young and James Harley on the Farpoint Recordings label in Dublin. 

This CD Release, Concert, and Discussion event will take place in person at ImprovLab, MCKN 108 at the University of Guelph. Admission is FREE and open to everybody!

More About LITHOPHONICA

Stones, the instruments featured on this album, are joined by sounds of bells, sticks and Young’s stringed instruments as Harley expands their resonance, shaping sounds through granulation, layering, transposition, delays, and spatialization.

Young’s collection of resonant stones from the shores of Newfoundland, resonant sticks from abandoned beaver lodges in Ontario, played with bells and assorted hardware, are combined with stringed instruments she designed and built.

As hex-bolts are rolled over stones resting on strings, their vibrations cause the strings to sound. Bells resonate with stones, stones rock on strings, and resonant sticks bounce on strings.

Signal processing simultaneously expands the depth and frequency range, adding complexity through layering and subtle shifts over time.

Additional details to follow

Free

Thinking Spaces: Andrew Goldman, “The Cognition of Musical Improvisation: Theories and Experiments”

ImprovLab MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph

Improvisation is a challenging topic to study using the theories and methods of cognitive science owing to the difficulty of defining it, and the diversity of improvisatory practices. I share my theoretical frameworks for engaging this challenge as well as the results from some behavioral and neuroscientific studies. Ultimately, I draw upon improvisation as a case study for exploring the difficulties of using science to understand music more generally.

Free