Doodads, Doohickeys, Oojahs, and Ovations
Over the last 17 years, the
Music for People & Thingamajigs Festival has featured luminaries of aural loveliness such as Carla Kilhstedt and Peter Whitehead. (This year’s event promises Bart Hopkins, an expert in experimental instrument building, if ever there was one.) Still, nothing quite exemplifies this fun-loving, freewheeling conflagration of crazy instruments and alternate tuning systems as the Crank Ensemble, an orchestra put together out of plywood, rubber bands, bones, springs, and coat hangers; the resulting hand-cranks — the instruments, not the people — are analog loops which can be adjusted live on a mixing board. It’s always a pleasure, but this is not the first time the Crank Ensemble has performed at Thingamajigs, so we would like to draw your attention to the remarkable Sung Kim. Fresh from his residency at Oakland’s Studio Grand, Kim is an improviser and sculptor who supports his love of bizarre tonalities and sympathetic resonance by way of his architectural woodworking studio. His musical beauties will be on display throughout the festival at the Window Gallery, but you can only get the full demonstration on opening night.
— Silke Tudor
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