Hey Internet! In June, I have three events happening in Seattle - all very different than one another. Here's the scoop...

On June 2nd I'm presenting One Stick Gong at The Henry in conjunction with Interstitial. This internet-based meditation will be held inside the museum's James Turrell skyspace, Light Reign. Spoken text, sound, music, and a series of scents will guide you through some serious screen time with your portable devices. Together we will explore the outer reaches of online sharing, the barnacles of sentimentality, and digital cartography. ‪You can sign up right here
- don't forget your headphones!

Next, on June 11th I'm presenting a new work with composer John Teske at the Georgetown Steam Plant.

Drone Restoration is a site-specific work at the historic Georgetown Steam Plant by Seattle composers Nat Evans and John Teske. This work for brass, electronics, and additional sound implements will be presented at the steam plant on June 11th from 10am–2pm, with audience members being invited to come and go at any time. In absence of the original drone from the machinery of the steam plant providing electricity to the city of Seattle, this score from Evans and Teske responds to this historic space to create a new musical drone. These drones—long, expansive notes—were written specifically to take advantage of Georgetown Steam Plant’s singular resonance.
As the performance will take place on multiple levels throughout the cavernous space, audience members are invited to explore the building and hear the music changing and responding throughout the space and over time. Drone Restoration is improvisatory in nature, with the players responding to each other, the space and musical cues created by Evans and Teske.

Drone Restoration
June 11th, 10am-2pm
Georgetown Steam Plant - 6605 13th Ave S, Seattle, WA

Last - on June 26th I'll be curating the longtime weekly series of improvisation-based music Racer Sessions. Although I'm somewhat outside this community as a composer, much of my music incorporates an improvisatory element. And, I frequently work with musicians from the Racers Sessions / Tables & Chairs community for my own events and works. At any rate - it feels like things are coming full circle in a way after years of enjoying the music from this community and working with musicians. I hope to see you there!

November 7th at Interstitial: Mutual Therapy by Nat Evans

Mutual Therapy is an opportunity for plants and humans to enjoy a relaxing, mutually beneficial sonic environment - soothing tones, clean air and blankets for humans, with gentle sunlight and sounds to boost the immune systems of plants. Recent research at the University of Missouri has demonstrated that plants respond to recordings of insects eating plants by creating additional defense chemicals that repel future attacks. The sonic environment will combine these sounds with soothing sounds for humans to enjoy. People are encouraged to bring their own plants from home and come relax in this pleasant environment. Participants can also leave for a time while their plants continue to receive sonic therapy, or simply come and enjoy an abundance of clean air and interact with the many additional plants which will be inhabiting the gallery for this installation and event. Additionally, people will be able to have their plants Tarot cards read by Hongzhe Liang and Ripple Fang, further strengthening the inter-kingdom bond.


Nat Evans: Mutual Therapy
Saturday, November 7th 12-7pm
Interstitial Gallery
6007 12th Ave S, 3rd Floor
Seattle, WA 98108

On August 19th sound artist and composer Nat Evans and LA-based composer and bassist Scott Worthington will present new works for bass, as well as a participatory walking meditation event created by Evans during his time on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014.

Scott Worthington is touring the west coast in support of his solo album on Populist Records released in August 2015. The album, Prism, features his own music for solo bass with electronics and for bass ensemble. On tour, he performs music from the album as well as music by Nat Evans, Brenna Noonan, and Julia Wolfe.

In 2014 Nat Evans spent five months hiking the Pacific Crest Trail collecting field recordings and creating new works. Evans recorded an album of music he wrote on the trail, including field recordings of sounds he encountered during this time in the wilderness - this concert will mark the release of this album. For this event, audience members will be briefly instructed about walking meditation by John Nomura from Seattle Soto Zen, then some of these new works from the album, The Tortoise, will be presented live amidst this contemplative atmosphere.

Nat Evans & Scott Worthington
Wednesday, August 19th - 8:00pm
$5-$15 sliding scale suggested donation
The Chapel at The Good Shepherd Center
4649 Sunnyside Ave N, Seattle
waywardmusic.org

This event is presented thanks to a grant from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.





