The Nature of Music: Karen Power

Bats from Namibia! That’s one sound you’ll hear at the first Bay Area performance of music by renowned Irish composer and sound artist Karen Power. Karen will be traveling all the way from Cork, Ireland for the latest edition of The Nature of Music, Other Minds’ series featuring composers working with natural sounds. Power is one of the foremost environmental artists working in Ireland and she will be presenting works featuring her extensive field recordings from around the world.

Power will present her 14-channel sound installation sounds like the amazon…—a tapestry of field recordings from her trip to the Amazon rainforest in July of 2016. The installation brings the sounds, rhythms, and harmonies of the Amazon to a concert setting to explore how one reacts to those natural characteristics when they are presented in human-made spaces.

Also on the program, works from Power’s Human Nature Series (2020) performed by guitarist and founder of Ireland’s Quiet Music Ensemble, John Godfrey. Human Nature Series is a collection of 18 miniature duos between human-induced sound and un-processed field recordings captured by the composer over the past decade. Godfrey will be performing pieces Nos. 8 and 19, featuring field recordings of bats in Namibia and sea caves off the coast of Beara, Ireland respectively.

PLEASE NOTE: An extremely limited number of tickets will be available due to the intimacy of the venue.

This event is sponsored by a generous gift from Barbara Bessey, with additional support from Culture Ireland (Cultúr Éireann).