Field Notes

Taking place in Hadden Park under a canopy of trees, this outdoor event features a trio of performances, spanning the experimental percussion duo of Adrian Avendano and Chacal del Tamborazo, the performative installation 'a versus complex' by Robyn Jacob, to the ambient works of Daniel Majer and Samantha Leff.

Presented by: Publik Secrets & Wrong Wave Festival

Event begins at 6:30pm. Advance RSVP, by donation

Feel free to bring-your own seats or blankets to sit on. This event is Rain or Shine!

Public washrooms can be accessed in this park.

About the Artists:

Adrian Avendano + Chacal del Tamborazo – Earth Aged Cymbals

For one year four bronze cymbals lay buried in the soil next to the Hadden Park fieldhouse. As an index of environmental changes, the gradual changes in moisture, heat, and organic matter alter the surface of the cymbal’s metal surface, thereby altering the characteristics of its resonance. As the drum kit is traditionally thought of as a time-keeping device, the process of soil-aging layers another concept of time onto the instrument by marking temporal changes onto the instruments themselves. As a method of time-marking, what ways of thinking and sounding emerge from an extended time horizon, one that reaches to the concept of geological time and to the edges of periodicity itself? Vancouver-based percussionists Adrian Avendano and Chacal del Tamborazo consider these ideas through extended improvisations using the excavated cymbals. The percussive worlds of Chacal del Tamborazo and Adrian Avendaño collided in 2018, performing at Rhythmic Resonance: An Evening of New Music for Bateria Ensemble organised by Vancouver New Music Artistic Director, Giorgio Manganensi. The performance marked the beginning of a journey of camaraderie and friendship brought together through experimental percussive expression. The duo is a melding of various stylistic influences and approaches, culminating to create psychedelic sonic incantations and abstractions. They are interested in the tradition of textural approaches to the drumset to manifest creative soundscapes, reflecting the internal and external influences of the present moment.

Robyn Jacob – a versus complex

A Versus Complex is a personal response to the activities taking place on one of the frontlines of the climate emergency: the conflict between the logging industry and land defenders trying to stop the clear cutting of old growth forests. In the face of polarization and lack of context and nuance in mainstream media’s portrayal of the conflict, especially regarding Indigenous rights and colonial history, the piece explores what gets left out of the public knowledge stream, and how this changes the conversation. The use of disklavier piano also touches on the history of the once expansive piano manufacturing industry in Canada, which was enabled by the ready access to timber. As so many of these pianos are ending up in the local landfills, they seem to symbolize what is happening to our old growth forests. Mixing the seen with the unseen in terms of the piece’s sonic origins is at play, as the combination of sounds made from the piano and the collage of the instrument’s pre-recorded resonance mix. The voice holds my own feelings of grief, powerlessness, and responsibility to act.

Daniel Majer + Samantha Leff

what happens when monologues intersect, and express desire to intersect? do they become dialogues? the medium of the intersection is electric, but is it a landscape, or is it a field of possibilities? are our dialogues enhanced or impoverished by technology? is a third generated? why is another modulation of form all we seem to create? is there ever anything to acquire, or is it expression? samantha and daniel ask these questions—with interacting and intersecting instrumental designs, the questions are electronically composed. samantha leff is a sound designer and artist from Mexico City whose work is influenced by cinema and the eternally changing noise of culture and big cities. their creative process incorporates modular synthesizers, code, computer generated explorations and collected sounds that seek to move around the barriers of body and form. daniel majer is a sound artist & composer from Vancouver. his compositions rely on sampling, instrumentation, vocal exploration, digital manipulation, as well as traditional and contemporary forms of compositional practice. he focuses particular care on the possibilities of sound for connectivity, and abstract understanding in our perception and feeling.

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This event is generously supported by UNIT/PITT and CCA’s Arts Across Canada program as part of Wrong Wave Festival 2022

Hadden Park is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded Indigenous territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.