Virtual CONTAQT
TERRY RILEY 88th BIRTHDAY GLOBAL CELEBRATION
Saturday, June 24, 2023 / Midnight (12:00am EST / 4am GMT)
Directed by Evan Ziporyn and Jerry Pergolesi
Technical Production by Jeff Morton, Wawken Studio
Additional Technical Assistance by Andrew Noseworthy
POPPY@88
To celebrate Terry Riley's 88th birthday, ContaQt and MIT Sounding presented a global telematic event that resonated – literally - worldwide. At the stroke of midnight EDT on June 24th, 2023, a diverse community of 88 individuals, spread across 60 locations in 23 countries and 6 continents came together online to play music with one another, live and in real-time. With no pre-recorded material, no click tracks, no safety nets or contingency plans, together they performed Poppy@88, a collective composition arranged by Evan Ziporyn, paying homage to Riley’s iconic 1967 piece Poppy Nogood & The Phantom Band.
The livestreamed concert pushed the boundaries of virtual telematic performance, showcasing the transformative power of artistic collaboration combined with smart technology to transcend structural and geographical barriers. While previous live telematic performances have involved larger ensembles, with groups of musicians clustered in 2-12 transmitting stations, this performance distinguished itself by originating from a significantly larger number of locations, 60 in all.
This creative repurposing of technology is very much in the spirit of Terry Riley’s original piece. In the 1960’s, Riley utilized tape loops – originally a DIY ‘hack’ of reel-to-reel - to create distant canonic layers of melody: his ‘Phantom Band.’ For this performance, in 2023, the ensemble similarly repurposed the inherent limitations of streaming audio – i.e., physical distance and varying data rates – to conjure similarly complex layered textures.
This global virtual event brought together musicians from Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Istanbul, New York City, Pretoria, São Paulo, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, Warsaw, and more. From Mallacoota, in southeast Australia, to Raufarhöfn, in northeast Iceland, and 58 other locations in between, musicians from a wide range of genres and backgrounds used Audiomovers’ ListenTo to stream their sound to Wawken, Saskatchewan, where Canadian composer/sound artist Jeff Morton mixed and retransmitted their sounds back to them – and the world – in real time.
After watching the performance from Mito, Japan, Terry Riley himself joined the livestream to greet the musicians, expressing his profound appreciation: "It felt like the earth itself were singing. You are my community."
THE POPPY 88 MUSICIANS
Adrien Lambinet (Belgium), Ahmet Yağmur Kucur (Turkey), Allison Wiebe (Canada), Amelia Hollander Ames (USA), Amy Zuidema (Ireland), Andrew Noseworthy (Canada), Audrey Wozniak (Germany), Berglind Maria Tomasdottir (Iceland), Bex Burch (UK), Brendan Landis (USA), Brian Stuligross (USA), Dan Plonsey (USA), Evan Ziporyn (Japan), Fie Schouten (France), George Brooks (USA), Gerry Leonard (Ireland), Gloria Cheng (Greece), Gyan Riley (Japan), Hubert Zemler (Poland), Jacob Means (Italy), Jeff Morton (Canada), Jerry Pergolesi (USA), Jesse Lewis (USA), Joan Jeanrenaud (USA), John Oswald (Canada), Jon Siddall (Canada), Julian Coryell (USA), Kala Ramnath (India), Kamil Szuszkiewicz (Poland), Kate Smith (Germany), Kate Stenberg (USA), Katrina Krimsky (USA), Krzysztof Dys (Poland), Laurel Pardue (Germany), Leo Eguchi (USA), Lihi Haruvi (Israel), Luciano Chessa (France), Marc Duby (South Africa), Mary-Katherine Finch (Canada), Maya Beiser (USA), Megumi Stohs Lewis (USA), Miguel Frasconi (USA), Morgan Fisher (Japan), Nick Joliat (USA), Padma Newsome (Australia), Paul Dresher (USA), Paulo Santos (Brazil), Rafał Zapała (Poland), Reynaliz Herrara (USA), Rick Sacks (Canada), Robert Rich (USA), Ryan Meyer (USA) , Sarah Cahill (USA), Sarah Fraser Raff (Canada), Sasha Callahan (USA), Shabda Owens (USA), Thollem (USA), Tina Pearson (Canada), Tobias Klein (Netherlands), Tolgahan Çoğulu (Turkey), Tracy Silverman (USA), Utsav Lal (USA), Victor Gama (Angola), Waclaw Zimpel (Poland), Yaz Lancaster (USA)
