TONSPUR & MORROWSOUND PRESENT FOUR WINDS

TONSPUR & MORROWSOUND PRESENT FOUR WINDS
LIVE STREAMED WINTER SOLISTICE CONCERT
CLOSING EVENT FOR THE SOLO EXHIBITION
CHARLIE MORROW : A GATHERING
@ KUNSTHALLE KOHTA, HELSINKI, FINLAND

TONSPUR & MORROWSOUND present FOUR WINDS Live-streamed Winter Solistice Concert with pieces by Charlie Morrow • Phil Dadson • Phill Niblock • Åsa Simma Closing Event for the show • CHARLIE MORROW : A Gathering @ Kunsthalle KOHTA, Helsinki, Finland

Monday 21 Dec 2020 • 17:00—18:30 EET [16:00—17:30 CET]

TONSPUR will share the vimeo live stream on www.tonspur.at as part of the series TONSPUR_live sets in times of COVID-19.

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TONSPUR wishes to thank Charlie Morrow and the Helsinki based Kunsthalle KOHTA and its director Anders Kreuger for the invitation to co-present this unique sound event.

Kunsthalle Kohta’s critically acclaimed retrospective of American composer, sound artist and event-maker Charlie Morrow (US/Finland, 1942) ends with a celebration of the winter solstice on 21 December.

Since 1973, Morrow has organised inter-disciplinary solstice celebrations ‘on the day the sun stands still’: gathering like-minded musicians, dancers, poets, visual artists and many others, on site in New York and globally with the help of state-of-the-art telecommunications, usually on 21 June but sometimes also on 21 December.

Because of its global scope, this celebration takes place online, with live and recorded contributions from Finland, Sweden, Japan, the US, Australia and New Zealand.

Its main feature is the premiere of Morrow’s new composition “Four Winds” (2020, ca 20'), a ‘sound portrait’ fo(u)r horns —located in different time zones but playing simultaneously — and digital soundscape. The first horn player, Satu Huuskonen, joins from Otso Pakarinen’s Visual Power studio in Helsinki, where Pakarinen and Petri Frestadius play keyboards. The other horn players are Jordan James in Maryland, US, Adrian Hallam in Sydney, Australia, and Yuri Sasaki in Tokyo, Japan.

The five movements are: Legato Energy • Staccato • Zephyrs • Chattering Storms • Song in the Distance.

The four horns call out to each other from the four corners of the world. The music is dialogical, cerebral, mellifluous. In short, it encapsulates Morrow’s long career as an artist who makes the unfathomable and the accessible respond to each other.

Morrow also contributes a version of “Kaddish” (1974/2020), a solo chant based on the Aramaic mourner's prayer for the living, accompanied by a hand-held gong.

Sound, video and visual artist Phil Dadson (Aotearoa/New Zealand, 1946) contributes VHS video documentation from the 1980s of “Solar Plexus”, an annual dawn-to-dusk winter solstice drumming event in the Maungawhau crater, central Tamaki/Auckland that took place from 1970 to 1995 and collaborated with Morrow's International Radio Solstice events. Their collaboration continues today.

Composer, film-maker and video artist Phill Niblock (US, 1933) heads the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York. He joins the event and contributes “Rose Sea” (2020, 3'44"), a video of water, and an 8-minute version of his musical composition “VladaBC” (2020).

Actress, yoik singer and scriptwriter Åsa Simma (Sápmi/Sweden, 1963) heads the Giron Sámi Teáhter in the mining town of Giron/Kiiruna/Kiruna in northern Sweden. She joins the event to contribute reflections on the winter solstice from a Sami point of view.

The event is live-mixed at and broadcast from Otso Pakarinen’s Visual Power Studio in Helsinki. It is produced by Willie Fastenow and Jeff Aaron Bryant of Park Boulevard Production in Los Angeles and New York.

The Vienna-based art society TONSPUR, run by sound art curator Georg Weckwerth, will stream the event on their website tonspur.at and their facebook page.

Charlie Morrow wishes to thank The Society of Finnish Composers for supporting this event with a grant as part of celebrating its 75th anniversary. Four Horns is dedicated to Maija-Leena Remes.

Last but not least, the event also includes the launch of “Morrowland”, a public 3D online extension of the exhibition “A Gathering” offering highlights of Charlie's personal and professional life. Use your avatar to freely explore natural environments, event spaces, even an observatory. Connect with other guests and discover surprises all over this online world. For information and registration, please visit: 361.events/morrowland