New trio, new music at Artspace Monday, April 14, 8pm

Sara Bouchard returns to Out of Your Head Records Second Mondays at Artspace for an evening of experimental improvisation with fellow KI alum Chrystine Rayburn and Robert Scott-Celedón (recently of Rumput). Featuring mandolin, bass clarinet, vintage Korg synth, vocals and objects, the trio explores close listening, collaborative games and expanded techniques through intertwining melodies, language and textural sound.

Afterwards, Gen Ken Montgomery & the Enchantress of Bioluminosity will be presenting a set of sound & movement. It's going to be an amazing night!

Monday, April 14

8pm - Bouchard / Rayburn / Scott-Celedón

9pm - Gen Ken Montgomery (sound) & the Enchantress of Bioluminosity (movement)

Artspace

2833-A Hathaway Road

Richmond, VA, 23225

Suggested donation: $15

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Sara Bouchard is a multidisciplinary artist and composer who uses sound, installation, performance and creative coding to interweave song, story and the landscape. She has exhibited and performed internationally, including at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (CT), The Center for Book Arts (NYC), ERES Foundation (Munich, Germany), The International Conference for Live Coding (Utrecht, Netherlands) and Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival (VA). She earned her MFA from VCUarts 2019 and currently teaches Sound in VCUarts' Department of Kinetic Imaging.

Chrystine Rayburn is a multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, and educator who uses found sounds and field recordings as tools for composition, installation, and experimentation. She writes and performs with projects including Big Pal, Lirra Skirra, and the dance company The Little Streams. She holds an MFA in Kinetic Imaging from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Robert Scott-Celedón is a chamber composer, folk improviser, writer and educator with creative objectives that emanate directly from a personal objective to overcome a life-long sense of ‘out-of-place-ness’ / diaspora. Recent collaborators include RVA Baroque, Classical Revolution RVA, Rumput kroncong ensemble, RAIC improvisation collective, composer Peni Candra Rini, clarinetist Anna Koch, percussionist Kevin Zetina, pianist Vicky Chow & violist Carrie Frey. 

Gen Ken Montgomery is a sound artist/composer/mail art/collagist involved in events which bring people together to focus on the experience of listening.

The Enchantress of Bioluminosity has always been captivated by synesthesia, a phenomenon where one type of artistic stimulation evokes another. The Enchantress (aka Andrea Beeman) received her BA from Georgetown University, where she immersed herself in art historical studies of the Renaissance as well as the fundamentals of painting and sculpture.

'Fall Line' Included in Upcoming Exhibition at UVA's Ruffin Gallery

Sara’s sound/video piece “Fall Line” will be on view at University of Virginia’s Ruffin Gallery as part of the exhibition “New Growth: Ten Years of ArtLab at Mountain Lake Biological Station” from October 21, 2024 to December 6, 2024. The exhibition is curated by Sarah Irvin and Tracy Stonestreet with an opening reception taking place November 8, 2024.

From Sarah Irvin’s website (sarahirvinart.com):

This upcoming exhibition celebrates the mission and history of UVA’s Artlab Residency at Mountain Lake Biological Station. Begun in 2014, ArtLab brings together artists with scientists to observe, explore, and investigate the natural world. Each artist in the exhibition is a past participant of the residency, and each artwork reflects in its own way the type of exploration and research that Artlab fosters. 

The artworks curated here communicate the profoundly positive impact of interdisciplinary interaction. Tapping into the principles of observation, they focus on the natural world and our relation to it, and call attention to the artist’s central role as observer. This has the collective result of blurring the fictitious line between observer and the observed, and of highlighting the human ability to step out of and interpret the workings of our planet. 

Confirmed Artists:

Nancy Blum

Sara Bouchard

Rob Carter

Meredith Leich

Nathalie Miebach

Ashley Williams

Chris Mahonski

Greg Brellochs

Zehra Khan

Radio Interview: With Good Reason

Sara discusses her work with radio host Sarah McConnell in the With Good Reason episode “Music That Speaks” which aired September 13, 2024. Listen to the radio interview.

