Immersive sound installation, and live concert by Alex Ring Gray and Austin Philemon
This event begins with a sound installation running from 3–6 PM. The installation features works from the album expanded and reconfigured for an 8 speaker immersive surround sound environment. It will run in 45 minute cycles.
There will be a concert at 6 PM featuring Alex Ring Gray (saxophone) and Austin Philemon (organ).
This event is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Enjoy a Saturday afternoon in Central Park, then stop by for drones & music at your leisure :~). No reservation required.
Suggested Donation: $10
CDs will be available for $15
Presented by cmntx records
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About the Album:
"The Organ That Breathes" is a homecoming for composer Alex Ring Gray, whose earliest days of writing music were for his own saxophone quartet in high school, as they could not afford to purchase sheet music. After a decade of expanding into other composing mediums, Gray returns to his primary instrument with densely layered improvisations, textures, and drones; morphing his saxophone into a living, breathing reed organ. Actual organs build the through-line, with several variants (electric, reed, pipe) blending and crossfading with Gray's saxophones.
The importance of breathing as a woodwind player led the album to largely become a meditation on the fragility of health. Several pieces were written as cathartic reactions to loved ones' health issues (diabetes, Fahr’s syndrome, cancers), or in remembrance of ones who had passed. Others are focused on the saxophonist's own breath, intertwining Gray’s own performance practice with meditation breathing exercises. re: meditations showcases his and his collaborators (Seth Fox, Blake Opper, Erin Rogers) pushing their lungs to the limit in an ode to experimental saxophone legends Jon Gibson, Terry Riley, Dickie Landry, and Pharoah Sanders.
"The Organ That Breathes" releases June 16.