SPCO's Liquid Music Series to Present Daniel Wohl's HOLOGRAPHIC This Feb

Saint Paul, MN -- Liquid Music joins forces with pioneering organizations MASS MoCA, Baryshnikov Arts Center and Indianapolis Museum of Art in commissioning and presenting HOLOGRAPHIC, a new album and performance series created by Paris-born, Los Angeles-based composer Daniel Wohl, premiering in New York City January 21 & 22 and arriving in Saint Paul on Thursday, February 11. Critics have celebrated Wohl's work as a "boldly surreal aural experience," (The New York Times) and applauded his aptitude for crafting music that can "transport, unsettle and delight all at once" (National Public Radio).

"HOLOGRAPHIC is about exploring different worlds -- improbable combinations of sounds -- hidden and imaginary sonic landscapes both acoustic and electronic," explained Wohl. "By processing or re-sampling more traditional instruments like strings, percussion or the human voice, I wanted to create music that has a strong link to the past while at the same time being rooted in what I listen to on a daily basis. I was hoping to retain the warmth and inconsistencies of human playing while interfacing with the technologies that are available to all of us."

Liquid Music curator and producer Kate Nordstrum added, "This is a key project for Liquid Music, perhaps even pivotal. HOLOGRAPHIC is an album, a live performance, a visual art offering, and has been an opportunity to build dynamic partnerships with artists and arts institutions across the country, all eager to support the project in complimentary ways. It's been an honor to work with Daniel and our partners to construct a 'world of HOLOGRAPHIC' these past 12 months, growing a core musical concept to new realms only possible through the unique focuses, perspectives and resources of the participating partners, and an openness on Daniel's part to hear how they'd like to engage." Nordstrum said the list of partners is ever-growing and currently includes New Amsterdam Records, Lonely Leap, Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, Alliance Française, McNally Smith College of Music, visual artists Daniel Schwarz and The Propeller Group, and aforementioned commissioning institutions MASS MoCA (with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), Baryshnikov Arts Center, Indianapolis Museum of Art and The Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul.

HOLOGRAPHIC is Wohl's sophomore album, releasing January 29 on New Amsterdam Records. Produced by Paul Corley (Oneohtrix Point Never, Tim Hecker, Ben Frost) and mastered by Bedroom Community's Valgeir Sigurdsson, HOLOGRAPHIC expands Wohl's lush sound world through collaborations with guest artists Lucky Dragons, Olga Bell, Caroline Shaw and ensembles Bang on a Can All-Stars, Mantra Percussion, Mivos Quartet and Iktus Percussion. For the Saint Paul iteration of HOLOGRAPHIC, Wohl calls on the talents of Mantra Percussion and the HOLOGRAPHIC String Quartet (featuring members of Flux Quartet and String Noise), blending the virtuosic talents of his performers with a newly commissioned visual component and rich electronic creations to bring his spellbinding multimedia work to life.

"It is a great honor to be collaborating with Daniel Wohl on the A/V performance for his album HOLOGRAPHIC," said Los Angeles-based audiovisual artist Daniel Schwarz, engaged and commissioned by The Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul for all live performances of HOLOGRAPHIC. "His visceral and powerful compositions evoke vivid imagery and feelings for me and it is a fantastic challenge to develop interactive software and visuals that go hand in hand with it. All instruments and electronic sounds are translated into an abstract meta language, which, in combination with the live audio feed from each musician during the concerts, will allow us to synchronize audio and visuals thoroughly in real-time and bring them into one multi-sensory experience."

"Collaborating with Liquid Music and supporting Daniel Schwarz's development of the visuals for HOLOGRAPHIC has been an extremely positive experience for us," said Susan Smoluchowski, Executive Director of the Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul. "We place great value on our partnerships with artists and arts institutions -- they open our perspective in new and exciting ways -- and this has been among the best."

FEATURED ARTISTS:
Daniel Wohl
Daniel Schwarz
Mantra Percussion
HOLOGRAPHIC String Quartet (featuring members of Flux Quartet and String Noise)

Watch the HOLOGRAPHIC Album Trailer (visuals designed by Daniel Schwarz) below!

DATE AND LOCATION:
Thursday, Feb 11, 2016 at 7:30pm
Ordway Concert Hall
345 Washington St, St. Paul, MN 55102

TICKETS:
$20 ($15 for Liquid Music subscribers)
liquidmusicseries.org | 651.291.1144

RELATED EVENT:

Artist Reception and Conversation with Daniel Wohl
Monday | Feb 8 | 7:00pm
Alliance Française, Minneapolis

Join us in the Alliance Française Grande Salle on Monday, February 8 for a reception and dialogue with Daniel Wohl in advance of his performance on Thursday, February 11 at the Ordway Concert Hall. American Composers Forum president John Nuechterlein will interview Wohl on subjects ranging from his upbringing in France to the contemporary music scene and explore the artistic process behind HOLOGRAPHIC.

