TRADITIONAL JEWISH SOUNDS MEET CONTEMPORARY MUSICAL TECHNOLOGIES AT BARD COLLEGE WITH A PERFORMANCE ON APRIL 18 BY BOB GLUCK FEATURING SINGER ZOE B. ZAK
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-On Thursday, April 18, at 8:00 p.m. in Blum Hall on the Bard College campus, composer and performer Bob Gluck will weave traditional Jewish sounds with contemporary musical techniques in a concert titled "Sounds You Can Touch." The event is presented by the Music Program at Bard and is free and open to the public.
Gluck will perform on homebuilt electronic instruments, including an "eBoard" (a multisensor interactive instrument) and an electronically expanded shofar (ram's horn). His music incorporates sounds from many aspects of Jewish life?religious, secular, communal, and political?and this program includes his new work, Shirim Hashmaliyim: Electric Songs, a series of Jewish text settings for voice and electronics that will feature singer Zoe B. Zak.
"Sounds You Can Touch" offers an opportunity to experience Gluck's unique creative synthesis of new technologies and Jewish music. Albany-based Rabbi Dan Ornstein commented about a recent performance that "Gluck's interpretations of traditional Jewish musical and liturgical traditions are bold, innovative, and fun. Who else can turn the haunting and spiritually uplifting sound of the traditional shofar of the Jewish New Year into a soul journey that takes the listener to so many different places?"
Gluck's music has been performed in Austria, Berlin, Boston, across New York State, and on the web. His work has been discussed and reviewed in Computer Music Journal, Moment, The Forward, Reconstructionism Today, and Hadassah Magazine, and is detailed in Seth Rogovoy's recent book, The Essential Klezmer. His recording, Stories Heard and Retold, is a series of sonic collages drawing upon sounds from Jewish life. Gluck directs the Electronic Music Studio at the State University of New York at Albany, and serves as coordinator of Jewish Campus Life at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Zoe B. Zak is a performing and recording artist from Ulster County. She performs regularly with her current ensemble, Zak and Sons. Her background includes jazz and blues, as well as avant-garde piano improvisation; among her recent recordings is Zoe B. Zak, a series of traditional Hebrew text settings woven together with jazz, Middle Eastern melodies, and world beat rhythms.
For further information about the concert, call the Music Program at 845-758-7250.
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(3.20.02)