Seattle composer Nat Evans will be presenting an original, site-specific music event that fuses nature, music, community, and subjectivity of experience, which will take place just after sunset on April 26th in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Participants will download the music onto their iPods or other portable listening device ahead of time and arrive at the corner of Old Fulton and Water St (across the street from Pete’s downtown restaurant) by 7:40pm. Participants will then walk into the park together, and just after sunset the cue will be given to press play and participants will sit back and observe while listening.

The music for Blue Hour is a mix of new and pre-existing compositions that have been arranged to best compliment the changing of light during the hour after sunset. This is the third in a series of time-specific pieces Evans has written – his pieces for sunrise and sunset will be presented in Brooklyn in the days leading up the Blue Hour event - details for those events can be found at natevansmusic.com.

To review...
1. Participants download the music onto their ipods.
2. Show up at the corner of Old Fulton and Water St (across from Pete’s) by 7:40pm on April 26th.
3. Press play when instructed to just after sunset!

Last year I began presenting the second in a series of pieces based around sunrise and sunset that eventually evolved into the Sunset + Music tour, and opportunities to present the event at a few festivals arose as well. One of the places I presented it was in Los Angeles and sound artist Chris Kallmyer attended the event and wrote an amazing article for NewMusicBox that uses my Sunset + Music event as a jumping off point into the larger themes of space, place, and perception. Make sure to check out the article on the NewMusicBox website.

Composer Scott Comanzo attended the initial New York City event, and has since commissioned me to do another time and iPod based piece for his Private Works festival. This new work, which I've been working on for about 3 months, is entitled Blue Hour. Participants will download the music onto their personal listening device and show up to a predetermined and west-facing location. At sunset the cue will be given to press play, and participants will sit back and listen while observing. The music will continue on for around 45 minutes, deep into twilight. The music, which is similar to these other time-specific pieces sonically, is also composed in the same way in that it utilizes both new and preexisting works as well as field recordings to best complement the changing of light at the pivotal moment beginning at sunset until dark. Blue Hour will be presented in Hartford for the aforementioned festival on April 28th, and it will also be presented in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and other cities on different days throughout 2012.

This Saturday my Sunset + Music event will be included in the ONN/OF festival here in Seattle. People should meet
outside the festival venue (The Sweater Factory in Ballard) at 4:45 to participate in this time-specific music event based around sunset. Participants should download the piece onto their portable listening device, and at the event they’ll be given the cue to press play 10 minutes before sunset. We’ll then sit back and listen and observe the changing of light with the music at this pivotal moment. Click here to download the music for the event.

To review...
1. Participants download the music and put it on their iPod.
2. Show up to The Sweater Factory in Ballard at 4:45pm on Saturday, January 28th
3. Press play when instructed to 10 minutes before sunset!

This event was presented around the country in the summer of 2011. You can read more about the Seattle events from last summer in The Seattle Times or on KUOW's website.

On December 21st Tom Peyton and DoTank presented Tom's Bell by Bell event at Make Music Winter in New York. The video above contains music from both yours truly as well as Tom. I was very excited to write a piece of music for this ensemble, and as you can see from the video, it seems as though the event was successful from the standpoint of turnout as well as the anticipated and welcome outside sounds. This last weekend seems to have been filled with moments of happy accidents with sounds mingling...potatoes frying in a skillet creating fifths slowly inverting upwards with John Luther Adams playing on the stereo, a band saw outside creating a happy drone beneath some Friedman string quartets, and Doug Laustsen played a field recording of my piece, Lament, being performed at MMW on his radio show and noted the sounds intermingling as well. Perhaps my ears are unusually attuned to noticing such things since my Sunset + Music events over the summer encouraged such things, but whatever the case, it's been a pleasant series of sonic events as of late. To hear Lament in its entirety being played at Bell by Bell as well as a few other composers works for this event, click here.

Listening List
Lou Reed - Set the Twilight Reeling
John Luther Adams - The Light that Fills the World
Woody Allen - Wild Man Blues
David Lang - Child
Stravinsky - Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra