When daylight stretches to its peak on the solstice this Sunday, The Candle Factory in Traverse City transforms into an immersive light and soundscape of improvised music and dazzling colors. This one-of-a-kind performance is the brainchild of two interdisciplinary artists — a choreomusicologist and a creative technologist — who both also happen to be versatile improvisatory composers and pianists.
Artists Daniel Mangiaracino and Cardin Chung are brought to northern Michigan by the Falco Woodworks Artist Residency. Both of their artistic practices span movement, music and media. Mangiaracino specializes in classical piano performance — a form that he has woven into dance, film and interactive media development. Similarly, Chung's background in coding and engineering takes center stage when he uses interactive technologies as an extension of his sound and movement.
Though it may be difficult to visualize their performance solely through verbal description, the two musicians gave an intimate sneak peek of their original and improvised musical pieces in IPR's Studio A for what to expect on Sunday.
Hear the Studio A interview and performance by clicking or tapping "Listen" above.
Mangiaracino harnesses his eclectic artistic experiences to craft a musical language of wonder.
Mangiaracino often likes to evoke a sense of wonder in his multidisciplinary practice. The Studio A session was no exception.
He began the visit by launching straight into two of his compositions: his own "Inference no. 2" and an original improvised transcription of Bill Evans's "Reflections in D." His affinity for jazz was apparent amid his free-flowing notes and delightful ebbs and flows of tempo, continually surprising the room of listeners with unexpected swells and echoes throughout the two pieces.
Although his performance in Studio A was exclusively acoustic, Mangiaracino often bridges sound design and electronic music in his compositional process.
" I'm very influenced by a lot of electronic genres, and I think piano is a wonderful medium to explore how that genre and the variety of texture translates into a singular instrument," he said.
When asked why he named the first work "Inference," Mangiaracino replied, " The general definition of an inference is drawing information pragmatically by logic and reasoning, rather than from sensory input and more emotional conclusions.
"I think that it's fun to push the boundaries of those definitions. Because especially in the creative process, some of the decisions that I'll make based off of emotion aren't really necessarily emotional decisions."
Chung aims to cultivate intimate moments between performer and audience in his art.
Before Chung started performing, he situated himself in an unlikely set-up: he sat on the bench before a piano, a guitar slung over his shoulder and his electronic equipment to his right. Three instruments at once.
His first piece, still untitled, began with a looping guitar riff that became an underlying rhythmic pulse. Chung began to respond with a thematic jazz-like guitar melody. Even when the riff dropped out midway due to technical issues, he continued to improvise — and eventually alternated with the piano.
The melody was an intimate one. Simultaneously calming and charming, the music was a conversation between guitar and piano amid a pulsating background, a feat only possible with Chung's fluency across instruments and technologies.
His second piece — which will become the foundation for an audio-reactive light show on Sunday — was initially sketched during his time in Traverse City last fall and only completed a day before the recording session.
" [The second work] came from an improvisation I did back in October when I had visited Traverse City," said Chung. "The Milliken Theater had this very beautiful grand [piano]. It just has such a soft and beautiful tone to it, and from there I made this improvisation where I was playing this B-flat note constantly as everything around it was shifting and changing.
"Based on the frequency of the piano being played, different lights will turn off and on. 'Creative technologists' refer to people who use a lot of coding to integrate within their artworks like that."
Sunday's cross-disciplinary performance mixes their processes and personalities.
When asked about their favorite part of collaborating, the two were initially silent before breaking into laughter.
"The silence is because there are too many things, just to be clear!" Mangiaracino said.
Mangiaracino's focus on sparking wonder and Chung's interest in evoking intimacy within their audiences will come to light — literally — in an innovative audiovisual experience as the two perform and improvise with each other on the solstice.
While the June 21st performance at the Candle Factory is sold out, the Falco Woodworks Artist Residency will be presenting another performance at Milliken Auditorium on June 28 at 3 p.m.
Music performed in Studio A
Daniel Mangiaracino, Inference no. 2
Daniel Mangiaracino, Transcription on "Reflections in D" by Bill Evans
Cardin Chung, 2 pieces
Jack Conners engineered this edition of Studio A.
Additional production support came from Emma Stadelmann and Julianna Stratton.
