“Living in the Soundscape,” a walking tour of the Syracuse University campus that will bring participants into a direct relationship with the sonic environment, will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 22. The tour will be followed later that evening by a concert by the Lark Quartet, one of today’s foremost chamber ensembles.
The Lark Quartet
The Lark Quartet’s residency at Syracuse University is co-sponsored by the Central New York Humanities Corridor, from an award by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
“Living in the Soundscape” is part of the 2013 Syracuse Symposium: Listening, presented for the SU community by the SU Humanities Center in The College of Arts and Sciences. This event is co-sponsored by the Setnor School of Music in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.
The walking tour will take place from 3:30-5 p.m., and begin at the Crouse College door that faces the Q1 parking lot. Along the way, sound explorers will hear performances inside and out, in a wide range of social and acoustical spaces, performed by student and faculty musicians from the Setnor School of Music. The concert featuring the Lark Quartet will begin at 8 p.m. in Setnor Auditorium.
“The tie-in between the tour and the concert is that the performance will present a varied program of new and old music for string quartet; audiences will be particularly attuned to the subtle changes of style and nuances of expression across the program (but especially in the short, hushed, understated but intensely expressive pieces of Anton Webern) after having opened their ears to all of the myriad combinations of sounds in the campus environment,” says Andrew Waggoner, professor of music in the Setnor School, who developed the event.
“’Living in the Soundscape’” asks you to take out your earbuds, respond affectively to ambient sound, find the space between sound and music, and hear music out of the anechoic realm on the headphone,” he says. “We’ll love sound for its own sake, and get a glimmer of both the spirituality and sensuality of listening.”
Free and accessible parking is available for the 8 p.m. concert in the Q-1 lot; additional parking is available in the Irving Garage. Campus parking availability is subject to change; call 315-443-2191 for current information.
Andrew Waggoner
Waggoner has been called “the gifted practitioner of a complex but dramatic and vividly colored style” by the New Yorker. His music has been commissioned and performed by the Academy of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields; the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Martinu Philharmonic in the Czech Republic; Cygnus; Ensemble Nordlys of Denmark and Accroche Note of France. He received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2009.
The Lark Quartet continues to delight audiences with its energy, passionate commitment and artistry. The quartet has performed in, among others, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall and L’Opéra de la Bastille in Paris, delivering performances of “grace, proportion and burnished brilliance” (The Washington Post). The Lark Quartet offers audiences new insights into the art of chamber music through programs that span the Western tradition and continue into music from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
