News release
Original score played on instruments made from trash
Friday, November 16 at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco
Cross a recycling company with a classical composer and what do you get? A symphony written at the San Francisco dump played on musical instruments made from garbage.
Classical musicians play saws, pipes, mixing bowls, bottles, pans, deck railings, oil drums, bike wheels, bird cages, and shopping carts to produce Junkestra, an original score in three movements.
During a four-month residency at the city dump last spring, local composer Nathaniel Stookey dug up what he calls a sonorous collection of recycled materials.
"Each bottle has its own tone," says Stookey, who combed the trash for materials to use. The result is "a richer palette of timbre and pitch than anything I could have foreseen."
To listen to Junkestra on line go to:
www.sfrecycling.com/AIR/stookey.htm
Video footage available (see below).
Norcal Waste, parent to Sunset Scavenger Company, sponsors the artist in residence program at the San Francisco dump. After Junkestra premiered last May in the cart assembly room at the dump Norcal arranged for the November 16 encore at the Herbst Theatre. Proceeds will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs.
A program of short videos by other alumni of the residency program will precede the symphony performance. In Dining at the Dump," Robin Lasser grabs food off a trash conveyor. In “The Why of the System” repurposes castoff photographs, records and home movies to tell a new story.
Philip Bonner, the program's current artist, creates sets and costumes out of trash for his animated video stories, which are popular with third and fourth graders who tour the Dump.
Using art to inspire us to recycle more was the idea of the residency program’s founder, the late Jo Hanson, a local environmental artist. The evening will feature a tribute to Hanson's memory.
The Junkestra soundtrack is posted on this Website: www.sfrecycling.com/AIR
Tickets: $10-15 from www.cityboxoffice.com or 415-392-4400
When and Where: Fri., 8 PM, Nov. 16, Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., SF
Press contacts:
Paul Fresina
SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc.
(415 330-1414
pfresina@sfrecycling.com
Deborah Munk
SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc.
(415) 3301415
dmunk@sfrecycling.com
Footage available:
We work with a video specialist named Townley Paton (415) 561-4648. He filmed the Junkestra performances at the dump in May.
Townley has provided Paul Fresina, director of the garbage art program, DVD copies of a 3-minute edited clip that gives people a brief overview of the Junkestra performance.
Townley can also provided journalists b-roll in the form of three DVD-RAM disks with uncompressed Quicktime files of the Junkestra event at Tunnel Ave, for editing purposes.
Two files are in 640X480 standard TV and one is in HDV 1080i.
All of the shots are from a single performance and rights free.
If you want any of the above, please feel free to contact Townley directly.
Thank you
Robert Reed 415 606-9183