Parasite Village

Ken Ueno & Arnont Nongyao

DTzM Musik 2022/23

In this encounter, international composer and performer Ken Ueno meets video artist Arnont Nongyao from Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Do we need a new way of thinking to imagine a world of interconnectedness? This is the question posed by “Parasite Village” as part of the Dresden Days for Contemporary Music (DTZM) curated by Elisa Erkelenz. For one week, artists* from different ensembles and backgrounds come together to explore an organism of transtraditional music. Friday night’s project “EXT INC / REMEMBER ME” asks what remains when we disappear – as a species, as music, as language… And how we can remember and find ways of love and hope to face current crises – from climate to Iran.

The Future Tradition Orchestra, coming together for Parasite Village, will present its research findings in an evening concert on Saturday. A summit of transtraditional music, a kaleidoscope of fluid and flexible relationships, united in a new collective. The concerts will be introduced by Listening Sessions: Friday with ecophilosopher Andreas Weber and sound artist Kirsten Reese, Saturday with writer Fiston Mwanza Mujila. Late Night Sets will take us into the night.

Curation: Elisa Erkelenz

Ken Ueno, is a composer, performer, sound artist, and scholar. 

Leading performers and ensembles around the world have championed Ueno’s music. His piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, Shiroi Ishi, was featured in their repertoire for over ten years, with performances at such venues as Queen Elizabeth Hall in England, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and was aired on Italian national radio, RAI 3. Another work, Pharmakon, was performed dozens of times nationally by Eighth Blackbird during their 2001-2003 seasons. A portrait concert of Ken’s was featured on MaerzMusik in Berlin in 2011. Other ensembles and performers who have performed Ueno’s music include Kim Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky, Frances-Marie Uitti, Mayumi Miyata, Teodoro Anzellotti, and Steve Schick and the SFCMP.

As a vocalist, Ueno is known for inventing extended techniques and has performed as soloist in his vocal concerto with orchestras in Boston, New York, Warsaw, Vilnius, Bangkok, Sacramento, Stony Brook, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina.

As a sound artist, his installations have been commissioned and exhibited by museums and galleries in Beijing, Guangzhou, Taipei, Mexico City, Art Basel, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. Last fall, he created evening-long installation performances for the Osage Gallery, Tai Kwun, and at the FreeSpace. One of his largest projects, Daedalus Drones, an installation (a fence-labyrinth housing a swarm of flying drones choreographed for performance) installed at the Asia Society of Hong Kong was featured on the New Vision Arts Festival.

Ueno currently serves as a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. As an author, Ueno’s writings have been published by the Oxford Handbook, the New York Times, Palgrave Macmillan, and Wiley & Sons. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and an M.M.A. from the Yale School of Music, and his bio appears in The Grove Dictionary of American Music.

www.kenueno.com

Arnont Nongyao lives and works in Chiangmai (TH) – Ho Chi Minh city (VN) he has been interested and research into vibration with concentration on moving images and sound, most of his works are differently experimental and relative to vibration in order to search for the value of vibration derived from connected things, such as human beings, objects and society. His works are involved in a specific space and audience’s participation. They are also connected with the mode of listening/hearing, and with how people interact with and participate in sound. 

In cooperation with Outernational

Sponsored by: Goethe-Institut, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and Allianz Foundation.

Media partner: VAN Outernational.