SLOW BEETHOVEN
IS OUT!
The first record on The TANK’s new label
is available for sale to the public.
On June 17, 2021, at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, renowned cellist Jeffrey Zeigler led three other virtuosic players in an adagio movement, the fugue from Beethoven’s String Quartet Number 14 in C-sharp minor, Opus 131. As they played, they heard the sound of their performance resonating in the profound reverb of The TANK, in which sonic impulses may sustain for up to 40 seconds.
To allow each of the lush, Ludwiggy chords to ring out and fade in The TANK, the quartet had to slow the work radically, so that this short movement, some seven minutes long in the original tempo, took more than 45 minutes for them to play. The result is otherworldly, part Beethoven and part something entirely new.
Meditative, calm, emotional, this music can return you to yourself.
Coming this Summer
Vibrant and multifaceted,
the upcoming season at the TANK
is guaranteed to wow.
Here’s the rundown.
Saturday May 27
Perc Ens
with Lithophones and Marilyn A. Martorano
Saturday June 3
Ars Nova Singers
All Weekend June 23 – 25
Solstice Festival
with Beth Custer, Ben Neill and Sound Circle
Saturday September 2
Septemberfest Concert
with Zeena Parkins and Scott Amendola
And more, TBD.
Details below.
Solstice Festival
June 23 – 25
Beth Custer
Ben Neill
Sound Circle
Friday, June 23 8pm Ben Neill
New York-based electronic trumpet virtuoso Ben Neill lights up the TANK with his complex solo improvisations.
Composer/performer Ben Neill is the inventor of the Mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument, whose music blends influences from electronic, jazz, and minimalist music, blurring the lines between digital media and acoustic instrument performance.
Neill has recorded eleven albums and performed at the BAM Next Wave Festival, Big Ears Festival, Lincoln Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Bing Concert Hall at Stanford, Getty Museum, Cite de la Musique Paris, Moogfest, Spoleto Festival, Umbria Jazz, Bang On A Can Festival, ICA London, Istanbul Jazz Festival, Vienna Jazz Festival, and the Edinburgh Festival
Purchase Tickets for Ben Neill here.
Saturday, June 24 8pm Beth Custer
Bay Area music scene giant Beth Custer brings her clarinets, along with her voice, percussion and toys.
Beth is a founding member of the notorious silent film soundtrack purveyors the Club Foot Orchestra, the Fourth World ambient ensemble Trance Mission, the trip-hop duo Eighty Mile Beach, and the Latin-jazz-rock influenced Doña Luz 30 Besos. She also leads the quartet of esteemed jazz clarinetists called Clarinet Thing and The Beth Custer Ensemble.
Beth composes for film, television, installations and the concert stage. Recent commissions include A Trip Down Market Street 1905/2005, a live outdoor cinema event by Melinda Stone, produced by the Exploratorium; The Ballad of Pancho & Lucy musical for Campo Santo Theatre; and Bernal Heights Suite for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Recent awards include a Meet The Composer New Residency grant; two residencies at the Headlands Center for the Art; a Phyllis Wattis Residency at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; a McKnight Fellowship; two San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist grants; a Gerbode Award; an Argosy Foundation recording grant; and an Aaron Copland Recording fund award.
Beth Custer is wild and fun and virtuosic and will make the TANK sing.
Purchase Tickets for Beth Custer here.
Sunday, June 25 Noon Sound Circle
The women of Sound Circle, an 18-voice a cappella women’s vocal ensemble, have come together to experience the deep joy of making music and to share that joy with audiences. Sound Circle is based in Boulder, Colorado.
Sound Circle has commissioned many new works, performed original music by members of the ensemble, and created many new arrangements.
“We sing music that speaks of our experience of the world. We care about authenticity and relevance. Our awareness of the healing power of ensemble singing influences our choice of repertoire and our sound quality. Most of our music is contemporary, and much of it is created by women. We aspire to be refreshing, exploratory, and true to ourselves.”
Free Concert
Septemberfest
September 2 8pm
Zeena Parkins
Scott Amendola
Harpist electro-acoustic composer Zeena Parkins and drummer signal-treater Scott Amendola present a work especially composed for the TANK
New York based electro-acoustic composer/improviser Zeena Parkins is a pioneer of contemporary harp practices. Through the use of expanded playing techniques, object preparations, and electronic processing she has re-defined the instrument’s capacities. Concurrently, Parkins self-designed a series of one-of-a kind electric instruments. She leans into the harp’s physical limitations pushing into its boundaries and impossibilities. Parkins is a recent recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Composition.
Drummer signal-treater Scott Amendola is an ambitious composer, savvy bandleader, electronics explorer, first-call accompanist and capaciously creative foil for some of the world’s most inventive musicians. Amendola applies his wide-ranging rhythmic virtuosity to a vast array of settings. His closest musical associates include guitarists Charlie Hunter, Nels Cline, and Jeff Parker, Hammond B-3 organist Wil Blades, violinist Jenny Scheinman, saxophonist Phillip Greenlief, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, bassists Trevor Dunn, and Todd Sickafoose.
Purchase Tickets for Zeena Parkins and Scott Amendola here.
More Events
Saturday, May 27
Perc Ens
Marilyn Martorano
Lithophones!
