Last night one of the last shows was held at the Voltaire Collective. Charles Curtis opened and closed the show with 2 cello pieces that he will perform in New York and on the East Coast next month. Curtis’s genius was evident throughout the 2 pieces of him. The first piece of what he called an evening of long, uneventful cello pieces focused on creating harmonics. These hues floated and modulated around the artist’s space in a dreamy way. He got nuances from all the different parts of his cello, the music stand, the strings under the bridge, and the wood. These dreamy nuances modulated through the body of the wood and sounded like a synth or modulated tone that shone over the player like an aura.
He ended the night with a long piece that included some very oriental sounding scales that incorporated more of the dreamy harmonic stuff. This song made more melodic sense than the first. The effect was one of complete meditation as this lasted for almost an hour. For the last piece she used a drone loop on different notes as the background. He used a foot pedal to activate the keyswitch and cycled in and out of these different phrases after breathing in the new buzzing sound. The drones were beautiful resonant sounding thick strings with the room and ambient sound of the bow on them. This chilly little room in the Voltaire space has hosted great events packed with modern masters and this closing night felt like a perfect piece, as Charles hummed at the end of a meditative space. He felt somehow perfect. And, when the last strings fell silent, the empty space of the room breathed. It was so valid and loud that when the applause started, Charles asked the people to stop because the silence was perfect.
The night also included Matt Lorenz doing an interesting tape loop and cb radio sounds. He used a suitcase as a damper/tremolo, putting on a machine and opening and closing the top. His show was brief and quite enjoyable in a modern ambient world. Outside sounds from the street slipped in to mix with his show, as buses and people passed by became part of the ambiance in the well-heard room. One good thing about Voltaire, people really listen there.
There was also the spoken word of the Mykal Board of Art and Artless. He read from one of his books about his meaning of life.
The true meaning of my life was debated in the cool, brooding air of Ocean Beach last night as I dreamed of the beauty of that little room in Voltaire.
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