VISUAL ARTISTS
ACVIlla, Arnold Dreyblatt, Christine Southworth, Jun Hoshino, Terry Riley
BEHIND-THE-SCENES SUPPORT
Andrew Timar, Allaudin Mathieu, Claire Chase, Dennis Russell Davies, Heidi Ericksen, Ian Williams, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Abell, Katherine Higgins, Leah Talatinian, Leila Kinney, Lydia Brosnahan, Maki Namekawa, Ramon Sender, Sara MIyamoto, Serge Orloff, Tadashi Miyamoto, TImothy Lemp
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Audiomovers, Canada Council for the Arts, MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology, Toronto Arts Council, Wawken Studio
Virtual CONTAQT
Virtual CONTAQT is an ongoing and developing project hosted by ContaQt, and featuring past and future collaborators. Initiated by the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, the project represents the ensemble's search for a means of collaborating with artists from around the world while still primarily based in different geographic areas. Initial experiments included performances of the group's formative arrangement of Brian Eno’s Discreet Music using online chat and podcast software. Following a period of trial and error between ContaQt’s Andrew Noseworthy and Jerry Pergolesi, and Evan Ziporyn, ContaQt established a setup that allows each player to hear themselves, hear each other, and record themselves using the Audiomovers ListenTo plugin in conjunction with a digital audio workstation. In developing a practice for creating in this virtual environment, the group (also consisting of Allison Wiebe, Mary-Katherine Finch, and Sara Fraser Raff) sought the guidance of experienced telematic performer and sound artist/composer Tina Pearson. The group then enlisted the technical expertise of sound artist/composer Jeff Morton to coordinate live sound and broadcasting, bringing us to the present state of Virtual ContaQt.
Virtual CONTAQT is made possible through the generous support of
Past Dates
| DATE | VENUE | LOCATION | PROGRAM |
| 2019 09 02 | Intersection Festival, Yonge Dundas Square | Toronto, ON | Art Decade with Evan Ziporyn: Bowie/Eno/Fripp/Budd |
| 2019 08 03 | LOUD Festival, Mass MOCA | North Adams, MA | Oh! Canada (Allison Cameron, Ann Southam, Andrew Noseworthy, Jerry Pergolesi) |
| 2019 08 02 | LOUD Festival, Mass MOCA | North Adams, MA | Discreet Music with film Deck by Suzanne Bocanegra |
| 2019 07 31 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Cambridge MA | Art Decade with Evan Ziporyn: Bowie/Eno/Fripp/Budd |
| 2017 05 27 | Wavelength: Doors Open | Toronto, ON | A Gossamer Bit (Allison Cameron) |
| 2016 06 27 | Queer Arts Festival | Vancouver, BC | A Gossamer Bit (Allison Cameron), Ann Southam, Jerry Pergolesi |
| 2016 06 26 | Open Space | Victoria, BC | A Gossamer Bit/Discreet Music |
| 2016 06 25 | Mountain View Cemetery | Vancouver, BC | Discreet Music with film Deck by Suzanne Bocanegra |
| 2016 06 12 | Le Poisson Rouge | New Yoirk, NY | Discreet Music with film Deck by Suzanne Bocanegra |
| 2010 11 21 | Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival | Huddersfield, UK | Discreet Music with film Deck by Suzanne Bocanegra |
| 2009 09 09 | Museum Of Modern Art | New York, NY | Elevated (David Lang) with films by William Wegman, Bill Morrison, Matt Mullican |
| 2009 09 03 | EMPAC, Rensselaer Polytechnic | Troy, NY | Elevated (David Lang) with films by William Wegman, Bill Morrison, Matt Mullican |
| 2009 05 29 | Wordless Music | New Yoirk, NY | Discreet Music with film Deck by Suzanne Bocanegra |
| 2009 05 01 | National Archives | Ottawa, ON | Elevated (David Lang) with films by William Wegman, Bill Morrison, Matt Mullican |
| 2009 04 29 | Open Ears Festival | Kitchener, ON | Elevated (David Lang) with films by William Wegman, Bill Morrison, Matt Mullican |
| 2008 06 12 | Royal Ontario Museum | Toronto, ON | North American premiere of Music Space Reflection by Simon Bainbridge |
| 2008 06 01 | Bang On a Can Marathon | New Yoirk, NY | Discreet Music with film Deck by Suzanne Bocanegra |
