Join Watermill Alum Adam Lenz and musician Zach Rowden as they discuss their recent collaborative work A Way Of Providing Ventilation (WAC), developed and exhibited during an artist residency at Windsor Art Center in Windsor, Connecticut. The work examines the history and architecture of the iconic tobacco sheds in the Connecticut River Valley through charcoal drawings and a collaborative, site-specific sound installation. The duo worked together to interpret Lenz’s charcoal drawings during a series of improvisation sessions with double bass, fiddle, and tobacco leaves, combining these recordings with the auxiliary sounds of the adjacent train station and bus line. The work seeks to imagine and sonify the ventilation patterns of the slat-walled curing sheds, bringing to life the creaks, crackles, howls, and roars of the wind pouring through these historic structures.
Viewpoints is The Watermill Center’s year-round conversation series, granting artists and art enthusiasts the opportunity to gather and discuss creative themes vital to the contemporary moment. The winter series of Viewpoints is free and will continue each Wednesday in January in the spirit of past Nights @ The Round Table intimate gatherings and presentations by community fellows, staff members, esteemed alumni, and friends.
Due to COVID-19, this Viewpoints presentation will take place online. All registered attendees will receive an email with a Zoom link the morning of the event.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/viewpoints-with-adam-lenz-and-zach-rowden-tickets-132103080871
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Adam Lenz is a composer, multidisciplinary artist, producer, and educator based in Connecticut. His work spans composition, sound art, installation, works on paper, and performance and examines themes of fantasy, memory, materiality, and collaboration. Adam has worked alongside acclaimed director and designer Robert Wilson since 2013. They partnered on Wilson’s first radio drama, Monsters of Grace II, which premiered at ZKM in Germany, and again on Wilson’s production of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros at Teatrul National “Marin Sorescu” in Romania, with subsequent performances at the National Cinema in Romania, Cankarjev Dom in Slovenia, and Platonov Arts Festival in Russia. Adam’s work has also been featured in partnerships with artists, directors, performers, and designers including Gintare Minelgaite (Dr. Gora Parasit), Baboo Liao (Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters), Dimitris Papaioannou, Zach Rowden, Robert Black (Bang on a Can All-Stars), Abderrahman Anzaldua, and Matthew Thurber. Presently, Adam teaches electronic music and sound art at Central Connecticut State University and the University of Hartford where he is currently the director of Hartt Studio D and the Composers’ Seminar / Institute of Contemporary American Music lecture series.
Zach Rowden is a singular young voice in the American experimental music scene, dealing with the acoustic and performative possibilities of the upright/electric bass, violin, and tape machines. Whether embracing microtonal fiddle music in his duo Tongue Depressor (with Henry Birdsey), contributing as a member and soloist in Iancu Dumitrescu and the late Ana-Maria Avram’s Hyperion Ensemble, collaborating with Tyshawn Sorey, Leila Bordreuil, Michael Foster, Robert Black, Charmaine Lee, and many others, Zach lends a distinct focus and sense of adventure to everything he touches. His work has been presented at internationally recognized venues including Harpa (Reykjavik), Cafe Oto (London), ISSUE Project Room (New York), Firehouse 12 (New Haven), Romanian Radio Hall (Bucharest), Heimathafen Neukölln (Berlin), and Real Art Ways (Hartford), and in galleries, living rooms, basements, and alternative venues across the United States and Europe.
photos copyright Chloe Bellemere, Peter Gannushkin
