The Paul Dresher Ensemble Production of:
Schick Machine
Virtuoso percussionist Steven Schick performing on a stage filled with huge invented instruments
September 23 - 25, 2016 on Z Space's Main Stage
In Schick Machine virtuoso percussionist Steven Schick inhabits a fantastical stage filled with huge invented instruments and sound sculptures – including the Hurdy Grande, the Tumbler, the Field of Flowers and the Peacock (a deconstructed pipe organ). While exploring this visually extraordinary stage, he has unexpected encounters with both tiny noise-making objects and the huge invented instruments, luring the audience into a magical world full of musical surprises including “a dazzling electrified metal hoop that seems to want to spin and wow forever, an organ mounted like the Aztec rays of the sun, a four-foot wide spinning “cymbol” disk and assorted woodblocks that bounce around in space!”
Collaboratively created by a multi-disciplinary team including composer/instrument builder Paul Dresher, writer/director Rinde Eckert, percussionist/performer Steven Schick, lighting and visual designer Tom Ontiveros, instrument inventor/educator Daniel Schmidt, and mechanical sound artist Matt Heckert, Schick Machine features percussionist Schick exploring a visually compelling world of mechanical devices, invented instruments and seemingly infinite sonic possibilities. As he wanders amidst a stage set filled with very large invented instruments– Schick draws the audience into a magical place filled with creative potential. Quickly, the audience relinquishes its expectations about what an instrument should look like, how it should be played, and what sounds it can make, and is enticed into a sonorous world of continual aural and visual surprises.
More Information and press photos of Schick Machine please visit: Bernstein Artists
Credits
Paul Dresher – Composer, Instrument Invention
Steven Schick – Performer/Percussionist
Rinde Eckert – Director/writer
Matt Heckert – Mechanical Sound Artist
Daniel Schmidt – Instrument Invention
Tom Ontiveros – Lighting & Production Design
Video
Schick Machine was commissioned by Stanford Lively Arts and Meyer Sound Labs and produced with the generous support of the Creative Work Fund, the Phyllis Wattis Foundation, the Argosy Fund for Contemporary Music, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bernard Osher Foundation and the Meet The Composer/Commissioning Music USA Program. The composition of the score was supported by Dresher's Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Music Composition in 2006-07.
