Sarah Davachi. Photo by Dicky Bahto.

Sarah Davachi is a master at blending intricate textures and timbres, enveloping listeners in delicately intense, durational sonic spaces. Returning to Pacific Spirit United Church’s impressive 74 stop Casavant Frères pipe organ, where a portion of her epic album Cantus, Descant (2020) was recorded, Davachi will offer up a long-form, acoustic, solo performance that incorporates works from Cantus, Descant and Antiphonals (2021), as well as some new compositions.

Davachi is a composer and performer whose work is concerned with the close intricacies of timbral and temporal space, utilizing extended durations and simple harmonic structures that emphasize subtle variations in texture, overtone complexity, psychoacoustic phenomena, and temperament and intonation. Her compositions span both solo and chamber ensemble formats, incorporating a wide range of acoustic and electronic instrumentation.  Similarly informed by minimalist and long-form tenets, baroque leanings toward slow-moving chordal suspension, and experimental production practices of the recording studio environment, in her sound is manifest an intimate and patient experience that lessens perceptions of the familiar and the distant.​

In addition to her acclaimed recorded output, Davachi has toured extensively across the globe alongside artists such as Grouper, Quatuor Bozzini, William Basinski, the London Contemporary Orchestra, Oren Ambarchi, Suzanne Ciani, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Apartment House,​ Catherine Lamb, Aaron Dilloway, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Ellen Arkbro, Michael Pisaro, Loren Connors, and filmmaker Paul Clipson.  Her work has been presented at Southbank Centre (London, UK), Kontraklang (Berlin, DE), Radio France (Paris, FR), Lampo (Chicago, USA), Issue Project Room (New York, USA), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg, DE), Organ Reframed (London, UK), The Getty Center (Los Angeles, USA), Orgelpark (Amsterdam, NL), Le Guess Who? (Utrecht, NL), Suoni Per Il Popolo (Montréal, CA), Ambient Church (Los Angeles, USA), Open Frame (Sydney, AU), Tusk Festival (Newcastle, UK), Mazeum Festival (Kyoto, JP), Café OTO (London, UK), Unsound (Krakow, PL), Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid, ES), Barbican Centre (London, UK), and Western Front (Vancouver, CA).  She currently operates the record label Late Music, founded in 2020 with the partner labels division of Warp Records.

Between 2007 and 2017, Davachi had the unique opportunity to work for the National Music Centre in Canada as an interpreter and content developer of their collection of acoustic and electronic keyboard instruments.  She has held artist residencies with The Banff Centre for the Arts, Quatuor Bozzini, STEIM, Elektronmusikstudion, OBORO, the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, the National Music Centre, and the Swiss Museum & Center for Electronic Music Instruments, and holds a master’s degree in electronic music and recording media from Mills College in Oakland, California.  Davachi is currently a doctoral candidate in musicology at UCLA, focusing on timbre and critical organology, and is based in Los Angeles, California, USA.

https://www.sarahdavachi.com/
https://sarahdavachi.bandcamp.com/
linktr.ee/sarahdavachi

Stefan Maier.

Stefan Maier’s new work, Tractatus de Umbra Manus (1447), will instrumentalize Pacific Spirit United Church using a large spatialized loudspeaker array in conjunction with the Organ. From the Venetian polychoral tradition, to the implied divine spatialities in the work of DuFay’s Nuper Rosarum Flores, by drawing on the history of spatial and architectural composition, he will explore the prospect of a multi-modal spatial listening.

Stefan Maier (b. 1990) is an artist based in Vancouver, Canada — the unceded, traditional territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. His installations, performances, writings, and compositions examine emergent and historical sound technologies. Highlighting material instability and unruliness, his work explores the flows of sonic matter through sound systems, instruments, software, and bodies, to uncover alternate modes of authorship and listening possible within specific technologically-mediated situations. Stefan works fluidly between experimental electronic music, sound art, installation, and contemporary classical music. His work has been presented by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (DE), Ultima festival (NO), SPOR festival (DK), G(o)ng Tomorrow (DK), the National Music Center (CA), INA-GRM (FR), and Gaudeamus Muziekweek (NE), among many others. His work as a sound designer has been presented throughout the world, with recent projects presented at Sterischer Herbst (AU), International Film Festival Rotterdam (NE), Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art (NE), and V-A-C foundation (RU). In 2017 he received a Mayor’s Art Award from the City of Vancouver and was a 2019 Macdowell Colony Fellow. Stefan currently lectures in electronic music at Simon Fraser University.

www.stefanmaier.studio

George Rahi.

Music for the Augmented Pipe Organ is a series of compositions which merge the vibrant acoustics of the pipe organ with the techniques of electronic and post-digital music. Through computer control of the organ’s pipes and stops, the timbres of the instrument are disassociated from its keyboard interface to conjure extremes of minimal and maximal soundworlds. Exploring new affordances and anomalies of the organ, the performance intertwines digital processes of machine listening and controlled feedback to respond to the resonances between each instrument and space. Following this process of hybridizing acoustic and digital performance modalities, the performance unfolds radical possibilities for the world’s oldest mechanical synthesizer. 

George Rahi is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories. He uses self-created and altered instruments as a method of exploring the intersections between acoustic and digital technologies, modes of listening, and spatial and architectural thinking. His work includes installations, instrument making, composition, solo + ensemble performance, and works for radio, theatre & public spaces. Recent presentations have included Artificial Sonification exhibition (Matera), SPEKTRUM (Berlin), Kunst-Station Sankt Peter (Cologne),Fusebox Festival (Austin), Vancouver Pro Musica, and Regenerative Feedback Festival (Rotterdam). He has been an artist in residence at EMS in Stockholm (2019), Locus Sonus Research Group in Marseille (2021), and hcma architecture in Vancouver (2022). He holds an MFA from Simon Fraser University.

www.georahi.com