sommeil: a concert for sleep

Below is an excerpt from the press release for a sleep concert that will be presented on April 11 in New Orleans. I know Tanner (the instigator) from some things he has done upstairs at the Blue Nile, and they were very cool things. Click the link for the full info, and spread the word to anyone you think might be into it.

sommeil: a concert for sleep, official press release

“Tanner Menard, Antenna Gallery and Experimedia Records

presents Sommeil: A Concert for Sleep, an international collaborative

experiment. Sommeil will be an all-night event beginning

at 10:00 pm on Saturday April 11th and ending on Sunday April

12th at 7:00 am. Participants are asked to slowly fall asleep while

live ambient and environmental music is performed through the

night by Tanner Menard.

Sommeil: A Concert for Sleep will be Menard’s reinterpretation of

the sleep concert experiment, first created by Robert Rich in 1982

and will be presented at the Antenna Gallery 3161 Burgundy

St New Orleans, LA 70117 in the heart of the St Claude Arts

District. The concert will be realized with Rich’s permission and

guidance. Sleep concerts are all-night events in which the audience

is asked to attend the concert with a sleeping bag and pillow

and to fall asleep while a slowly unfolding sonic texture evolves

over the course of the night and into the morning. People attending

the event are asked to be willing to sleep during the event or

at least to remain silent during the course of the nine hour experience.

Not merely a recreation of Rich’s original idea, Sommeil is

a conceptual, global remix of a performance type that addresses

one of the most basic functionalities of ambient and environmental

sound; music by which to sleep.

In the spirit of remix and the Creative Commons movement, Menard,

a Louisiana native, has compiled submissions of audio material

for the concert from nearly seventy artists across the globe.

These artists answered a call for submissions marketed online by

Experimedia Records which asked for music and field recording

to be used, remixed and mashed up during this nocturnal event.

Submissions include drones, found sound, recordings of natural

and unnatural environments and synthetic music created on synthesizers

and computers. Submitters have included radio scientists,

geologists, psychologists, sound artists, musicians, composers,

installation artists as well as several well known figures in the

ambient music scene. During the course of the evening, Menard

will remix these sleep submissions into a constantly evolving

sonic texture that will lull the audience to sleep.”