Dunderberg Concert To Present Avant-garde Pieces

GILBERTSVILLE—The summer 2025 series of “Concerts at the Dunderberg” will present “Electronic Music/New Media” on Thursday, August 21 at 7 p.m.

“The concert explores the relationship between new electronic and experimental music and earlier electronic music and video art,” organizers said.

The concert will feature three pieces, the first of which is the world premiere of Patrick Rost’s “Cycles-II-KAOS,” with Rost on electronics and Barbara Siesel on flute. Rost’s pieces use new and old technology.

Rost wrote in explanation of his work: “The piece represents the results of a multi-month exploration into the wreckage and effects of so-called ‘governmental cost-savings.’ In the spirit of the mid-1960s, electronic synthetic tones, processed vocals, rhythmic flute, and warped video images combine in concert and protest. A multi-layered and coded audio/visual experience in which extra meanings may be derived if one possesses the once common but now arcane knowledge of “CW” (Morse code.) Who are the affected? What is the future of our environment? How dare we attempt to escape entropy?”

“The flute will be able to influence the movement of the video using real-time movement of the flutist’s body. This is something quite new, and the electronics are using typical sounds from 1960s and 1970s electronic music,” said Siesel, curator of the concert series.

Visuals are by Rost, featuring painterly images by Keith Torgan. More of Rost’s work can be found at psound74.bandcamp.com.

The second piece featured will be “Meditation on a Lonely Flute” by Fredrick Kaufman, with Siesel on flute and video created by artist Donna Cameron, whose films and videos are distributed by the Museum of Modern Art. Siesel commissioned Cameron to create moving visual art. Inspired by the piece, Cameron painted images on each slide of film, creating a moving painting.

“The vision is a moving image canvas frame, embossed on the frameless shots that are a hallmark of cinematic paper emulsion, a process which Cameron developed in the 1970s and patented in 2001,” Siesel said.

Rounding out the concert will be new electronic works by pianist/composer John Colonna.

The Dunderberg Gallery is located at 118 Marion Avenue in Gilbertsville. To learn more, visit dunderberggallery.com.