Southern Sonic is a new festival from the Center for Contemporary Arts (CAC) for audiences seeking new aural experiences. The event will run from Thursday, May 10 to Sunday, May 13 at various locations across the city, presenting local and regional artists working at the outer boundaries of experimental music, sound art and sound-based visual art. With a host of world premieres and new collaborations, the festival will feature work that explodes and recombines genres–from experimental hip-hop to avant garde chamber music; utopian installation environments to sonified architecture; remixes of vintage cinema to airborne music made by drones.
This festival will also feature discussions of the historical practices and base ingredients that have made this city and this region a hotbed of aural innovation. Each night will close with an improvised music set. Southern Sonic seeks to present artists who operate in the idioms of experimental music, sound art and sound-based visual art, but the very definitions of what might be cast as “experimental” are entirely up for grabs.
Southern Sonic wishes to honor and explore music- and art-making in New Orleans and the region, supporting the work of artists and practitioners using forms, technologies, tonalities and resources available in the South today. These artists create with the same innovative spirit that made New Orleans the birthplace of Jazz, but work from an entirely different point of departure. The curators (Andrea Anderson, Courtney Bryan, Jebney Lewis, Aurora Nealand, Mariana Sheppard and Rick Snow) have assembled a group of artists who defy genre expectations and redefine the goals of music and sound art.
Featured speakers and performers include Courtney Bryan, Amy Bryan, Alma Bryan Powell, Jane Cassidy, Holland Hopson, Tim Feeney, Andrew Raffo Dewar, Jeff Albert, Rob Cambre, Cliff Hines, Trapper Keeper, Free Feral, Nick Benoit, Yotam Haber, Anna Schuleit Haber, Jebney Lewis, Steve Parker, Rick Snow, Charm Taylor, Adee Roberson, the Versipel New Music Collective and more to be announced. Tickets to individual performances and panels are available now. Check out the full schedule below:
Thursday, May 10,
7 p.m.
Panel Discussion: The Experience of Women and Gender Non-Conforming Artists in Contemporary Experimental Music and Sound Art
Moderator: Courtney Bryan (Tulane School of Music)
Panelists: Jane Cassidy, Free Feral, Charm Taylor, Kari Besharse, and Aurora Nealand
Black Box Theater
Free
9 p.m.
Improv Session
Nick Benoit & Guests
Improviser’s Stage in the Atrium
Free / Cash Bar
Friday, May 11
7:30 p.m.
Performance: Courtney Bryan, Amy Bryan and Versipel New Music Collective
CAC Camp Street Warehouse
Tickets: $10 / $5 Members
10 p.m.
Improv Session
Jeff Albert & Guests
Improviser’s Stage in the Atrium
Free / Cash Bar
Saturday, May 12
11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Workshop: The Makers of New Orleans
Creating Simple Electric Instruments for All Ages
CAC Black Box Theater
Free
2 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Sonifying the Unlikely; Using Technology to Make Objects and Architecture to Make Music
Moderator: Dan Sharp (Tulane School of Music)
Panelists: New Orleans Airlift (Taylor Lee Shepard, Rick Snow), Collide (Steve Parker), University of Alabama School of Music (Andrew Raffo Dewar, Tim Feeney, Holland Hopson)
CAC Black Box Theater
Free
3 p.m.
Performance: Rick Snow’s In the Shade
CAC St. Joseph’s Street Warehouse
Free
7:30 p.m.
Performance: Andrew Raffo Dewar’s Anabolism
CAC Black Box Theater
Charm Taylor & Adee Robinson’s She is the Future
CAC Camp Street Warehouse
Tickets: $10 / $5 Members
10 p.m.
Improv Session
Cliff Hines and Trapper Keeper
Improviser’s Stage in the Atrium
Free / Cash Bar
Sunday, May 13
2 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Presenting Experimental Music in New Orleans and Beyond
Moderator: Matt Sakakeeney (Tulane School of Music)
Panelists: Jeff Albert (Open Ears), Delaney Martin (New Orleans Airlift), Steve Parker (Blanton Museum, Austin, TX), Rob Cambre (Anxious Sounds), Gianna Chachere (The New Quorum)
CAC Black Box Theater
Free
3 p.m.
Performance: Jebney Lewis & Steve Parker’s Drones
Guided Walk – Location TBA
Free
7:30 p.m.
Performance: Free Feral’s Birth of a Nation
Yotam Haber and Anna Shuleit Haber’s The Voice Imitator
CAC Camp Street Warehouse
Tickets: $10 / $5 Members
9:30 p.m.
Improv Session: Rob Cambre & Guests
Improviser’s Stage in the Atrium
Free / Cash Bar
