Catherine Brookman, Eliza Bagg, and Kathryn Shuman in Bronson Canyon (photo by Glen Han)
Friends!
We’ll see you in the people’s state park for a site specific performance by Kathryn Shuman.
This evening features an experimental vocal trio, double bass and drum set, to be performed outdoors on a bridge just before sunset.
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Presented in collaboration with Wild Up’s Democracy Sessions, Kathryn Shuman’s Fluent weaves human and environmental sounds together, merging macro- and microscopic sonic worlds. Structured and semi-improvised pieces meet musical games and immersive textures guided by participatory and collaborative forms of leadership.
Featuring performers include Sara Gomez, Mikaela Elson, Max Jaffe, Marlonius, and this performance culminates in an open, amorphous song led by Shuman, with each of us invited to join in and participate.
This performance will begin around 5:00p atop the Roundhouse Bridge.
Kathryn Shuman is an LA based vocalist, improviser, and composer who enjoys a wide
range of musical performance and expression. For the past several years, she’s been
exploring ecomusicology— sonic interaction & interdependence between beings and
their surroundings— by creating music for people and places, as well as following
migratory bird paths on bicycle, performing and capturing field recordings along the way.
As a singer, she is recognized for her versatility and expertise in a wide range of vocal techniques including experimental vocalizations, Classical, Opera, Jazz and other contemporary vocal genres. Kathryn’s voice offers “striking and clear tone, with excellent attention to detail” (composer/performer Meredith Monk). Her unique ability to expertly sing a variety of styles, and morph her sound into highly specific & imitative sounds, make her a sought after, and one of LA’s busiest, performing and recording artists who has appeared on soundtracks most recently for The Odyssey, Disclosure Day, and Wicked.
She is a roster soprano in Los Angeles Master Chorale, and has performed roles with companies including LA Philharmonic, Long Beach Opera, The Industry, LA Opera, Jacaranda and has had work commissioned by Wild Up and Living Earth. Most recently, Kathryn was a featured
soloist in an Ellen Reid world premiere with the LA Philharmonic, led by Gustavo
Dudamel, at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
She has been teaching music and embodied singing for over 13 years.
Our parks are made by people! Throughout Los Angeles, our green spaces reflect the values and the determination that it takes as a community to cultivate spaces of respite from industrialization and development. A watershed example of this ethos and fight is LA State Historic Park, nestled just between Chinatown and the LA River.
A historic waterway, a railyard, a cornfield (or not), the land of LA State Historic has lived a rich life. When a real estate firm bought the site and announced plans for a large warehouse complex, neighbors knew they were in for a fight to secure the public green space they’d long needed. More than 30 groups—like the Mothers of East Los Angeles, the Latino Urban Forum, Save the Bay, TreePeople, more—formed the Chinatown Yard Alliance to tackle the formidable task of halting development plans and demanding public green space.
We gather here to honor this spirit of collective self-determination, to say Stop The Gondola, to fly kites, to farmers market, to listen by moonrise, to listen to music outside in the daylight and eat some fruit, to Bob Baker Day, and so much more.