"work divided by time" sound installation by Paula Matthusen at Wesleyan University May 2-13
"work divided by time", a new sound installation by Paula Matthusen, May 2-13
Opening Reception on Wednesday May 2
Middletown, Conn.— Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts presents a new sound installation entitled work divided by time by Assistant Professor of Music Paula Matthusen, which will be on view in the Van Vleck Observatory, located at 96 Foss Hill Drive on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown, from Wednesday, May 2 through Sunday, May 13, 2012. Please see below for the list of times that the installation will be open. Admission is free.
The public is invited to attend the opening reception on Wednesday, May 2, 2012 from 4:15pm to 6pm, with a talk at 5:30pm by Paula Matthusen. The opening reception is free.
work divided by time engages with the cultural concepts of power, energy, and time. The installation derives its inspiration in part from the intricate work of the Bily Brothers, who, having never left a 35-mile radius of their home nestled within the Czech community of Spillville, Iowa, constructed enormous mechanical clocks depicting the world reflected to them by newspaper and other printed publications. work divided by time creatively evokes the work of the Bily Brothers – clearly of a different era – to form a reflective space.
The installation features a series of handmade, wooden instruments modeled after Christmas pyramid toys. The space, the instruments, and the sounds emanating from within them pay humble homage to the work of the Bily Brothers, using recordings of the music boxes within the clocks, the sounds of the mechanisms within them, as well as recorded text of the inscriptions on the clocks.
work divided by time was commissioned by the Center for the Arts as a part of Feet to the Fire: Fueling the Future, made possible by grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and with support from The Bily Clocks Museum in Spillville, Iowa.
Viewing Hours for work divided by time
Wednesday, May 2 from 4pm to 6pm
Thursday, May 3 from 4pm to 7pm
Friday, May 4 from 11:30am to 4pm
Saturday, May 5 from Noon to 5pm
Sunday, May 6 from Noon to 5pm
Monday, May 7 CLOSED
Tuesday, May 8 from 4pm to 7pm
Wednesday, May 9 from 3pm to 7pm
Thursday, May 10 from 4pm to 7pm
Friday, May 11 from 11:30am to 4pm
Saturday, May 12 from Noon to 5pm
Sunday, May 13 from Noon to 5pm
About Paula Matthusen
Paula Matthusen is a composer who writes both electroacoustic and acoustic music and realizes sound installations. In addition to writing for a variety of different ensembles, she also collaborates with choreographers and theater companies. She has written for diverse instrumentations, such as run-on sentence of the pavement for piano, ping-pong balls, and electronics, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker noted as being "entrancing". Her work often considers discrepancies in musical space—real, imagined, and remembered.
Her music has been performed by Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble, orchest de ereprijs, Ballett Frankfurt, noranewdanceco, Kathryn Woodard, Diesel Lounge Boys, and Jody Redhage. Her work has been performed at numerous venues and festivals in America and Europe, including Merkin Concert Hall, WAX, Judson Dance, Joyce SoHo, the Construction Company, Das TAT, the Aspen Music Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Institute of Music at MassMoCA, Aural Tick Festival, the Gaudeamus New Music Week, The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, New West Electronic Arts & Music Organization, and the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival. She performs frequently with the electroacoustic duo ouisaudei, Groundwave New Music Collective, Object Collection, and recently winter company. Awards include a Fulbright Grant, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers' Award, First Prize in the Young Composers' Meeting Composition Competition, the MacCracken and Langley Ryan Fellowship. Ms. Matthusen has also held residencies at create@iEar at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Ms. Matthusen completed her Ph.D. at New York University's Graduate School of Arts and Science. She taught at Florida International University for four years, where she founded the FLEA Laptop Ensemble. Ms. Matthusen is currently Assistant Professor of Music at Wesleyan University, where she teaches experimental music, composition, and technology.
For more information about Paula Matthusen, please visit http://www.paulamatthusen.com.
About Feet to the Fire
Launched in 2008, Feet to the Fire is a major undertaking on Wesleyan’s campus to examine critical environmental issues through multiple lenses, from science to art. The program is dedicated to the proposition that a multidisciplinary examination that includes art will provide a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of these global issues. Feet to the Fire includes lectures, performances, co-taught teaching modules, and courses by the faculty, visiting artists and lecturers, student run fora, community eco-arts festivals, afterschool programs for children, and the First Year Matters program. Each year, the campus adopts an environmental theme for its First Year Matters program, such as global climate change (2008), water (2009), or hunger (2010). The theme for 2011, Fueling the Future, has been focused on issues related to energy.
Past Feet to the Fire works have included exhibitions and performances by visiting artists including Leigh Fondakowski and Reeva Wortel's SPILL, Asphalt Orchestra's Trading Futures, Glenn McClure's Dear Mother Earth: An Environmental Oratorio, Marion Belanger's Landfill, Ann Carlson's Green Movement, Barbara Croall's Messages (Mijidwewinan), Cassie Meador's Drift, and Stan's Cafe's Of All the People in All the World, USA (The Rice Show); works by faculty including Ronald Jenkin's Recycling Pain, Hari Krishnan's Liquid Shakti, Ronald Kuivila's The Weather, at Six, Alvin Lucier's Glacier, and Nicole Stanton and Gina Ulysse's Threshold Sites: Skin to Skin; and works by students including Sam Long's From Source to Sea, and Ethan Cohen's Scoreboard.
The Feet to the Fire initiative was launched with a leadership grant from Arts Presenters Creative Campus Innovations Program, a component of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which was one of only eight grants given to challenge campus-based performing arts presenters to integrate their programs more organically within the academic environment. Feet to the Fire is made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
For more information about Feet to the Fire, please visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/creativecampus/crossingdisciplines/feettothefire/
For more information about First Year Matters, please visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/fym/
About the Music Department
The Wesleyan University Music Department provides a unique and pioneering environment for advanced exploration committed to the study, performance, and composition of music from a perspective that recognizes and engages the breadth and diversity of the world's musics and technologies. As an integral part of one of the nation's leading liberal arts institutions, the department has enjoyed an international reputation for innovation and excellence, attracting students from around the globe since the inception of its visionary program in World Music four decades ago.
Recent annual music festivals in partnership with the Center for the Arts have brought to campus a diverse array of artists, including Max Roach, Pete Seeger, Boukman Eksperyans (Haiti), and Boogsie Sharpe (Trinidad).
A recording studio, a computer and experimental music studio, the Center for the Arts media lab and digital video facility, the World Instrument Collection (which includes the David Tudor Collection of electronic musical instruments and instrumentation) and the Scores and Recordings Collection of Olin Library (which includes the World Music Archives) offer many learning opportunities outside of the classroom.
For more information about the Music Department, please visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/music/.