When WiIl the iPod Become Obsolete?

Toronto sound artist explores the ever-changing state of
music experience through sly exchange of human technologies

Walper Terrace Hotel ArtGallery in Kitchener, April 25^th-- May 3

(Toronto, ON) ’Äì What does it mean to be obsolete? This key question sparked sound artist Micheline Roi’Äôs inspiration for Obsolescence, a sound installation that explores the ever-evolving manner in which music reaches us.

For Roi, the home piano stands as an icon and witness to vast changes in music technology. Over the last century, its function has shifted from being one of the main sources of home entertainment to nothing more than a piece of furniture. Displaced by electronic keyboards, hi-fidelity audio and home speaker systems, the home piano is reduced to a curiosity ’Äì an ornamental antique of music technology. Now the loudspeaker functions as the central audio interface in home entertainment, creating a radical shift in the sound of domesticity from a social, self-produced acoustic to a manufactured digital environment. The question now is: how much longer will the loudspeaker last before it is superseded by the next piece of technology?

In Obsolescence, which opens at the Walper Terrace Hotel Art Gallery in Kitchener on April 25^th, the roles of an antique upright piano and 52 loudspeakers are exchanged. In this whole-gallery installation, the loudspeaker is positioned as an antique ornament through which the voices of pianists are heard, and the piano evolves from an ornamental piece to a modern-day transducer by which other sounds are made ’Äì not by it, but on it and through it.

Obsolescence is just one of over thirty events in CMC’Äôs 2008-2009 New Music in New Places festival series, designed to showcase the work of Canada’Äôs talented composers outside of the concert hall and in the communities where they work and live. Obsolescence also appears as part of the Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound, running April 24 ’Äì May 3 in various locations throughout Kitchener, Ontario.

EVENT DETAILS

WHO: Composer and Sound Artist Micheline Roi

Canadian Music Centre ’Äì Ontario Region

Open Ears Festival of Music and Sound

WHAT: The Canadian Music Centre’Äôs New Music in New Places festival series presents Obsolescence ’Äì a sound installation that explores the ever-evolving manner in which music reaches us. For more information, visit nmnp08.ning.com or www.openears.ca

WHEN: April 25 4 - 7 pm
April 26 12 - 5 pm
April 28 4 - 7 pm
April 29 4 - 7 pm

April 30 4 - 7 pm
May 1 4 - 7 pm
May 2 12 - 5 pm
May 3 12 - 5 pm

WHERE: Walper Terrace Hotel Art Gallery
1 King St. W, Kitchener, ON N2G 1A1
Take #401 to Highway 8. Highway 8 becomes King Street. Continue on King.
The Hotel is on the corner of King & Queen (Entrance off Queen).

HOW MUCH: FREE

New Music in New Places acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Music Fund, administered by The SOCAN Foundation.

The complete New Music in New Places concert schedule is available online at nmnp08.ning.com.