TBA:19 Institute

Innovative and celebrated musician, composer, and sound artist Kara-Lis Coverdale shares insights into her creative process and practice, gender in electronic and experimental music, and the ins and outs of her TBA performance--a unique composition for the organ at Portland's First Presbyterian Church--in conversation with Lorna Dune, a local electronic musician, composer, DJ, engineer, producer, and Sonic Arts educator.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Born in Burlington, Canada, Kara-Lis Coverdale began studying with the Royal Conservatory of Music from age 5. Coverdale has worked as organist and music director at several churches across Canada since age 13. Previous releases include Aftertouches (2015, Sacred Phrases), a distinct exploration of holographic sonics, named a top album of the year by The Wire and NPR. Coverdale has collaborated with Philadelphia noise artist David Sutton (LXV) and Tim Hecker (Love Streams, Virgins) among many others. In 2016 and 2017, Coverdale performed over eighty shows in Europe, North America, and Australia. More recently, she presented new large scale works “Marjamaa Laulud,” a unique commission for Dance with the Estonian Vanemuine Theatre; and “VoxU,” a pipe organ commission for Mutek Montreal (CALQ) that is centered around of the unique sonics of the Vox Humana organ stop.

Praised by VICE Magazine as the "mistress of new music" and named as one of their Artists to Watch by The Fader, Lorna Dune has been turning heads since her foray into the world of electronic music production. An experimental pianist, who played with the Philip Glass Ensemble, shared the stage with Steve Reich and Meredith Monk, and a long-time collaborator with Missy Mazzoli in the composer’s “all-star, all-female quintet” Victoire, has a new take on weightier beat-driven electronic music which is both fresh in its approach to the genre and also a unique arrival through her journey through sound. As a performer Dune was recently featured as a synth soloist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, toured her music nationally with Emily Wells, was commissioned to compose & perform a work to celebrate Terry Riley’s 80th birthday at the Ecstatic Music Festival, has seen a release of a remix of composer Max Richter on Deutsche Grammophon, remixed a Pulitzer prize winning work by Caroline Shaw and toured worldwide with the electro-feminist-punk icon JD Samson. “An experimental keyboardist who is happy to go wherever her heart and ears tell her, redefining genres along the way, Lorna Dune inhabits a world of her own, and it’s a glorious thing to behold.” – Red Bull Music Academy