New Music at Short North Stage<\/a> series.<\/p>\neco|tonal\u2019s distinctive blend of contemporary classical music and jazz is at once both of those things and something much more than the sum of its parts. The musicians unite acoustic performance with electronics, a classical feel for form with fearless improvisation in expansive musical explorations into novel musical spaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid has a background in jazz and mine is classical, and I also have dabbled with Balkan folk music. But somehow we\u2019ve met in the middle with improvisation,\u201d said Casian-Lako\u0161.<\/p>\n
By way of improvisation, the musicians of eco|tonal wander through liminal spaces where jazz and contemporary classical music become something else, carrying with them the raw materials of human experience and the world around them.<\/p>\n
Mythologies<\/i> showcases works inspired by Casian-Lako\u0161\u2019 combined Croatian and Mexican backgrounds. The works foreground manifestations of those cultures in traditional Balkan musical ornamentation, contemporary instrumental techniques and improvisation, all couched in the otherworldly sounds of immersive ambient electronics.<\/p>\n
In solace for the fifth sun<\/i>, Casian-Lako\u0161 explores the ancient Aztec Legend of the Five Suns. That cosmology holds that the current era, the era of the Fifth Sun, was preceded by four previous worlds brought to catastrophic ends.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe work is about the cyclical nature of birth and death, rejuvenation,\u201d Casian-Lako\u0161 said. \u201cA lot of mythologies come out of this cyclical nature of the world, and as humans we look for meaning in these mythologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cyclicity is embodied in musical metaphors of the tides of the sea in two works on Mythologies<\/i>. David Crowell composed 2 Hours in Zadar<\/i> for Casian-Lako\u0161, as a musical exploration of her ancestry in Croatia\u2019s Dalmatian Coast. There, at the edge of the city of Zadar, Nikola Ba\u0161i\u0107\u2019s architectural sea organ installation is built into the seashore. The incoming tides pour into chambers in the concrete structure and make sounds when the waters flow out.<\/p>\n
Crowell\u2019s electronics for 2 Hours in Zadar<\/i> join audio samples of the sound of the sea organ with Casian-Lako\u0161\u2019 live singing\u2014to a text by her mother, Upper Arlington resident Nela Lako\u0161\u2014and instrumental improvisations. They also mark a turning point in Crowell\u2019s creative process.<\/p>\n
\u201cZadar was kind of the beginning of me really exploring the use of electronics in a way that felt really personal,\u201d Crowell said, \u201cpersonal both to me as the musician and composer, but also to the musicians that are performing the music as well, because they hear themselves in the music as they\u2019re performing on their own instruments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sounds of the tides along the shore of Long Island were the inspiration for Casian-Lako\u0161\u2019 pandemic-era Low Tide<\/i> for singing cellist and saxophone. Amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, Casian-Lako\u0161 says experiencing the regularity of the tides during her daily walks along the shore was reassuring.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of things were uncertain at the time, but I found that cycle of the tide so comforting. I knew when the tide was coming back and bringing this life-giving water back to all the little life forms that were left in the mud,\u201d Casian-Lako\u0161 said.<\/p>\n
Crowell\u2019s Mulatu<\/i> offers a distinctly jazzy improvisational tribute to the Ethiopian jazz saxophonist Mulatu Astatqu\u00e9. Beyond musical style and technique, the improvisatory spirit that infuses all of eco|tonal\u2019s works is really the engine of the musicians\u2019 way of bringing their works to life on stage. It\u2019s also the ingredient that, in the presence of a living, can make magic happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always like to leave some things just a little unfinished sometimes,\u201d Casian-Lako\u0161 said, \u201cwhere it\u2019s like maybe with a little adrenaline in the performance, and when something\u2019s a little gray we find some beauty in the unknown, and sometimes something completely new pops out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n