Manitoba Live Music Event

About

The fourth annual Cluster: New Music + Integrated Arts Festival takes place March 9 to 16, 2013. Focused on POP + NOISE, Cluster becomes a temporarily installed arts megahub in downtown Winnipeg. Juxtaposing and uniting two distinct aesthetics, artists and performers from Winnipeg to Montreal to Berlin will explore the notions of popularity and obscurity, clean production and gritty lo-fi sonic artifacts, melody and stasis. Aspects of pop culture and noise sensibilities will clash and complement each night of the festival, in performance and installation, spread over a variety of media. 

The festival base, Urban Shaman Gallery, will be transformed into a glitched-out, crystalline space of shape, video and light by Berlin-based installation artist TSAWORKS (making his North American debut).

POP + NOISE opening night. Not Your Standard Coffeehouse. Cluster 2013 opens with an evening of dark and dirty musings and mashups by some local femmes fatales: Claire Morrison with Montreal’s Ensemble Paramirabo / chanteuse + video duo The Gritty mutilate and mutate pop art song of the 19th century / sentimental bedroom doo-wop care of Slattern / Sasha Amaya’s silhouettes fill the space with silent noise / dance the night away to local super duo Mise en Scene’s mix of substance, sincerity, swagger & reverb. 

Paramirabo. TSAWORKS’ vast geometric installation is unveiled, serving as a dynamic stage for the rest of the festival. Cluster’s second evening features Montreal quintet Paramirabo performing an eclectic set of daring new Canadian works. Composer-performers Jessica Mays and James O’Callaghan bookend the night with solo sets, paired with Gordon Fitzell’s Zipper Music.

Lori Freedman/Sarah Albu. A stark and intimate portrait of two terrifyingly virtuosic performers. Former Winnipegger and Canadian new music giant Lori Freedman thrusts monstrous walls of complex bass-clarinet noise at the audience. Up-and-coming Montreal-based soprano Sarah Albu spins entire sonic novels with only her voice, presenting new works by four Canadian composers.

Reasons. Everyone but the kitchen sink: James O’Callaghan hits the books in his novel composition “Reasons”, composed for library books and live electronics / David Storen’s new instrument, the Sound Brush integrates sound and light / a show-stopping collaborative improv featuring Paramirabo, Lori Freedman, and The Gritty’s Sarah Kirsch / improv sets by MOMA and Lori Freedman / Winnipeg’s This Hisses’ highball of blood and glitter

Guest Artists: TSAWORKS, Lori Freedman, Ensemble Paramirabo, Sarah Albu
Guest Composers: James O’Callaghan, Jessica Mays, David Storen