Turrell Resonance at the de Young

Featuring acoustic performances by Myrmyr (violin, cello, voice, objects)

Green Sound moves to the de Young for this special performance part of “Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young”. Nestled inside a grass-covered hill in de Young’s Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden is world-renowned artist James Turell’s installation “Three Gems”. This “skyspace,” is a subterranean installation that features a view of the sky altered by L.E.D. lighting effects, and that highlights changing light and weather conditions outside. In this incredible sonic event, contemporary experimental music duo Myrmyr (cello, violin, objects, voice) will create acoustic compositions in and around “Three Gems”, using no electrical power and only the resonance created by the sculpture to amplify and reflect Turrell’s work.

Note: This special performance takes place in the Barbro Osher Sculpture Garden – Entrance off the de Young café. “Three Gems” entrance is on the far right side of the garden (facing out from the de Young café).

Myrmyr is Marielle Jakobsons & Agnes Szelag from Oakland, CA. They rst began to perform together in 2004 while pursuing their MFA’s at Mills College, combining improvisation with creative electronics and experimental song forms. Since then they have performed at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival and Project Soundwave Festival, and toured across the West Coast and North Eastern USA. With the violin and cello as their basis, the duo creates an intimate chamber music atmosphere, augmented by live electronics, sampling, and an arsenal of instruments including ocean harp, voices, psaltery, harp, glockenspiel, bass. Myrmyr’s debut album, The Amber Sea entwines folk, improvised, and electronic music into songs inspired by Agnes & Marielle’s common Baltic roots. Featuring many Bay Area musicians, many tracks exhibit the highly collaborative nature of myrmyr’s work. Released by Digitalis Recordings in October 2009, the album has been hailed as “one of the most unique and absorbing albums we’ve heard this year” by Boomkat Music.
www.myrmyr.net

James Turrell, one of the most important contemporary artists, is a major figure in the Earth, Conceptual, Minimal, and Process Art movements. Turrell’s works are included in numerous museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum fur Moderne Kunst, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.