Sam Dunscombe and Friends

The first of two fundraiser concerts featuring works by and for Sam Dunscombe

Sep 7 | Doors 20:00 | Concert 20:30
Karl-Marx-Straße 28, Berlin

Program:
Sam Dunscombe, Four Visitor Chords in Sublunary Pitch Space performed by Lucy Railton (cello) & Michiko Ogawa (clarinet)

Sam Dunscombe, Study 2.1 in Mass Plasma Synthesis for clarinets and sine waves (diffusion)

Rebecca Lane, ascending (below) for quarter-tone flutes & electronics

SAM DUNSCOMBE is a performer, composer, and sound artist interested in the multi-dimensional perception of time. This interest has led to explorations in spectralism, just-intonation, improvisation, the performance of complex-notated repertoire, field recording, audio engineering, and live electronic performance.

Sam has performed at major festivals and concert series around the world, including conducting the opening concert of the 2019 MaerzMusik festival in Berlin; participating as artist-in-residence at Ilan Volkov’s Tectonics Festival in Tel Aviv; and presenting a three-day performance and sound installation at the Tokyo Experimental Festival.

Sam is an avid field recordist: in 2021, Outside Ludlow / Desert Disco (Black Truffle) combined field recordings with audio taken from scraps of 1/4″ tape found tangled around a cactus in the Mojave Desert. A second album, Two Forests / Oceanic (Black Truffle 2023, forthcoming), uses field recordings and rational tuning practice to reimagine the music used for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy sessions. Alongside these hybrid works, Sam is also engaged in more traditional acoustic ecology practice, in particular an ongoing ultra-large-scale field recording work »California Grid.«

In June 2022, Sam released Horatiu Radulescu: Plasmatic Works Vol. 1 on Mode Records. This album focuses on Radulescu’s early spectral works for winds and electronics and will be followed by two more records in this series. Sam was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts from UC San Diego in 2018, with a thesis exploring Radulescu’s clarinet works, and has worked as the archivist to his estate since 2018. With generous funding from Musikfonds and the Berlin Senate, Sam is currently developing new methods for sound synthesis based on Radulescu’s spectral techniques, »Mass Plasma Synthesis.« Preliminary studies in this methodology can be heard on Bandcamp.

Sam is a member of several musical groups, including Berlin’s Harmonic Space Orchestra, the Australian performer-composer trio Golden Fur (together with James Rushford and Judith Hamann), Oren Ambarchi’s Carpe Diem, and duo projects with Michiko Ogawa, Rebecca Lane, Julia Reidy, and others.

REBECCA LANE is a musician and composer who explores intonation, focusing on extended just intonation & alternative tuning systems and the perceptual & relational aspects of sounding/activating this material with others. Her practice is informed by ongoing relationships and collaborations with composer-performers (such as Catherine Lamb & Clara de Asís) and within various duos and ensembles (eg. Sam Dunscombe, Harmonic Space Orchestra), utilizing various flutes (in particular, Kingma System quartertone flutes).

FUNDRAISER

In July 2023, Sam was diagnosed with an aggressive Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and is currently undergoing chemotherapy. These concerts are set up to help cover some of the costs associated with this illness, as well as the five to six months of cancelled work that it has entailed. Owing to their treatment schedule, Sam will be unable to attend these concerts, but they'll be working to prepare new and exciting materials for all to enjoy in their absence. CDs/LPs will also be available for purchase on the night, with proceeds again going to help Sam out during this difficult period.

www.salty-media.com
www.sacredrealism.org/artists/rebecca-lane