shadows—a concert for violin (singing/movement) and multichannel
The program, shadows, explores the space that lives between violin and live multichannel audio, intertwining their expressive potentials.
The concert dwells in the realm of shadows—not merely as absence, but as fertile ground for interplay and transformation. It conjures a nomadic space where violin and surround sound become interlocutors, their paths crossing, diverging, and converging in a shared exploration of artistic and technological possibilities. In this space, sound becomes movement, and movement becomes a journey—always unfolding and enfolding upon itself.
So we said goodnight
as bad dreams hid themselves
from us; the greatest hits
of anyone’s youth
& from under the door
we heard shadows
& watched voices
& knew we would never learn to speak our mouths gagged with songbirds
so we sang good morning
but there was no one here
only rain pattering on leaves
“we can’t stay there”
we thought
polyphonically
& we are gone. variously
The concert delves into the possibilities of music and theatre on a spectrum.
Leslee Smucker (US/NL) is a musician who uses violin, voice, synthesizers, electronics, film, and poetry in her works. Her artistic output spans a variety of forms including electroacoustic and live acoustic composition, compositions for her own performance, and concerts of varied musical, filmic, poetic, and artistic work.
As a violinist, she has performed solo projects at Rewire Festival, RewirexKorzo, OT301 in Amsterdam, Association Philomuses in Paris, Studio Loos in The Hague, Auditorium Clarisse in Italy, Center for New Music in San Francisco, Muse Performance Space, and ATLAS black box. In 2023 she performed Luigi Nono’s La Lontanaza for violin and 8-channel with Vienero Rizzardi for the Composing Spaces Festival. Other solo performances include The Scottish Library (presented by University of Edinburgh’s Cantos Project), the Andriessen Festival in Arnhem, NL, Project Audire in Portugal, and Interference Series in Flagstaff, AZ. She was a Barnes Fellow in Philadelphia with artist in residence JACK quartet, a fellow in Ensemble Evolution 2021 with International Contemporary Ensemble, and was the Artistic Director of the chamber ensemble Green Room Artists. For Rewire Festival (2023) she was commissioned to compose and perform a concert for sensory sensitive audience called worlds within. Her album, Breathing Landscape (Beacon Sound, 2024) was included in Bandcamp’s “Best Experimental Music of February 2024. She was a Guest Composer at EMS Stockholm where she worked with their Serge and Buchla systems.
Siamak Anvari, born in Tehran in 1981, is a composer and sound artist based in the Netherlands. He is active in the field of electroacoustic music, composes multichannel pieces, makes sound installations and films, and collaborates with other artists in interdisciplinary projects, as well as teaching courses and workshops. He is one of the founders of Stichting Azimuth, an organization for production and performance of electroacoustic music inside the Netherlands.
His works have been featured at festivals including Ars Electronica Forum Wallis, TodaysArt festival in The Hague, Slow (36h) at Concertgebouw Brugge, ALBA NOVA festival in Belguim, Wavespace with Ensemble Musikfabrik in Cologne, Germany, Continuum Festival at Centre Iannis Xenakis in Normandie, and Circuts Festival in Malta. His work Hafthasht was selected as a finalist for Giga-Hertz Award 2020 at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany.
He received a master’s degree in composition from the Art University of Tehran in 2009 and completed his second master’s degree with distinction at the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in 2014. Under the guidance of Richard Barrett and Marcel Cobusson, he received his PhD from Leiden University in 2024. His dissertation focused on the performance practice of fixed media music. In addition to the written document, he created a docuconcert film under supervision of filmmaker Frank Scheffer.
Music Portfolio: https://on.soundcloud.com/azXF5kkkpAuw5KqR6