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This Friday marks the start of D.C.'s Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music, which will run through September 29 at venues around the city. The festival traces its roots back to 1993, when the American Composer's Forum (ACF) curated a traveling program that was hosted by ACF chapters across the country and offered to any venue interested in presenting music based on electronic technology. The D.C. chapter of ACF first hosted the festival in 2000, and while the national chapter stopped its program in 2004, D.C. has continued to mount the annual event. Last year's festival featured just four nights worth of performances, but this year the event has grown to seventeen performances over three weeks that feature over seventy artists from around the globe.
"Experimental music is an easy classifier for music which can't be pigeon holed into popular genres," said Jeff Surak, Executive Director of the festival. Instead of using the term as a label for the music, he chooses to look at the music from the audience's point of view. "Some of the sounds are seductive, and some are harsh, but in the end it's all beautiful music and a celebration of audio extremes."
Image from the Sonic Circuits website
The broad array of artists Surak chose for this year's festival reflects his open-minded outlook. "Within one night you can expect to hear artists working on the cutting edge, just outside such genres as jazz, rock, or electronica, but truly the music defies classification," Surak said.
Despite having gathered talent from all over the world, Surak is quick to point out that this is the District's festival. Highlighting the importance of the festival's local connections, he affirms,"The local experimental community is vibrant and continues to grow, and the festival is a showcase for D.C. area artists and a platform for collaboration and networking."
Surak has lofty ambitions for future installments of the festival and if his experience with this year's festival is any indication, his goals are readily attainable. "Many artists asked to take part in the festival based on the success of last year's festival. I'm already getting requests from people to play in 2008, so I never had to advertise for submissions, either I asked people who I knew whose work I enjoyed or people asked me if they could play."
The Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music begins this Friday, September 7, with a performance at The Velvet Lounge, and runs though September 29. A full schedule, listing of artists, and venue information are available here. Tickets can be purchased at the door of the given venue on the night of the performance. Festival passes can be purchased here for $96.
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EXCELLENT
Last year's festival was amazing and this one kicks even more! Thx for putting DC on the outsider musical map.
man i am so f-ing glad you guys are finally covering Sonic Circuits. all too often around here experimental music gets the shaft in favor of boring indie bands, so it's nice to see a respected blog giving it exposure. ive been going since the very first one (when i was still in high school) and its cool to see how much it evolved from more academic venues (kennedy center and the levine school of music) and academic compositions to a much more inclusive atmosphere now that the ACF is no longer sponsoring it. anyway, kudos to Jeff (Violet) for putting it together and to you guys for promoting it. oh and go see christoph heemann and goem, who are playing this year, both are awesome.
wow. that is a whole helluva lot of experimental music. hopefully people turn out to hear it. looks good.
I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who showed up last year. It's definitely worth checking out if you're even remotely interested in this stuff, as there's such a wide range of interesting sounds and artists, which this city has far too few of.
Are the shows at the Warehouse being moved?
The cafe and Warehouse Next Door are currently no more but the Warehouse main theater / second stage / screening room at 1021 Seventh Street NW are still the site for several audio performances and video/film showings during DC Sonic Circuits 2007.
The Warehouse officially reopens after an August vacation this Friday for ART ROMP 20 at 6:00 p.m.
http://www.warehousetheater.com