Lithophones with Marilyn A. Martorano
Lithophones in Colorado
Were these ground stone artifacts utilized to play some of the earliest music in the western U.S.?
by Marilyn A. Martorano
Saturday, May 27, 10am
The Gathering Place
616 E Main Street, Rangely
These lithophones will also be available to the public at the Tank, during our free Open Saturday, 11am to 1pm
Free Event
Saturday May 27 8pm
Perc Ens in Concert
A minimalism percussion ensemble, inspired by composers like Steve Reich, Julius Eastman, and Terry Riley, Perc Ens performs high intensity yet low volume acoustic compositions, with many iterations of live performance, including marimba, drum set, lights, chromatic pitched instruments, sermons, and hand percussion. Moments of flourished epiphany juxtaposed against droning repetition, like a tacitly humble solo shaker.
For this concert, Perc Ens will also play ancient lithophones, which may have produced some of the earliest music in the western U.S.
Free Concert
Saturday June 3 8pm
Ars Nova Singers
Ars Nova Singers present “REFLECTIONS,” exploring the powerful movement and vibration of sound and featuring a cluster of works and arrangements that explores rich, multi-voice choral textures, from the Renaissance to modern times.
Ars Nova Singers is an auditioned vocal ensemble specializing in a cappella music of the Renaissance and the 20th/21st centuries. Since its founding in 1986, this Denver Metro Area icon has been recognized as one of the nation’s most intrepid professional choirs, bringing together 40 gifted vocalists to tackle challenging, time-traveling works that stretch the boundaries of sound and spirit. Ars Nova Singers has been heard in radio broadcasts throughout the world, including such National Public Radio programs as Performance Today, The First Art, Music from the Hearts of Space, and locally on Colorado Spotlight and Colorado Matters. Ars Nova has released ten independent recordings on compact disc and performed on seven internationally released recordings with Boulder composer and instrumentalist Bill Douglas.
Free Concert
2022 Season in Review
SUSIE IBARRA RESIDENCY
In September percussionist and sound artist Susie Ibarra was in residency at The TANK. In addition to exploring the sonic dimensions of The TANK itself, she’s did field work, playing and recording in some extraordinary locations in the area. In the video below she experiments with her entire jazz kit in Sand Canyon in Dinosaur National Monument.
COLORADO SPRINGS CHILDREN’S CHORALE
This season the award-winning Colorado Springs Children’s Chorale joined a tradition of kid’s choirs coming to the TANK. Director Marcia Hendricks wrote to us, “Our young musicians had a tremendous experience had at The TANK. I hope you all continue with great success and know that you make a difference in lives with your work!” A gorgeous and deeply gratifying concert.
PEDDLERS OF JOY
Tankster Mad Dog Friedman brought his trio Peddlers of Joy, with Sean Bennight on guitar and Freyja Wild on vocals. Creating mindful TANK music live in the moment, the Peddlers rocked the house. Mad Dog played Native American flute and theremin.
LEON LITTLEBIRD
LISA ANN WHITE
Headlining the Solstice Festival, Leon Littlebird and Lisa Ann White brought their Native Colorado Music to the TANK. A regionally and internationally acclaimed musician, performer, recording artist and composer, Leon is a third generation native of Colorado with ancestral roots in both Pioneer & Native American cultures. Lisa Ann White sparkled on native flutes and vocals.
FRONT PORCH SINGERS
From Manitou Springs, Colorado, Front Porch Singers is an a cappella quartet that started informally as the “You Never Know When We’ll Show Up Singers,” ringing doorbells and surprising Manitou friends and neighbors with harmony, laughter, and joy.
The group came to the TANK to record and as a special treat, performed a free concert at the White River Village Assisted Living Center. They left Rangely as confirmed Tanksters. Front Porch Singers includes Nancy Fortuin, Sue Graham, Annie Rodgers, and Jane Turnis.
FORT LEWIS COLLEGE CHOIR
Choral music at the TANK is utterly uplifting and transporting, and The Fort Lewis College Choir was joyous and free-spirited. They presented works by Sullivan, Rachmaninov, Whitacre. Led by director Charissa Chiaravalloti. Gorgeous choral harmonies, in an a cappella setting.
ANN MARTIN
Intuitive sound artist Ann Martin presented a meditative concert with crystal and Himalayan singing bowls. The event concluded with a full spectrum of sonic harmonic frequencies from Ann’s 36″ OM Gong, energizing everyone in the TANK. This event was presented as part of Rangely’s Septemberfest celebration.
The Tank and the West
Bill Frisell and Bill Morrison
On Saturday, August 28, 2021, at 8pm, in the high desert of Colorado, the guitarist and composer Bill Frisell and the filmmaker Bill Morrison charged the Tank’s extraordinary structure with a live sound and image performance. Exploring its history as an embodiment of the American West, Frisell created an original score and Morrison projected film images on the stark landscape and the sides of the seven-story tower.
The event was also filmed for a future documentary. Here are a few pics.
This much-anticipated concert featured digitally-mapped projections by Future Lighting of Los Angeles. Highlighting the town of Rangely, Colorado, this event was supported by major grants from the Neil D. Karbank Foundation, the William H. Donner Family Foundation, and the ArtWorks program of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Coming in 2023
The TANK Center for Sonic Arts will return to a normal schedule for its 2023 season, starting May 1.
Open Saturdays
Free public visiting hours from 9am to 1pm on Saturdays until Oct. 31.
Put Your Head in the Tank
Put Your Head in the Tank is a new program, using binaural head microphones, that allows a listener anywhere to be immersed in the Tank. If you’d like to experience the Tank intimately, in the comfort of your own home, and even record via this program, write us at friendsofthetank@gmail.com.
The Tank Masters Series
The Tank Masters Series, concerts by artists who have proven most skilled at playing the instrument that is the seven-story water tank, present new music here on the Tank’s website, tanksounds.org.
Book the Tank
The Tank’s program of recording sessions returns, as do the regular booking of non-recording visits. For more on reserving the Tank for your session or group, click here.