FLUXNET Artist Residency, 2024-25

Sara has been selected as one of four artists to participate in the inaugural artist-in-residence program at FLUXNET, a global network of scientists who measure the exchange of greenhouse gases between land and air. She will spend the next year collaborating with Chris Gough, Ph.D., Professor of Biology at VCU and dive into the vast amount of climate data available through flux towers at VCU Rice Rivers Center and across the country.

To kick off the residency, Sara traveled to Berkeley, CA, to participate in Ameriflux’s annual conference, giving a talk on data sonification to a room full of environmental scientists! The residency will culminate next summer in an exhibition at the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) in Corvallis, Oregon.

Read the full press release.

Sara's First String Quartet Premiere "From the Mountain"

In August, Sara participated in the Creative Music Intensive program at Arts Letters & Numbers in Averill Park, NY, where she composed a new score in collaboration with the Bergamot String Quartet. “From the Mountain” premiered at Sand Lake Center for the Performing Arts on August 13, 2024.

Program note:

The form of the Blue Ridge mountains has been distilled into two sonic shapes: the rise and fall of land elevation and the lyric call of the wood thrush, a reclusive bird found in the deep woods of Appalachia. The score incorporates elements of graphic notation and improvisation and calls for natural materials to be collected locally and then returned to the landscape after the performance.

Documentation to come.

Performance/talk at Open Source Gallery (Brooklyn, NY) May 19, 11am

Sara Bouchard: Aural Ecologies at Open Source Gallery

Sound artist Sara Bouchard will present a performance and discussion based on her current research:  building live-coded, immersive soundscapes in collaboration with the local environment. In an age in which the future is shaped by both machine intelligence and ecological devastation, how can listening to the landscape with the aid of technology offer us a closer understanding of natural and constructed ecosystems? How can the transmission of song (involving human voice or other) revive our sense of community in a psychogeographic space? What can we learn about the future by uncovering the hidden sounds of urban nature in the present?

'The Sound of Science': Sara's Data Sonification class featured in VCU News

Sara’s Data Sonification class, which she developed as part of VCUarts Department of Kinetic Imaging in collaboration with VCU Life Sciences, was featured in the article, “The sound of science: VCU students compose electronic music that incorporates environmental data gathered at VCU Rice Rivers Center.

Performance with Elka Bong at OSB Space February 20, 8pm

Sara will be performing with experimental/improvisational duo Elka Bong (Walter Wright and Al Margolis) Tuesday Feb 20 at OSB Space in Richmond, VA. This show celebrates the recent collaborative release Without Walls and will feature Sara on live coded vocals and objects.

Album release in collaboration with Elka Bong

New release! Sara collaborated on a full length digital album with experimental duo Elka Bong (Walter Wright and Al Margolis) entitled “Without Walls.”

Listen to the full album on Elka Bong’s Bandcamp.

Excellence in Adjunct Research Award: "Forest for the Trees" at The Anderson

Sara Bouchard: Forest for the Trees
August 22–September 22, 2023
Reception: 5–8pm Friday, September 1
Performances: 4pm Sat. Sept. 16 & 5pm Fri. Sept. 22 (details below)

VCUarts and The Anderson are pleased to present Forest for the Trees from Sara Bouchard, recipient of the 2023 Excellence in Adjunct Research Award.

Forest for the Trees is a sound environment which responds in real time to sensors placed in the trees outside the Anderson. Tree branch movement triggers sonic shifts inside the gallery, where audio samples of organic matter are amplified through wood and found materials suspended in space. As the piece evolves, tension arises between equilibrium and disruption while shifts in scale emphasize the rift between human and arboreal perspectives and the precariousness of our position amidst the current climate crisis.

In a nod to David Tudor’s seminal sound installation Rainforest IV (1973), Bouchard has attached transducers, which convey sound through vibration, to hanging objects in the gallery. In this case, the objects and sounds consist almost entirely of fallen tree matter which the artist collected locally. Outside the Anderson, vine-like extension cords snake into the trees, powering two Arduino microcontrollers in the branches. Each Arduino collects data about its spatial orientation at a rate of 10 times per second from an onboard accelerometer and transmits this data over WiFi to the computer in the gallery. Using the software Sonic Pi, Bouchard has written computer code to trigger audio samples at different volumes, durations and playback speeds based on the incoming data. More tree motion, caused by wind, will create a denser sound in the gallery while less motion will create a sparser environment.

