The Wadsworth Atheneum, Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, and Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford present a special presentation of the 1970 musical composition (Hartford) Memory Space by Alvin Lucier (1931–2021). The performance-based event will be held on Saturday, Nov. 18, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., at the Wadsworth Atheneum.
(Hartford) Memory Space has a special connection to the Hartford Art School, having first premiered at the Joseloff Gallery in the 1970s, inviting musicians to recreate the sounds they heard while out in the city. In conjunction with the Wadworth current exhibition Rules & Repetition, the community has an opportunity to experience various musicians create a conceptual sound map of our city throughout its galleries.
One of the most influential American composers of the last hundred years, Alvin Lucier is best known for his works that explore the properties of sound and how we perceive them. Lucier was born in 1931 in Nashua, New Hampshire. He was educated in Nashua public and parochial schools, the Portsmouth Abbey School, Yale, and Brandeis, and spent two years in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship. From 1962 to 1970 he taught at Brandeis, where he conducted the Brandeis University Chamber Chorus. In 1966 he co-founded the Sonic Arts Union and from 1970 to 2011 he taught at Wesleyan University where he was John Spencer Camp Professor of Music. Across his career, Lucier lectured and performed extensively in Asia, Europe, and The United States. Lucier pioneered many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers' physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes.
The Wadworth event will include performances from Joan La Barbara, The Daxophone Consort (Daniel Fishkin, Cleek Schrey, and Ron Shalom), Tongue Depressor (Henry Birdsey and Zach Rowden), Trevor Saint, Ronald Kuivila, Emerson Jenish, and Sam Boston.
The event is free with museum admission; Wesleyan University and University of Hartford students and staff receive free admission with school ID.