sfSound presents

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2019
January 4-6, 2019





The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2019

Friday January 4, 9pm
Saturday January 5, 8pm
Saturday January 5, 10:30pm
Sunday January 6, 8pm


16th Street Victoria Theater
2961 16th Street
San Francisco

$20 general
$10 balcony/underemployed
$50 fest pass (general seating all concerts)
(Saturday 10:30pm show is FREE TO ALL!)


advance ticket purchase
or at the door (cash only) the day of show after 7pm


America's only festival devoted to the performance of audio works projected in three-dimensional space, The San Francisco Tape Music Festival features four distinct concerts of classic audio art and new fixed media compositions by 40 local and international composers. Hear members of the SF Tape Music Collective, along with guest composers, shape the sound live over a pristine surround system (24 high-end loudspeakers) with the audience seated in complete darkness. It's a unique opportunity to experience music forming - literally - around you.

The 2019 Festival features contemporary “fixed media” compositions alongside classic works from 50 years ago. The FREE Saturday 10:30pm show presents late-night-appropriate works that are more on the ambient and long-form-exploration side of the spectrum.


The works from 1969 truly represent the spirit of the time. With releases in the late-60s by Wendy Carlos, Paul Beaver / Bernie Krause, and MORTON SUBOTNICK, electronic music was being heard by mainstream audiences.

We represent MORTON SUBOTNICK'S music here with his 1969 surround-sound work, Touch. Also included is one of the most experimental works of "tape music" ever released on a popular record (Billboard's #1 album of January 1969, in fact): THE BEATLES' Revolution 9, recently re-released in 5.1 surround. We present "cross-over" tape pieces that incorporate sounds from both popular and electronic music: JON APPLETON'S Newark Airport Rock, FRANÇOIS BAYLE'S Solitioude (from L’Expérience Acoustique) and BERNARD PARMEGIANI'S Du Pop À L'âne / Pop’éclectic.

1969 was also a time of experimentalism. The fesitval includes ÉLIANE RADIGUE'S early feedback composition Usral alongside our own multi-channel realizations of Oakland-based ANTHONY GNAZZO'S text-sound work, Population Explosion, and JAMES TENNEY'S minimalistic, pychoacoustic classic For Ann (rising).

Rounding out the festival, works by bay area artists THOM BLUM, CLIFF CARUTHERS, KRIS FORCE, BRENDAN GLASSON, ROB HAMILTON, HANES/ADAMS (STEVE ADAMS and JOHN HANES), HEADLIGHTS (DEREK GEDALECIA and AURORA JOSEPHSON), MAIJA HYNNINEN, MATT INGALLS, KENT JOLLY, FERNANDO LOPEZ-LEZCANO, KRISTIN MILTNER, MAGGI PAYNE, LARRY POLANSKY, RAUB ROY, and BRIAN REINBOLT will be performed in addition to many other pieces by composers from around the world.



P R O G R A M


Friday January 4, 2019 (9pm)
JAMES TENNEY - For Ann (rising) (1969)
FRANÇOIS BAYLE - Solitioude (from L’Expérience Acoustique, 1969)
HORACIO VAGGIONE - Consort for Convolved Violins (2011)
THOM BLUM - Epenthesis (2018)
MAIJA HYNNINEN - It is always today (2015)
KRISTIN MILTNER - Untitled (2018)
CHRISTOPHER CHANDLER - from these old roots (2017)
MIKE FRENGEL - Sarteano, l'estate (2012)
ADAM STANOVIĆ - Foundry Flux (2016)


Saturday January 5, 2019 (8pm)
THE BEATLES - Revolution 9 (1968)
JON APPLETON - Newark Airport Rock (1969)
ALISTAIR MACDONALD - Final Times (1998)
ANNETTE VANDE GORNE - Figures d’espace (2004)
CLIFF CARUTHERS - The Underneath (2013)
BRENDAN GLASSON - Here I Will Teach You How To (2018)
HEADLIGHTS (DEREK GEDALECIA and AURORA JOSEPHSON) - Tape Music for Children (2018)
KENT JOLLY - Tightrope (2018)
MAGGI PAYNE - Quicksilver (2011)
BRIAN REINBOLT - The Unintentional Garden (2018)
JASON BOLTE - AridFlow (2017)
AKI PASOULAS - Irides (2017)
ELI STINE - No Where (2018)


Saturday January 5, 2019 (10:30pm - FREE!)
ÉLIANE RADIGUE - Usral (1969)
GILLES GOBEIL - Le miroir triste (2007)
KRIS FORCE - Auric Blade (2018)
ROB HAMILTON - One who lives near the olive tree (2017)
LARRY POLANSKY - Glass (2018)
RAUB ROY - QTπ (2018)
ANTHONY DI FURIA - Piano Selvatico (Wild Plane) (2016)


Sunday January 6, 2019 (8pm)
MORTON SUBOTNICK - Touch (1969)
BERNARD PARMEGIANI - excerpts from Du Pop À L'âne (1969) and Pop’éclectic (1969)
ANTHONY GNAZZO - Population Explosion (1969)
DARREN COPELAND - while working and walking (2016)
HANES/ADAMS (STEVE ADAMS and JOHN HANES) - Two Improvisations (2018)
MATT INGALLS - poem (2013)
FERNANDO LOPEZ-LEZCANO - Hot’n Cold (1991)
ZURIÑE F GERENABARRENA - Fyr (2016)



equipment kindly provided by The Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University and sfSound.


Background image: a "diffusion score" for Edgard Varèse's Poème Électronique