ESS Sonic Pavilion Festival

SONIC PAVILION FESTIVAL

Sonic Pavilion Festival is a series of 30-channel sound installations commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio for the spatialized overhead trellis loudspeaker array at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion. The result is an immersive canopy of sound—a fluid sonic architecture that bridges the focus of a live performance and the majesty of the surrounding cityscape.

Featured Artists (In Order Of Play):
Whitney Johnson (Matchess)
Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda & Bill Parod
Stephan Moore
Kitundu
Kioto Aoki
Natalie Chami (TALsounds)

Listen Live At Millennium Park On The Following Dates:
Thursday, August 5, 3-5pm
Monday, August 9, 10am-12pm
Sunday, August 22, 11am-1pm
Tuesday, August 31, 11am-1pm
Tuesday, September 7, 11am-1pm
Tuesday, September 14, 2-4pm
Thursday, September 23, 5-7pm
Thursday, September 30, 11am-1pm

Commissioned works are 20 minutes each. All artists are presented daily.

Kioto Aoki, Sonorous Admittings

About the work:
Sonorous Admittings is a sonic landscape that accentuates the taiko drum’s most fundamental and captivating element: acoustic resonance. The simple phrasing played by the artist on the odaiko (larger taiko) and smaller shime taiko enunciate the textural and tonal shifts of assonant sound between silence, and recreates what it feels like to play the odaiko and be completely surrounded by thunderous reverberations.

About the artist:
Kioto Aoki is a visual artist and musician descending from the Toyoakimoto performing arts family in Tokyo with roots dating back to the Edo period. Studying under her Tokyo-born father, Aoki is carrying on the family lineage in Chicago as a taiko artist while also playing shamisen and tsuzumi. She plays in both traditional and contemporary musical contexts and is active within the experimental and creative music communities in Chicago and the Bay Area.

Sonic Pavilion Festival is developed by Experimental Sound Studio and is presented by Millennium Park and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.