Music After Dark at the Exploratorium in April

etudes4violin&electronix
Featuring DBR (violin, piano), Wynne Bennett (keyboards), and Elan Vytal, aka DJ Scientific (turntables, laptop)
April 2

and
The 10,000 Mile Bike Race
A Live Music-Film-Narration performance
April 16, 7:30pm

Part of Exploratorium After Dark
Thursday Evenings in April Mix Cocktails, Conversation and Adult-Oriented Programming on Science and the Arts
A Preview of New Thursday Evening Hours to Begin Permanently in October 2009

etudes4violin&electronix, featuring DBR (violin, piano), Wynne Bennett (keyboards), and Elan Vytal, aka DJ Scientific (turntables, laptop) and The 10,000 Mile Bike Race, are two Exploratorium After Dark music events in April. It’s all part of new extended Thursday evening hours at the Exploratorium that mix cocktails, conversation, and adult-oriented programming on science and the arts. Programs are playful, unusual, content-rich, and often involve cutting-edge media. Not a theater, not a cabaret, not a gallery—but involving aspects of all three—After Dark has a mood unlike anywhere else in the city. Where else can you find an intellectually stimulating playground for adults—with free parking? These events are included in the price of admission. To be included in the Exploratorium After Dark email list, contact: afterdark@exploratorium.edu. The events are as follows:

etudes4violin&electronix
Featuring DBR (violin, piano), Wynne Bennett (keyboards), and Elan Vytal, aka DJ Scientific (turntables, laptop)
Thursday, April 2

Don’t miss elected solo and duet works from DBR’s recent album from Thirsty Ear Recording, etudes4violin&electronix, and from the critically acclaimed Sonata for Violin and Turntables, conceived by DBR and co-written by DBR and his long-time collaborator and contemporary music remixer extraordinatire, Elan Vyta. A musical exploration between contrasting cultures and instruments of classical and pop music genres, the program speaks to the history and traditions of both, and the violin,the keyboards, the turntables and the laptop sing, battle and rhyme together, honoring a full spectrum of musical inventions.

Having carved a reputation for himself as an innovative composer, performer, violinist, and band leader, Haitian-American artist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) melds his classical music roots with his own cultural references and vibrant musical imagination.

As a composer, his works range from orchestral scores and chamber pieces to music for film, the theater, modern dance, and electronica. In 2007, DBR premiered One Loss Plus, the first of three works commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) for their Next Wave Festival. Showcasing his wide-ranging eclecticism, One Loss Plus is DBR’s evening-length, multimedia work for electric/acoustic violin, prepared/amplified piano, electronics, and video.

The 10,000 Mile Bike Race
A Live Music-Film-Narration Performance
April 16, 7:30pm

The 10,000 Mile Bike Race is a live music-film-narration performance adapted from a short text by turn-of-the-20th-century French author Alfred Jarry, famous for his scandalous play, Ubu Roi. The text is an excerpt from Jarry’s 1906 novel, The Supermale. A single narrator reads the tale of the race, which is told blow-by-blow in the voice of one of the bikers. A team of four local filmmakers provides intermittent visual illustration and accompaniment. The filmmakers are Jerome Hiler, Kerry Laitala, Paul Clipson and Bill Basquin. An eight-piece ensemble plays live music composed specifically for this event by local composer and bandleader Graham Connah. Konrad Steiner directs the production.

The performance lasts 45 minutes. The musicians and narrator are on stage, and the projection performance includes episodes of single-screen images and also multiple projections, the beams manipulated by three projectionists using beveled glass and other objects to contort and refract the imagery, filling the room with light.

The story of The 10,000 Mile Bike Race concerns a fantastic promotional race between a five-man bicycle and a locomotive across 10,000 miles in Russian Siberia. The race is put on to promote chemist William Elson’s “Perpetual Motion Food,” which is the bike team’s only nourishment during the 4 days of the race.

At the same time that evening, the Exploratorium transforms itself into a carnival of amazing animal acts, astounding forces of nature, mysterious mind reading, and thrilling games of skill and chance! Within its walls lurk some of the most astonishing phenomena found in Nature—the biggest freak show of all. Witness the whimsical and weird! Behold unbelievable technologies and test science that defies common sense! Can cosmic rays from the edge of time really pass through the museum? Do animals have more complicated cognitive skills than we ever imagined? Discover some of Nature’s strangest curiosities at Sideshow Science, also part of Exploratorium After Dark on April 16.