The Key of Z: Experimental Instruments and the Music They Make

Videos and live performances at Pacific Film Archive
Wednesdays, June 2, 9, 16, 23, 30.

On Wednesdays in June, the Pacific Film Archive presents five evenings of modern music performances on innovative new instruments. Each program offers exciting videos and live performance. Live performances are generously sponsored by Amoeba Records. These programs are presented in cooperation with Other Minds.

These events take place at the PFA Theater, which is located on the southern edge of the UC Berkeley campus, at 2575 Bancroft Way, near Bowditch Street. General admission is $8 (with reduced prices for BAM/PFA members, students, seniors, and disabled persons). Tickets are available at the door, and in advance by calling (510) 642-5249 or going to the UC Berkeley Art Museum (2626 Bancroft Way) during museum hours, or the PFA Theater Box Office in the evenings beginning after June 1.

PFA's program on June 2 salutes the New Zealand ensemble From Scratch, who have invented wonderful percussion instruments and have created compositions based on themes ranging from Maori songs to Bikini Islands nuclear tests. Tom Nunn performs that evening (with Doug Carroll on electric cello) on his hand-built electroacoustic percussion boards.

On June 9, Peter Whitehead, who has created stringed instruments by recycling such objects as washbasins and skis, performs live, and PFA presents the Bay Area Premiere screening of Baschet: The Transfiguration of Daily Life. Brothers François and Bernard Baschet create acoustic sculptures, including the Baschet Cristal which is made of glass rods that emit ethereal, lovely tones.

Delusion of the Fury: A Ritual of Dream and Desire is an exciting film of one of Harry Partch's greatest compositions, performed on twenty-five of the maverick musician's magical instruments. It screens June 16, along with a live performance by Mobius Operandi. They play stringed instruments-such as the Trylon, the Oove, and the Carolina-designed by Oliver DiCicco.

Uli Aumüller's film My Cinema for the Ears is a portrait of Montreal-based composer Francis Dhomont. The film shows Dhomont discussing sound and music with fellow composer Paul Lansky, and creating musique concrète by gathering, sampling, and manipulating natural sounds. Several of Lansky's compositions are creatively visualized in collages by artist Robert Darrol.

The innovative Finnish techno trio The Cleaning Women (composed of men who create instruments out of such household items as clothes-drying racks) are seen touring around the Baltic in Cleaning Up!, which screens on June 30; Jon Brumit, who creates instruments from found objects, will perform that evening on a 1:1122-scale model of the Golden Gate Bridge.

For more program or ticket information, please phone (510) 642-1412.