Alexandra Gardner | Building Noises

Annea Lockwood and Thomas Buckner came to town last week, to perform Annea’s composition Duende at the Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music. Hearing this piece live was a big treat, as was being able to hang out and visit with these two. I never imagined as a freshman in college, begging Annea to let me join an electronic music class, that we would continue on to be good friends more than twenty years later! Actually it’s incredible that she even put up with me through those college years, when I was Much Too Cool for music theory.

The performance drove home two primary characteristics of Annea’s music: focus, and patience. Events unfold slowly (with some compositions, as in her Piano Transplants, at an almost geologic pace), and at times one might be hearing only one or two sounds simultaneously. It is the details within the sounds that are important. Her music emphasizes the activity going on within individual sounds, and she has a special talent for bringing out the music within natural sounds and environments. Through thoughtful construction and impeccable timing, she creates musical experiences that open the listener’s ears to the world.

Annea recently let me get all up in her business and make her a website! This way she can remain her quiet hard-working self, and everyone can find out what she is up to. There are lots of nice photos and nooks and crannies to explore with fun things to listen to and download.

For instance!

• A Sound Map of the Danube is but one of the rivers that Annea has documented through ravishingly beautiful recordings and stories told by people living on the river. She has also done the Hudson river, and the Housatonic is in progress. There are performances!
• Don’t miss the Piano Transplants. If you happen to have access to an old upright piano in total disrepair, you can even perform one yourself!!
• Thousand Year Dreaming is on my list of music for a desert island. Pick up a copy. You won’t be disappointed!
• She has an awful lot of recordings!
• Read press quotes and other assorted writings.

Here is a little snap of the Danube to get you started…