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On July 23rd, 2024 at Human Resources Los Angeles, Alex Hawthorn will present an evening of experimental electronic music performances by renowned artists, culminating in the world premiere of their new work, “Ringdown”. The evening will feature opening solo sets by Stephanie Cheng Smith (electronics), Mattie Barbier (trombone), and Hawthorn (electronics).

For their Human Resources debut, sound artist and composer Alex Hawthorn brings their singular blend of electronics, field recordings, and contact mics to build lush, dense ambient soundscapes, dilating time to explore the intricacies of small sounds.

“Ringdown” draws inspiration from the phenomenon of the same name, first recorded in 2015, which describes the gravitational waves emitted during the final stage of a merger of two black holes, as they combine into a singular entity. Hawthorn was struck by the data, which showed these gravitational waves were oscillating in the range of human hearing. “Ringdown” builds on this data to imagine the sonic possibilities of such a merger.

The concert features design elements by Jane Hamor, Claire Chrzan, and Drew Sensue-Weinstein.

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Stephanie Cheng Smith is an L.A.-based composer, performer and programmer who creates interactive pieces, installations, improvisation, and through-composed works. Often using electronics, violin and light elements, Smith’s work stretches from ensemble performances and the realization of others’ scores to a solo practice that has included several projects that each utilize a novel technology-driven instrument of her own devise. Developing software and designing circuitry to control motorized elements, she has imagined a unique hybrid form where physical materials such jingle-bells, plastic cups, or pieces of paper can be deliberately – or aleatorically – controlled to “perform” expressive and organic sound events. A recent work, Life Cycles, uses such apparati to vibrate vellum, evoking the sound of cicadas. Smith’s 2021 album Forms was released on A Wave Press.

Mattie Barbier is an LA based musician and sonic researcher focused on experimental intonation, noise, and the physical processes of their instrument. Their playing has been described by the LA Times as being “of intense, brilliant, virtuosic growling that gave the striking impression that Barbier was dismantling the instrument while playing it,” by the Wire as “exploring the nooks of instrumental tone far beyond the reach of most mortals,” and by the New Yorker as being a “diabolically inventive trombonist-composer.”

Mattie engages in collaborative relationships with a range of musicians including Weston Olencki, Ellen Arkbro, Clara Iannotta, Sarah Davachi, Michelle Lou, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Jacob Kirkegaard, and Katherine Young. As an interpreter they have given premieres by and collaborated with a broad spectrum of composers including George Lewis, Catherine Lamb, Liza Lim, Lester St. Louis, Kevin Drumm, Kaori Suzuki, Raven Chacon, and Scott Walker. Mattie is a member of RAGE Thormbones, wildUp, echoi, wasteLAnd music, and is an active soloist and improviser on low brass instruments and bagpipes. Additionally they teach at CalArts.

Mattie has presented and created work with and for the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Getty Villa, Monday Evening Concerts, San Francisco Exploratorium, Indexical, Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, Roulette Intermedium, RedCat, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Apparat, Factory Seconds Brass Trio, and Issue Project Room as well as in collaboration with holographer Tristan Duke. They have made a wide array festival appearances including: Borealis (NO), IMD Darmstadt (DE), Donaueschinger (DE), Maerzmusik (DE), Bludenz Tage zeitgemäßer (AT), Spor (DK), Chicago’s Frequency Festival, Dartington International Summer School (UK), Kalv Festival (SE), JAMA (SK), Minu (DK), the Ojai Music Festival, and Musica Nova Helsinki (FI) with the Helsinki Philharmonic, as well as at Donaueschinger with the SWR. Various recording projects have been released on Sofa Music, Dinzu Artifacts, Carrier, Tripticks, Populist, Mode, Hat Hut, Innova, Late Music, Faux Amis, New Focus, Domino, New Amsterdam, and Kairos Records.

Alex Hawthorn is an artist, composer, and technologist whose work flows between performance, installation, object-making, and sound-making. As a non-binary interdisciplinary artist, Hawthorn is most comfortable outside prescriptive boxes, allowing their research and intuition to shape the form and medium of their projects. They use their work as a lens through which to investigate the natural world, specifically focusing on time: how we experience it, how we have codified it, and how we exist within it. Hawthorn’s recent research has focused on extremely long timescales: from the geological to the galactic.

Hawthorn has performed at sound art festivals nationally and internationally, most recently as part of the opening of the Floating Transmissions festival in Hamburg, Germany. Hawthorn’s work in theatrical sound design has garnered them an Obie award, LA Ovation Awards, and has been heard across North and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East. www.AlexHawthorn.com / @afhawthorn