Basilica Hudson to Host 24-Hour ‘Drone’ Festival

Prurient

Prurient

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – 24-HOUR DRONE: Experiments in Sound and Music, an immersive event and all-encompassing experience featuring musicians from the region and beyond experimenting in electronic, psychedelic, classical, non-Western and instrumental drone music for a full 24 hours, inaugurates the fifth season at Basilica Hudson on Saturday, April 25, 2015, at 3pm, running through Sunday, April 26, at 3pm. Featured musicians include Prurient, SUUNS, Bobby Previte, Patrick Higgins, Arone Dyer, Randy Gibson, Eric Fraser, Brian Dewan, Eliot Kessel, Slow Collins, and Lea Bertucci. The main event will be set in-the-round in Basilica’s Main Hall, and related events and support by area organizations include the Second Ward Foundation, Wave Farm and WGXC.
24-HOUR DRONE occurs in conjunction with a re-creation of what happened when Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train stopped in Hudson on April 25, 1865. Organized by local historian Carole Osterink, a reenactment will set forth from the outdoor grounds of Basilica, cross over the train tracks, and honor Lincoln’s passing with a dirge sung by women dressed all in white, on Saturday at 8:45 pm. Timed to coincide with the very hour of Lincoln’s funeral train arrival 150 years ago, the original event was described by the train commander as “one of the weirdest ever witnessed.”

Afterwards, legendary experimental composer Bobby Previte will conduct an ensemble of Hudson Valley musicians at Basilica, in his re-imagination of Aaron Copland’s masterpiece, “Lincoln Portrait,” narrated by Brian Dewan.

Admission allows attendees to come and go as they please, but festival organizers say those who make the commitment to this endurance, long-duration work will be rewarded with the intangible feeling of meditative contentment, pure bliss, and communal collaboration.

Suuns

Suuns

Located only two hours by train from NYC, and just across the street from the Amtrak station, the event is set in Basilica’s 7,000 sq. ft. Main Hall, and will be a fully immersive experience in-the-round with no stage. The circular arrangement is based off of the concept of a “tonal clock,” a visual representation of the chromatic scale, and the harmonic sacred geometry that ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras helped develop.

An adventurous collaboration with the Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands, this is 24-HOUR DRONE’s first installment in the U.S., with plans to hold it annually in the U.S. and Europe, after the idea was sparked during a late-night New Years conversation in 2007 between Basilica co-founder Melissa Auf der Maur and festival organizer Bob van Heur. The first 24-HOUR DRONE was held in tandem with the Le Guess Who? festival in November of 2014.

Now in its ninth year, Le Guess Who? has become the Netherlands’ go-to event for experimental, collaborative, and otherwise out of the box musical thinking, just as Basilica Hudson has done so in the Hudson Valley. Independent to their core, both organizations are excited to collaborate to not only pair performers to venues, but to join like-minded artists on the same bill and present a drone experience like no other.

 

Arone Dyer of Buke & Gase

Arone Dyer of Buke & Gase

The talent roster includes the following performers, with more to be announced:

Prurient, one of the most well-known and influential names in noise music

SUUNS, Montreal-based futurists

Bobby Previte, legendary percussionist, composer and bandleader in the thriving Downtown jazz and experimental music scene

Patrick Higgins, of ZS, described as an “electrified Bach for the classical guitar”

Arone Dyer, of musical duo Buke and Gase

Randy Gibson, a minimalist composer/performer who creates enveloping and ritualistic works in Just Intonation

Eric Fraser, an emerging exponent of a rare style of North Indian classical bansuri flute playing known for its purity and antiquity

Brian Dewan, of Dewanatron; inventor, composer and local renaissance man

Eliot Kessel, co-collaborator of sister and fellow musician Lia Ices, an extraordinaire of production and composition

Slow Collins, the psych mayhem union of Alexander Turnquist and John Rosenthal

Lea Bertucci, interdisciplinary artist/composer/improviser and bass clarinetist who is also an artist-in-residence at Issue Project Room

Bobby Previte (photo Michael DiDonna)

Bobby Previte (photo Michael DiDonna)

Adding depth and diversity to the lineup will be local favorites C. Lavender (high and low frequency instrumentalist of Cock E.S.P. and Long Distance Poison), Hariprakash (gong sound healer), John Rosenthal (bassist/composer and manager of Second Ward Foundation), Alexander Turnquist (accomplished 12-string guitarist and composer), Ultraam (improvising psychedelic noise rock/jazz band), Logan Visscher (noise/experimentalist of World Lines), Harmonic Frost (Troy-based drone/ambient musician), and sound artists Seth Chrisman and Nathan McLaughlin.

There will be dinner for sale on Saturday evening, brunch for sale on Sunday morning, and the bar will be open on Saturday night.

Because Basilica is a unique industrial setting with limited seating, organizers recommend that drone attendees bring camping pads, yoga mats and/or pillows; sleeping bags/blankets, comfortable clothes, bottles for refill at Basilica’s water fountain, and endurance-enhancing snacks.

Basilica will present video work from Second Ward Foundation’s permanent video art collection in the North Hall on Sunday in tandem with 24-HOUR DRONE. Basilica is especially thankful to John Rosenthal and Second Ward Foundation for collaborating and supporting the event.

In collaboration with Wave Farm, 24-HOUR DRONE will be streamed online in its entirety, with selected hours broadcast on Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM radio station in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley.

Basilica Hudson is a rapidly growing, newly incorporated nonprofit multidisciplinary arts center located in Hudson, New York which supports the creation, production and presentation of arts, culture and sustainable community.  Founded in 2010 by musician Melissa Auf der Maur and filmmaker Tony Stone, Basilica is sited in a 17,000 sq. ft. historic industrial factory. Through its programs — ranging from acclaimed music festival, Basilica SoundScape, to experimental film screenings, to unconventional art events, to large-scale community gatherings — Basilica forges experiences that aspire to the scale, grit and beauty of the building and its surroundings.

Le Guess Who? is a four-day festival that takes place each November in the heart of Utrecht, The Netherlands. The festival combines a top-notch collection of today’s burgeoning talent with legendary, one-of-a-kind acts to create an inimitable atmosphere that electrifies the city. For international travelers and locals alike, Le Guess Who? offers the opportunity to see high-caliber performers in the most liberal of festival settings: fifteen venues of varying shapes, sizes and purposes. From churches and galleries to pop venues, each plays host to a deftly curated lineup. In 2015, Le Guess Who? Festival will take place November 19-22.

 

 

 

 

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