Chris Kallmyer

Machine Project did some incredible documentation of everyone in a place, my installation piece performed by patrons at the Hammer Museum. Thanks to Mark Allen, Allison Agsten, and Elizabeth Cline for their support and faith in this project. Included in the video are performances by Colin Woodford on amplified cymbal, Elisabeth McMullin’s Bell Santa Gamelan, and Jake Smith, Tina Raymond, Trevor Parrish, and Andrew Conrad performing Anlo-Ewe bell songs. enjoy!

Soundings: Bells at the Hammer from machine project on Vimeo.

My piece, everyone in a place will be presented as a day-long installation at the Hammer Museum on Saturday, July 17 from 11am to 6pm. Admission to the museum will be free to all participants! During the day Beth McMullin, Colin Woodford, and an African Bell Quartet will be presenting bell-related pieces within the installation. I hope you all have a chance to come visit!

Here is the post on the Hammer site:
The Hammer Museum and Machine Project invite the public to participate in a day-long sound installation by composer Chris Kallmyer. All visitors will be issued a small bell, which they can wear as they move through the galleries, courtyard, lobby, and other public spaces. Admission to the museum will be free of charge to all participants. Additional bell related sound pieces will take place throughout the day, including circulating ice cream carts, animatronic Santa bells in the museum’s coatroom, and an African bell ensemble.

Matt Sargent and I are returning from the desert with manmade mountains and underground rivers, a forty-minute piece for trumpet, guitar, and electronics/field recordings, which was created during our experiences living and working as artists-in-residence at the remote Goldwell Open Air Museum in Rhyolite, NV in June 2010.

Our work at Goldwell is based entirely on materials gathered from Rhyolite and the Amargosa Desert, both physical constructions (set of chimes constructed from mining materials, contact mics placed on local fences and shrubs, a large “bottle fence” I installed at the site), to conceptual (computer analyses of wind patterns in the Amargosa Desert, and improvisation recorded at strip mining sites surrounding Rhyolite). Beyond all else, we are creating music with an intense awe for the resilience and severity of the desert climate – as the title suggests, the ability for the desert reclaim the remnants of strip mining operations back into mountains and canyons.

The music will be performed at:
- Goldwell Open Air on Sat. June 26, 7:00pm
- Place gallery in the Las Vegas Arts District on Thurs. July 1, 7-9pm
- Machine Project in Los Angeles, CA on Sat. July 3, 8pm

Bottle Fence for the Amargosa Desert // June 2010

Matt Sargent and I have moved to the Amargosa Desert for the month of June.   Living outside Death Valley, Matt and I are using the desert as source material, and composing a work for field recordings, guitar, trumpet, and instruments created from mining camp trash. We are here on an artist residency at by the Goldwell Open Air Museum sponsored by the Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

FERMENT is sold out following a very nice piece in the LA Times found here!

For all of you who would still like to hear/see/taste the project, Sue Conley and I have plans to perform the piece again in the fall.  Look out for following projects on fermentation in beer and bread in the coming year. A small note of thanks to Mark Allen, Clay Chaplin, John Taverna, and Scott Cazan for their invaluable help on the piece from concept to fully-fermented-idea.

April 29, 2010 6-9pm [thursday]
Hammer Museum // Permanent Collection

“Can you rip some sweet licks on that VanGogh please.”

Come check out another Live Museum Soundtrack at the Hammer Museum from our resident guitarists, Eric Klerks and Dylan McKenzie. Eric and Dylan walk visitors through their time in the collection improvising music to the art they view through a set of headphones. Soundtracks are live, improvised, and completely personal.

http://machineproject.com/projects/hammer/museum-soundtrack/

I’m off to San Francisco for a few days!!  I’ll be up there working and playing in all of the food/art related riches of the Bay Area.  Amongst the things I plan on doing:

• -working on an upcoming project with cheese maker, Sue Conley.
• -beginning work on a 2011 installation/piece for the UC Berkeley Art Museum (w/ Machine Project)
• -visiting new friends at the Exploratorium
• -eating some oysters
• -seeing the DeYoung
• -eating some more oysters
• -listening to cheese being made
• -visiting my sweet, bay area, aunties

Katie Tate enjoying a Live Museum Soundtrack at the Hammer Museum

NEXT MUSEUM SOUNTRACK // Thursday // April 29, 2010 6-8pm // Hammer Museum(UCLA)

April 8, 2010 7-9pm [thursday]
Hammer Museum // Permanent Collection
I’ve been curating a project in which museum patrons receive a Live Museum Soundtrack from our resident guitarist, Eric Klerks.  Eric walks visitors through their time in the collection improvising music to the art they view through a set of headphones.  Soundtracks are live, improvised, and completely personal.

http://machineproject.com/projects/hammer/museum-soundtrack/