PRESS RELEASE

Gary Chang and Neil Leonard Illuminate Sacred Spaces in Italy

During the month of June, 2007, notable composers Gary Chang and Neil Leonard will visit several sites in Italy with the task of completing 5.1 installations of a program of music entitled "Sanctuaries," which are meditative ambient analog electronic music pieces composed by Chang and realized on a Wiard Modular Music System, specifically designed for playback in churches and other public locations. The tour is sponsored by Sguardi Sonori 2007, Festival of Media and Time Based Art, for which Leonard is a also a curator and Musical Director.

The cities in the tour will include Rome, Benevento, Venice, San Galgano and La Spezia. While in La Spezia, Chang and Leonard will also have access to the Naval base, where there are very large rooms (indoor drydocks for warships, for instance) and other interesting ambiances, such as marble quarries and museums, where further explorations in unusual ambient spaces will be recorded and cataloged.

Utilizing Blue Sky Monitors and extensive Taralabs wiring at each installation, each location will be recorded using a Soundfield SP422B mic, which is a recording system that can yield from mono up to a 7.1 playback. Recording will be achieved using a tcelectronic Konnekt Live, interfacing to a laptop computer and portable firewire drives. In addition, Impulse Response data will be collected from each of the locations to create a library of interesting convolution reverb spaces for McDSP’s Revolver.

Following the Italian journey, Chang and Leonard will give many presentations on the project, including a workshop presented by GASP Gallery in Brookline for senior students in electronic music at Berklee College of Music.

This project would not be possible without the generosity of sponsors, who include The City of Rome; The City of Venice; La Marrana - environmental art park and L’Associazione Amici del CAMeC - Centro di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea della Spezia (for graciously coordinating recording and installation sites during a week long residency in La Spezia); Sguardi Sonori 2007, Festival of Media and Time Based Art; Blue Sky Speakers; TaraLabs Cables; tcelectronic digital audio interfaces and processors; The Wiard Synthesizer Company; Transaudio Group/Soundfield Microphones and The Berklee College of Music.