Jesse will create live visuals for the premiere of Carole Kim’s Edges, as part of the AxS Festival in Pasadena, October 4th & 5th, 2014.

For this year’s AxS Festival, USC Pacific Asia Museum presents the premiere of EDGES, a new collaboration with media artist Carole Kim, Makoto Taiko led by master drummer and Grammy-award winner Koji Nakamura, multi-woodwind performer Vinny Golia, and video artist Jesse Gilbert.  This piece will seek hybrid ground and innovation through the meeting of different traditions in music and working with digital/new media technologies within a spatial projection installation.

“Taiko” refers to the art of Japanese drum ensembles (kumi-daiko), but the word literally means “fat drum.” Kim says, “I have long been inspired by the reciprocating dialogue between sound and image. I look to create a sensitive framework that fosters symbiosis in content, aesthetics, and expressive counterpoint.  As someone who has been invested in lending physicality to digital media, what I find compelling about taiko is its unrivaled physicality and spirited energy that goes into playing and how much the drums give back by resonating throughout your body. When thinking of which contemporary musician could work with the magnitude of taiko drumming, Vinny Golia immediately came to mind.  With a true arsenal of wind instruments at his fingertips, I also knew Vinny would find interesting ways to meld and weave between a percussive bed rooted in tradition yet ready to expand in scope.  Finally, it is always a pleasure to work with long-term collaborator Jesse Gilbert who has fine-tuned an audio-reactive interface he calls Spectral GL, “an interactive listening instrument that generates real-time visual landscapes in response to sound.”

EDGES will explore the shimmering line that emerges when performers highly trained in different disciplines turn their attention towards one another.

USC Pacific Asia Museum
46 North Los Robles Avenue
Pasadena CA 91101

October 4th & 5th at 7:30pm

Tickets $10-15, available here
There will be limited seating so you are strongly encouraged to purchase tickets in advance!