PHILIP GELB
CHRIS BROWN & JOHANNA POETHIG

PHILIP GELB

After a long absence from the music scene, Philip Gelb has returned to performing, marking his first ensemble performance since the Pauline Oliveros Memorial Festivals. During those festivals, Gelb emerged from self-imposed retirement to pay tribute to his mentor and dear friend. Previously, due to dental issues, he was forced to give up playing the shakuhachi, the instrument on which he gained international recognition for his innovative approach. However, thanks to a generous gift from an old friend and former student, he received a Buchla Music Easel and some Buchla Tiptop modules this past year.

For the first time in over a decade, Gelb has formed a new ensemble featuring three major players from the Bay Area music scene—Kanoko Nishi-Smith (koto), Kyle Bruckmann (oboe, English horn), and Thomas Dimuzio (synthesizer, sampler)—as well as Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), a newcomer and returnee to the Bay Area music community. Notably, this concert is not only Gelb’s first ensemble performance in many years (following a solo Buchla set last month) but also Lonberg-Holm’s first concert since relocating back to the Bay Area, where he once lived as a student at Mills College in the 1980s.

CHRIS BROWN & JOHANNA POETHIG
Chris Brown (composition, virtual piano, and interactive electronics) and Johanna Poethig (video) present RhythmiChrome (2023), a suite of seven scored and improvised pieces in just intonation.

Synesthesia is a “perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.” While pitch and rhythm occupy different ranges of the vibrational scale, they are inherently connected, as both are defined by their number of vibrations or beats per second.

In his book New Musical Resources, composer Henry Cowell theorized that using the same whole number (integer) ratios to associate pitch and rhythm can effectively compose relationships between rhythm and harmony. In the 1930s, Cowell collaborated with inventor Leon Theremin to create the Rhythmicon, an electric instrument that played rhythms proportional to the simplest pitch intervals in the harmonic series.

For RhythmiChrome, Brown developed a Rhythmicon-inspired software that automatically generates rhythms congruent with the tuning of notes he plays on a MIDI keyboard. Playing chords of these intervals creates polyrhythms directly tied to the pitch relationships in the music. These polyrhythms, in turn, inspire improvisation by producing responses that transform both pitch and rhythm in a feedback-like process.

The notes in RhythmiChrome are derived from composer Harry Partch’s 41-tone tuning system, which is based on the numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. This system enables a wide range of harmonies, from deeply consonant to strikingly dissonant. Partch famously associated specific colors with each number in his system and painted the keys of his reed organ accordingly, naming the instrument the “Chromelodeon.”

Brown’s composition Occhio—a song cycle of seven pieces—uses various subsets or modes of Partch’s tuning, each conveying a distinct mood and drawing from the poetry of Italian poet Erika Dagnino. The seven pieces in RhythmiChrome—Sguardo (The Gaze), Umidità (Humidity), Atmosferica (Atmospheres), Palpebre (Eyelids), Pianta (Plant), Pulsazioni (Pulsations), and Respiro (Breath)—are improvisations informed by this system and its poetic influences.

As a final layer in this synesthetic exploration, Johanna Poethig has created vibrant video collages in response to the music and its themes. These visuals further inspire Brown’s improvisations, completing the feedback loop between sound, sight, and concept.

—C