The San Francisco Tape Music Collective is dedicated to presenting performances of audioArt diffused through a surround-sound speaker environment.
The SFTMC and the SF Tape Music Festival is a project of sfSound
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sfSound presents

“Tape Capsule” -- The New York Times
“Cinema for your ears.” -- SF Weekly
“…literally surrounded by sound.” -- San Francisco Chronicle
“...an enthralling survey of experimental proclivities from the last fifty years.” -- East Bay Express





The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2018

Friday January 5, 9pm
Saturday January 6, 8pm
Saturday January 6, 10:40pm
Sunday January 7, 8pm


16th Street Victoria Theater
2961 16th Street
San Francisco


$20 general
$10 balcony/underemployed
$60 fest pass (general seating all 4 concerts)


advance ticket purchase
or at the door (cash only) the day of show after 7pm


America's only festival devoted to the performance of audio works projected in three-dimensional space, The San Francisco Tape Music Festival features four distinct concerts of classic audio art and new fixed media compositions by 30 local and international composers. Hear members of the SF Tape Music Collective, along with guest composers, shape the sound live over a pristine surround system (24 high-end loudspeakers) with the audience seated in complete darkness. It's a unique opportunity to experience music forming - literally - around you.

The 2018 Festival's first two concerts showcase the entire range of the “fixed media” artform; the Saturday late-night show presents cinema-for-the-ear, ambient, and long-form-exploration tape pieces; and the Sunday concert features an entire concert of “audio postcards” and “sound walk” compositions. Throughout the festival, composers from the empreintes DIGITALes label will be highlighted.

Remembering the pioneering work of one of the fathers of musique concrète, PIERRE HENRY (1927-2017), the festival presents a performance of his seminal work, Variations for a Door and a Sigh (1963). Other tape music classics include KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN'S Gesang der Jünglinge (1956) and JAMES TENNEY'S proto-plunderphonic composition, Collage #1 (Blue Suede) (1961).

Recent works by international artists HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP, JONTY HARRISON, FRANCIS DHOMONT, NATASHA BARRETT, and others will be performed alongside bay area composers THOM BLUM, CLIFF CARUTHERS, NATHAN CORDER, MATT INGALLS, FERNANDO LOPEZ-LEZCANO, MAGGI PAYNE, ADAM SOHN, SOPHIA SHEN / GABBY WEN, TIM WALTERS, and CHAMBERLAIN ZHANG.


PROGRAM DETAILS

Friday January 5, 2018 (9pm)
PIERRE HENRY Variations for a Door and a Sigh (excerpt) (1963)
FRANCIS DHOMONT Phœnix XXI (2016)
MAGGI PAYNE Coronal Rain (2017)
FERNANDO LOPEZ-LEZCANO Y Sonó como Arpa Vieja (2017)
NATHAN CORDER clima, slice, clima (2017)
ELSA JUSTEL Cercles et Surfaces (2013)
PANAYIOTIS KOKORAS Qualia (2017)
JAMES O'CALLAGHAN Xenoia (2017)



Saturday January 6, 2018 (8pm)
JAMES TENNEY Collage #1 (Blue Suede) (1962)
THOM BLUM Tabula Rasa (2017)
MATT INGALLS Collage #3 (Buchla Suite) (2017)
SOPHIA SHEN / GABBY WEN Cloudburst Dreamscape (2017)
ADAM SOHN Cricket Rhythm (2017)
ROCÍO CANO VALIÑO Tâches (2016)
NIKOS STAVROPOULOS Karst Grotto (2017)
DEMIAN RUDEL REY Che-toi (2016)
BERNADETTE JOHNSON Summer (2009)
FRANCESCO GIOMI Scabro (2011)



Saturday January 6, 2018 (10:40pm)
[ program runs 1hr 15min with no intermission ]
MONIQUE JEAN T.A.G. (2013)
JOSEPH ANDERSON Pacific Slope (2002)
TIM WALTERS The Answer in the Flame (2017)
CHAMBERLAIN ZHANG Spiralism (2016)


Sunday January 7, 2018 (8pm)
KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN Gesang der Jünglinge (1956)
HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP Kit's Beach Soundwalk (1989)
JONTY HARRISON Espaces cachés (2014)
NATASHA BARRETT A Soundwalk through Shanghai (2014)
HANS TUTSCHKU Remembering Japan (part 1) (2016)
CLIFF CARUTHERS Short Walk to Killaloe Moon (2001)
ORESTIS KARAMANLIS Sterfos (2009)



funded in part by
The San Francisco Grants for the Arts and individual contributions
equipment kindly provided by The Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University and sfSound.






Background image: a "diffusion score" for Edgard Varèse's Poème Électronique