Noé Cuéllar

Composer Nomi Epstein‘s A Human Sound Sculpture — a sound installation celebrating the Old Town School’s expansion and 55th anniversary, combines elements of the folk tradition and experimental music in a performance of live musicians with choreography and spatialization of sound.

Taking the Old Town School’s new logo as its starting point, the performers of A Human Sound Sculpture form a circle with three openings. The circle formation’s long history in the folk tradition used for song, celebration, play-game, and dance, reflects a non-hierarchical sense of community.

The Old Town School demonstrates these three areas of the folk tradition. Felt by the students, faculty and staff, all members are treated with respect and kindness, and with an appreciation for their contributions to the musical community. A Human Sound Sculpture will adhere to these attributes — Supporting, Teaching, Following — through both its choreography and cyclical sound exchange.

The three openings in the circle (similar to the two openings of the OTSFM logo) allow for new players to enter with their sound contribution while others leave, reforming and redeveloping the circle and sound world by its shifting personnel. The continuously changing personnel of the circle mirrors the continuously changing elements of a folk song passed down over time. Through these transformations, variation occurs, ultimately creating new versions of original initiatives.

A Human Sound Sculpture Ensemble
Nora Barton, violin
Billie Howard, violin
Kenn Kumpf-voice/whistle
Jonathan Kirk, trombone
Dahlia Chin, flute
Noé Cuéllar, accordion
James Falzone, clarinet
Becca Laurito, percussion
Matt Oliphant, french horn
Nomi Epstein, voice/slide whistle

Dr. Nomi Epstein is active as a composer, curator/performer of experimental music, and music educator. Her compositions have been performed throughout the US and Europe by Ensemble SurPlus, ICE, Wet Ink, and Dal Niente. She has attended such festivals as Ostrava Days, Darmstadt, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Bang on a Can, and Akademie Schloss Solitude, and was twice an Artist-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She has received two CAP grants from the American Composers Forum, and six ASCAPLUS awards. Epstein is founder/ curator of the Chicago-based experimental music concert series “a.pe.ri.od.ic.” She was an invited lecturer at the 2011 Black Mountain College John Cage Conference, and has taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University, and Roosevelt University. Upcoming 2012 performances of her works include her Music for Four Strings by MIVOS String Quartet at Music with a View and Sextet by Wet Ink on the Festival of New American Music.