Besides exploring creative coding and sound technologies, Bouchard in her current practice pursues scientific discussion and collaboration with local ecologists. While she has sonified existing environmental data in previous works, Forest for the Trees began with the hope that using her own sensors to capture raw data would increase the scientific value of her artistic work. Ironically, the piece collects an enormous amount of data from a tiny sample without permanently logging the information, thus contributing very little to the scientific community. Furthermore, Bouchard questions whether the work is in fact “for the trees” as the title suggests or simply another example of human exploitation of nature. In titling the work thus, Bouchard acknowledges the dubious nature of these ineptitudes while commenting on the insufficient action of governmental policies to fight climate change: being unable to “see the forest for the trees.”

Performances
Performances are free and open to the public.

4pm Sat. Sept. 16 – Performance by Alan Biller and Sara Bouchard: guitar, effects, loops, voice and live coding

5pm Fri. Sept. 22 – Closing Performance by Kinetic Imaging MFA students and alumni Chrystine Rayburn, Lindsey Arturo, Kaitlyn Paston and Yvonne LeBien: bass clarinet, natural materials, voice, movement and more

'Weather Box' headed to Munich for 'Solar Breath' exhibition at ERES Foundation

Weather Box No. 14 is on its way to Munich, Germany for inclusion in the exhibition “Solar Breath” at ERES Stiftung, a foundation in Munich which fosters dialogue between art and the natural sciences.

Solar Breath will be on view Sept 28, 2023 - Feb 10, 2024.

Performance at International Conference for Live Coding in Utrecht, ND, April 23

Sara has received an Adjunct Faculty Arts Research Grant from VCUarts to perform the new work “Listening to the (Future) Landscape” at the International Conference for Live Coding in Utrecht, Netherlands. The program, entitled Hybrid Acoustics, will take place Sunday, April 23 at the historic Nikolaikerk. “Listening to the (Future) Landscape” is a quadraphonic, live-coded sound performance, incorporating found natural objects, local environmental recordings and voice in an immersive listening space evocative of our ecological future.

'Uprise' at InLight 2022: Bryan Park

Sara Bouchard and Jared Duesterhaus will present a brand new collaborative sound installation entitled “Uprise” at 1708 Gallery’s InLight exhibition taking place November 18 and 19 at Bryan Park in Richmond, Virginia.

Uprise is a sonic exploration of weather, history, memory, and human struggle. Containing sounds sourced from objects in Bryan Park, the piece depicts the great thunderstorm of 1800 which flooded the area and thwarted Gabriel Prosser’s rebellion to end slavery.

A thunderstorm forms when the upward movement of warm air clashes with the cool air of the upper atmosphere. This cycle of rise and disruption presents a metaphor for social justice movements across time and history. As Frederick Douglass stated, “If there is no struggle there is no progress… [Those who disagree] want rain without thunder and lightning.”

As the climate warms and severe storm events occur with more frequency, how will weather shape the events of our future?

Salt Parade performance Oct. 22 at the Byrd Park Round House

Salt Parade, Sara’s outlet for songwriting framed by American roots music, performs Tuesday, October 22, 7pm, at the Byrd Park Round House in Richmond, VA.

A masterful blend of tradition and experimentation, Salt Parade celebrates the golden era of folk, blues, jazz and country while soulfully imagining the future. Sara's salty-sweet vocals will stop you in your tracks; her smart, colorful lyrics - taken from history books and other unlikely sources - will hold you hypnotized. Sara's repertoire encompasses rootsy styles of mandolin, guitar and autoharp; Alan Biller brings a jazz sensibility to Sara's compositions on upright bass and guitar. Recently relocated from Brooklyn, NY, Salt Parade has appeared at such esteemed NYC venues as The American Folk Art Museum, Rockwood Music Hall and Jalopy Theatre.

Round House Concerts is curated by Andy McGraw, ethnomusicologist at University of Richmond and sponsored by the Carillon Civic Association.

Performance Details

When: Tuesday, October 22, 7pm

Where: The Byrd Park Round House. The Round House is the octagonal park structure located near the intersection of Lakeview Ave and S Davis Ave. Richmond, VA.

Admission: $10 suggested donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.

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