The meet and greet reception will be in French and English and is open to all. There is a $5 suggested donation to attend. Food and drinks will be provided. RSVP by February 5.

LIQUID MUSIC is a concert series presented by The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra that creates a space for innovative new projects, iconoclastic artists and unique presentation formats. Liquid Music performances invite adventurous audiences to discover the new and the fascinating within the flourishing landscape of contemporary classical music.

BIOGRAPHIES:

French-American composer, DANIEL WOHL creates music that "blurs the line between electronic and acoustic instrumentation and seemingly melts both elements into a greater organic whole (WNYC)." He collaborates with ensembles, orchestras, visual artists and filmmakers to merge the endless possibilities of our current sonic landscape with his classical compositional background. He has been called one of his generation's "imaginative, skillful creators" (The New York Times) with work that is "provocative and surprising" (N?R) and "beautiful...original" (Pitchfork).

Recent projects include a new work for string quartet and electronics commissioned by the German festival Donaueschinger Musiktage for the Calder Quartet; a new work for MOMA Ps1 featuring Caroline Shaw (Roomful of Teeth) and Olga Bell (Dirty Projectors); performances at the San Francisco Symphony Soundbox series, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW series; a commission from the Bang on a Can All-Stars through their People's Commissioning Fund; a score for the surrealist indie film Elixir (a 2015 Berlinale selection).

In 2013 Wohl made his New Amsterdam Records debut with Corps Exquis,a multimedia, chamber and electronics project created in conjunction with the TRANSIT new music ensemble and a collective of New York-based video artists. The album, featuring guest appearances by Julia Holter, Aaron Roche and Sõ Percussion, garnered widespread critical acclaim and was voted ?best album of 2013 by WNYC New Sounds listeners and included in NPR Music's top 100 songs of 2013.

Wohl has worked with the American Symphony Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Calder Quartet, eighth blackbird, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, California EAR Unit, New York Youth Symphony, So Percussion, and has collaborated with artists such as Julia Holter, Laurel Halo, and Son Lux. His music has been heard at Carnegie Hall, Webster Hall, Dia Beacon, Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, Mass MoCA, Disney Hall's REDCAT, the Chelsea Art Museum, MoMA, Arsenal de Metz (France), Warhol Museum, the MATA Festival, the Bang on a Can Marathon,, the Ecstatic Music Festival, Rome Film Festival, River to River, Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Sacrum Profanum (Poland), NordKlang (Switzerland), as well as over media outlets such as NPR, PBS, WQXR, CANAL +, TFI and FRANCE 2. Wohl is also cofounder and co-curator for Sound / Source, an electroacoustic music festival held at MoMA PS1.

Wohl's work has received support from grants including New Music USA, Meet the Composer/Commissioning Music USA, the American Composers Forum / Jerome Foundation, C.A.P, the Barlow Endowment, MET Life Creative Connections, and the Brooklyn Arts Council. He has received awards from the Finale National Composers Competition, the Carlsbad Music Festival, NY Youth Symphony First Commission, the Society for New Music, four ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, Music Now, ASCAP Plus, NY Look & Listen, and Music IX. Also active as an educator, Wohl has taught courses in composition, orchestration, and theory at Sarah Lawrence College and at Yale and has given talks at NYU, The New School, Brooklyn College, NYFA, Juilliard, and Amherst. He holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, Bard College and the University of Michigan, studying with composers David Lang, Martin Bresnick, Joan Tower, Ingram Marshall, Aaron Kernis, Bright Sheng, and William Bolcom.

Daniel Wohl's music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. Visit danielwohlmusic.com for more.

DANIEL SCHWARZ's (*Germany, 1987) works examine current crises in politics and social life through the lens of digital media. They engage critically with aspects of control and power structures, state authority and cartography under the connective tissue of surveillance and loss of privacy.

Currently he lives and works in Los Angeles and teaches at Loyola Marymount University. He graduated from UCLA with a MFA in 2015. In 2011-12 he held an artist residency at Fabrica in Italy. Prior he studied computer science and media (BSc) at the HdM Stuttgart, Germany, and the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil.

He performed and exhibited worldwide including Sónar Festival Barcelona, the 70th Venice Film Festival, Plums Fest during Moscow's Museum Night, Node - Forum for Digital Arts Frankfurt, Mapping Festival Geneva, WRO Biennale Wroclaw, FILE - Electronic Language International Festival Sao Paolo, roBOt Festival, Fach & Asendorf Gallery and km temporaer among many others.