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Deep Listening, as developed by Pauline Oliveros, explores the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the conscious nature of listening. The practice includes bodywork, sonic meditations, and interactive performance, as well as listening to the sounds of daily life, nature, one’s own thoughts, imagination, and dreams. It cultivates a heightened awareness of the sonic environment, both external and internal, and promotes experimentation, improvisation, collaboration, playfulness, and other creative skills vital to personal and community growth. This introductory workshop is facilitated by Ben Richter and presented in cooperation with Ghost Ensemble and the Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer. Your Ticket to the workshop includes free admission to the 8pm concert where Ben Richter performs original just-intonation accordion composition Portent of Laramidia, “an epic symphony of accordion mastery…some of the most powerful experimental music of the last 12 months or more” (Noel Gardner, Buzz), alongside immersive accordion works by mentors and collaborators Phill Niblock and Pauline Oliveros.
Ben Richter is a composer, accordionist, and founding Artistic and Executive Director of Ghost Ensemble. Inspired by nonhuman consciousness, Ben’s music orients toward interacting gradual processes that cross acoustic thresholds to auralize the vast and infinitesimal timescales we may not experience in everyday life. Chamber works such asDissolution Seedlings(2024),Rewild(2022), andWind People(2016) have been described as “gorgeous…arresting…lingering, unspooling and evading time…suggesting an eternal process” (Peter Margasak,Bandcamp Daily), “a multifaceted texture that evokes the primeval” (Meg Wilhoite,Meg's New Music Blog), and “cloudy, mysterious, and dark…Beckettian in its slow spread” (Brian Olewnick,Just Outside). As an accordionist, Ben explores modifications and techniques that extend the instrument’s microtonal and timbral capacities, with albumsAurogeny(2023) andPanthalassa: Dream Music of the Once and Future Ocean(2017) called “consistently fascinating…pulsating, scintillating music realised brilliantly…with momentous results” (Julian Cowley,The Wire) and “likely to offer a profound impact on the very nature of listening” (Stephen Smoliar,The Rehearsal Studio). In addition to Ghost Ensemble, Ben’s recent collaborators include Loadbang, House On Fire, Capella Ornamentata, Jeonghyeon Joo, Phill Niblock, UMass-Amherst’s Futuring Lab and Y3K exhibitions, and writers and intermedia artists Margot Douaihy, Lei Han, Kyoung eun Kang, Sandy Litchfield, Edie Meidav, and Goldie Poblador. An active Deep Listening facilitator in the tradition of early mentor Pauline Oliveros, Ben holds a Performer-Composer DMA from CalArts and has taught at CalArts and CUNY-New York City College of Technology.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Epsilon Spires, 190 Main Street,Brattleboro, Vermont, United States
Tickets
