Uploaded November 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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In conjunction with his multi-channel installation Periodicity Piece #10, composer Dan Joseph (hammer dulcimer) will be joined by musicians J D Parran (winds), Tom Chiu (violin) and Danny Tunick (percussion) for a live performance that will augment the sounds of the installation and expand it throughout the Harvestworks house.

Saturday October 30, 2021 @ 3 pm. Duration: 50 minutes

LOCATION: The Workings of Media [art and artists] in Building 10a, Nolan Park, Governors Island

Periodicity Piece #10 (Island Time) is a mixed-media, multi-channel sound installation created for Harvestworks’ exhibition space in Nolan Park, Governor’s Island. Influenced by early minimalism, acoustic ecology, deep listening and ambient music, Periodicity Piece #10 combines a diverse collection of sounds into a slowly changing sonic ecosystem. Building on prior works in the Periodicity Piece series, the goal of the work is to establish multiple rates of periodicity, ranging from short musically metrical repetitions, to longer patterns of recurrence. The resulting experience of these simultaneously unfolding rates of periodicity, is to give the listener a rich and complex sense of passing time on multiple planes.

The unique Governor’s Island setting, with its proximity to the elements and relative remove from the bustle of the city, informs both the choice of sonic materials as well as the arrangements of speakers and mix. Field recordings, bird songs, machine sounds, abstract noises, spoken words, musical notes and phrases, and various other sound materials are all combined together into this imaginary soundscape.The result is a unique, site-specific listening experience, a kind of augmented soundscape, or sonic portal, that can engage the attention of the audience while also allowing for contemplation and a broader form of listening.

BIOS:
Dan Joseph is a composer, curator and writer based in New York City. He began his career in the early ‘80s as a drummer in the vibrant punk scene of his native Washington, DC. Soon after, he became active in the experimental tape music underground, producing ambient-industrial works for various independent labels. He spent the ‘90s in California where he studied at CalArts and Mills College. His principal teachers include Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran and Mel Powell. Equally influential were his studies with Terry Riley during several workshops in California and Colorado.
As an artist who embraces the musical multiplicity of our time, Dan works simultaneously in a variety of media and contexts, including instrumental chamber music, electroacoustic computer music, free improvisation, electronica, and sound art. Since the late 1990s, the hammer dulcimer has been the primary vehicle for his music. As a performer he is active with his own chamber ensemble, The Dan Joseph Ensemble, as well as in various improvisational collaborations and as a frequent soloist. Recent projects include the JCC Trio with composer-performers Tom Chiu and Jason Cady.
Dan’s work has been presented at Merkin Concert Hall, Diapason Gallery for Sound, Harvestworks, Roulette, Issue Project Room, Experimental Intermedia, Human Resources (CA), Harrison House (CA) and other venues. He has received commissions from the New York State Council of the Arts, Gamelan Son of Lion, sfSoundGroup, baritone Thomas Buckner, and clarinetist Matt Ingalls. Dan has held residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center.
Active for many years as a curator and presenter, he currently produces the monthly music and sound series Musical Ecologies at The Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn. His writings on music have appeared in Musicworks Magazine (Toronto), The Brooklyn Rail, NewMusicBox.org.