Elevate Ensemble expands to the North Bay for its fifth concert season

SAN FRANCISCO - Oct. 10, 2018 - PRLog -- Elevate Ensemble kicks off its 2018/19 concert season with "Iconoclasts and Freethinkers," to be presented at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (Sol Joseph Hall) on Saturday, Nov 3, 8:00pm, and then the following afternoon, Sunday, Nov 4, 2:00pm, at the Petaluma Arts Center. Tickets are $20-$40 at the door or via EventBrite.

This season marks Elevate Ensemble's first foray into the North Bay. Building upon the group's successes as a San Francisco new music presenter, Elevate is banking that repeat performances in different parts of the Bay Area will help expand its audience even further. Two of the group's mainstage concerts will be performed in both San Francisco and Petaluma this season, with the goal of adding East Bay and South Bay venues in future seasons.

The centerpiece of Iconoclasts and Freethinkers is the premiere of a new commission by Bay Area composer Julie Herndon, who is Elevate Ensemble's composer-in-residence for the season. Titled Visible, the work uses both a video-based score and audience-facing projections. Visible was composed with assistance from projection artist Patricia Robinson.

During the piece, performers read from a score that appears progressively in front of them on a screen, while the audience sees a related video representation above the stage in real time. Herndon uses these video tools to "sonify" information into a type of non-conventional musical notation. A UN report on gender equality and a description of cellular mitosis serve as the sources of inspiration for this sonification.

Also on the program are works by Janacek, Hindemith, and Jordan Kuspa. The program as a whole pays tribute to the iconoclastic tradition among composers that has so often pushed artistic boundaries for the sake of enriching musical experience.

More information and tickets: https://elevateensemble.com/events/iconoclasts-and-freeth...

About Elevate Ensemble

Elevate Ensemble's mission is to bring people together using powerful musical experiences that highlight the talents of the Bay Area arts scene. We live in one of the world's great cultural hubs, with no shortage of brilliant creative minds in a wide number of fields. Elevate Ensemble exists to introduce the Bay Area to the musical side of our creative culture, from rising classical composers to virtuoso young performers. We seek to foster a decidedly Bay Area culture of concert-going, to propel our local musical talents onto the international stage, and to collaborate with artists from other disciplines, including poetry, the visual arts, and the culinary arts. Now in its fifth season, Elevate Ensemble presents four concerts per year, including music-and-food pairing events and multi-disciplinary collaborations. The group's repertoire is focused on presenting the music of living composers, especially those from the Bay Area, as well as underappreciated or rarely heard works from the 20th century.

About Composer Julie Herndon

Julie Herndon is a composer and performer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work blends internal/external spaces through song, electronics, text, graphics, and improvisation. Her electroacoustic work has been described as "striking" and "blended to inhabit a surprisingly expressive space" (San Francisco Classical Voice). Recent compositions have been performed by ensembles including JACK Quartet, Ensemble Proton Bern, Line Upon Line Percussion, Retro Disco, and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Performances include festivals and venues such as Artistry Space and Hotel Vagabond in Singapore, soundSCAPE in Italy, Megapolis Audio Art Festival in Oakland, and Hot Air Festival in San Francisco. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Stanford University.