Sonic Waking
Steve Heimbecker, Ken Gregory, Shawn Pinchbeck
“The recordings on this CD mark the beginnings of Send + Receive: A Festival of Sound, a festival which I directed until 2004. On November 21, 1998, a crowd of about 100 people gathered in the Bulman Student Centre at the University of Winnipeg. No one was sure what to expect from the pile of gear installed in the middle of the room surrounded by some chairs, and four speakers (a quadraphonic mix). While Ken, Steve and Shawn began to play, the audience took up the ‘invitation’ to gather round. Chairs were slid to the side. The performance gradually built up layers of sound and then something totally unexpected happened. The crowd began to circle, mostly counterclockwise, in a slow orbit around the artists, moving into and out of different sound fields, creating their own ‘mix,’ erasing the role of ‘passive’ audience and encouraged active participation, one that celebrates improvisation, and rewards people for getting off their asses. It was a spontaneous and beautiful reaction, to this day one of my favourite moments of Send + Receive.” -Steve Bates, February 2006
“In 1993 and 1994, Ken Gregory, Steve Heimbecker and Shawn Pinchbeck met at various sound art happenings in western Canada. Previously not knowing that each other were active in the prairies, they quickly realized that they had many things in common with their artistic practices and their origins in the mid eighties in isolation in their respective prairie cities; Ken from Winnipeg Manitoba, Steve from Calgary Alberta, and Shawn from Edmonton Alberta. In 1995, Steve and Shawn, because of their close proximity, started collaborating together regularly. Ken and Steve both went to Edmonton several times in the mid to late ninties to perform and conduct workshops for the Boreal Electroacoustic Music Society (BEAMS) of which Shawn was the president of at the time. This particular project started out in February 1998 with an invitation to Ken, Steve and Shawn to go to emmedia in Calgary to do a week long collaborative residency ending with a concert at the Alberta College of Art and Design. The results were inspiring for all of them. Ken arranged a concert in November 1998 at the Send and Receive [001] a festival of sound in Winnipeg. This recording is the result of that concert and indeed a snapshot of the electroacoustic activities going on in the prairies at that time.” -Shawn Pinchbeck
- Composer(s): Steve Heimbecker, Ken Gregory, Shawn Pinchbeck
CD (GPH 001)
- Label: [Independent]
- GPH 001
- 2005
- UCC 775020698420
- Total duration: 50:32
- Jewel case
- 125 mm × 142 mm × 10 mm
- 90 g