Light Up Minneapolis

Light Up Minneapolis

The Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts that took place here in Minneapolis this past week was a rousing success, chock full of fantastic content and almost devoid of major technical snags.

Written By

Colin Holter

Those of you who follow new electroacoustic music are probably (hopefully?!) aware of the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts that took place here in Minneapolis this past week. The festival was a rousing success, chock full of fantastic content and almost devoid of major technical snags. There were too many great pieces to recount them all, but I’ll cite just a few here:

  • Guests of honor Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram presented pieces on almost all of Spark’s twelve concerts. (That number doesn’t include Spark’s NightLife series, which took place at a nearby bar after the 8 p.m. concerts ended and was a bit more laid back.) These leading Romanian spectralists brought a few members of their group, the Hyperion Ensemble, as well as collaborator Tim Hodgkinson of Henry Cow fame. Dumitrescu’s work Objet sonore mystérieux was especially compelling.
  • Frequent NewMusicBox respondent David Coll brought a slightly scaled-down version of his piece Position, Influence for soprano, computer, and resonating metal sheets; the excellent Twin Cities singer Carrie Shaw performed it. Even this reduced version attained an impressive counterpoint of subtlety and cacophony; it left me with a hunger to hear the full version.
  • Composer Cristyn Magnus showed one of several Eartudes, silent video pieces consisting only in instructions to the audience regarding how to shape and move their hands around their ears to filter the ambient noise of the room. It was both astoundingly creative and genuinely effective.
  • SoNu, an ensemble with members across the country, ably filled out the ranks of Dumitrescu’s Hyperion ensemble for several of the latter’s pieces, but they also took the stage by themselves to perform member Phil Curtis’ uncompromising Sonaurium.
  • These aren’t pieces per se, but the lectures by pop music journalist Simon Reynolds and sound designer Richard Devine have to be included in my list of favorite moments. Reynolds spoke very insightfully about electronica in the UK and worldwide, providing a valuable context for the curious uninformed (like myself). Richard Devine, who probably made the presets on your software synth, shared his obssession with gear old and new, and his insatiable sonic curiosity.

Again, there was so much terrific music at Spark that it’s hard to narrow my picks down to a top five. If you’re in the field of new electronic music—even if only with one foot, so to speak—I encourage you to apply next year. It’s an unbelievably exciting week of installations, panels, lectures, and, of course, awesome music.