About the artists

Scott Worthington (b. 1987) is a double bassist and composer based in Los Angeles. As a chamber musician and soloist he largely focuses on contemporary music and frequently commissions and premieres new works. As a composer, Worthington focuses on chamber music, often with electronics and non-standard ensembles. He strives to write music that evokes a timeless, meditative state with spacious and resonant sounds. A recording of his concert-length work, Even the Light Itself Falls, performed by ensemble et cetera, was released by Populist Records in 2013 and has been praised by NewMusicBox and the New York Times. His upcoming projects include premieres of solo bass works with electronics and a west coast tour supporting his second album on Populist Records, released in the summer of 2015. www.scottworthington.com

Seattle sound artist and composer Nat Evans creates site-specific events that fuse nature, community and subjectivity of experience, electro-acoustic works for interdisciplinary projects, as well as concert works for chamber ensembles. His work is regularly presented across the United States and has also been performed in Europe, South America, Australia and China. Evans has received numerous commissions including the Seattle Percussion Collective, the Harrison Center for the Arts, The Henry, Odeon Quartet, The City of Tomorrow, Portland Cello Project, ALL RISE, The Box Is Empty, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, among others. His music has been featured on a number of radio stations in the United States, WNYC's New Sounds with John Schaefer, as well as BBC3, and in the 2011 Music Issue of The Believer. He studied music at Butler University with Michael Schelle and Frank Felice. www.natevansmusic.com

In April, Seattle sound artist and composer Nat Evans will present two new works from his time on the Pacific Crest Trail at The Chapel - a new work for piano, and an installation.

First, on April 17th, pianist R. Andrew Lee will be in Seattle playing a few new works, including Desert Ornamentation - one of a few works sprung from Evans’ time last year hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. This 30 minute work for piano and field recording is specifically based around the idea of encountering monolithic human things when in supposed wilderness. The field recordings are of crackling, humming, buzzing power lines that the trail crosses, and as an accompaniment and sound collage slowly changes over time, so too do spare notes of the piano - a sort of sonic manifestation of the trickster coyote, which was also encountered numerous times in the desert. Desert Ornamentation is a slow moving contemplative piece about a 700 mile walk in the desert, contemporary intersections of the human and natural worlds, and energy powering Los Angeles, draped across the land.

Also on the program are new works by New York City-based composers Craig Shepard and Adrian Knight.

April 17th - 8pm
The Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center
$5-15 sliding scale suggested donation

On April 23rd from 7:30-8:30 Evans will present New Forest - another work utilizing field recordings made on the Pacific Crest Trail - these from 2nd growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. New Forest is a site-specific temporary installation to present sound. Evans collects natural objects from the place the installation and listening event is being held, creates shadow-like drawings to pair them with, then with the objects, drawings, and direction of light in a space creates a space for people to listen in. Tea is served as well, to further direct the senses towards listening and contemplation.

The field recordings are from places where the forest was clearcut in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Occasionally drifting through the field recordings will be 78 records playing of music that was popular around the time when the forest was clear cut. So, over time the listener will simultaneously hear music from the time when the forest was dramatically altered, and an update as to how the forest sounds around 60-70 years after the event. The 78 records were inherited by Evans from his grandfather, who was studying forestry during the 1940s on the GI Bill. So, besides being large events in our country’s history, New Forest is also a very personal investigation into sound for the artist.

People are free to come and go while the installation is up. After the installation and listening event, a concert of works by John Teske and Nick Norton will be presented.

April 23rd - 7:30-8:30pm - New Forest installation and listening event 8:30 - concert
The Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center
$5-15 sliding scale suggested donation

It’s been over five months now since I returned to Seattle from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and though I feel totally different after that huge experience than I did before, getting down to work on various projects post-trail has been a great way to process the experience. My initial plan setting out on the PCT was to make field recordings, collaborate, and write music that would become an album. And, I’m happy to say I completed that work and releasing the album with Quakebasket records is currently in development - I can’t wait to share its release later this year. But, beyond that while out there I also came up with many other interdisciplinary sound-based works and some concert pieces as well. And, I’ve been busy creating those! So, below you’ll find info about projects I’ve completed, public presentations, and projects still under development. Have a look around!

New Forest at Cornish College of the Arts

From February 23rd through March 9th I was fortunate enough to have a two-week residency at Cornish College of the Arts as part of the Artist Incubator program. During my time there I experimented with a couple different iterations of a listening based interaction and installation called New Forest. For this piece I gather natural objects from around wherever it is being held, and create a series of ink drawings of the objects to pair with them to create the installation, in this case with very minimal light. Members of the public were then invited in two at a time to listen to field recordings I made on the trail. I told stories contextualizing each one, and offered tea to people as well. I also presented an iteration that was more performative and for a large group - people came and sat in the installation and I played a sort of collage of field recordings that lasted around a half an hour. I’ll be presenting this second more open public format at The Chapel on April 23rd, and I hope to present the more intimate tea, storytelling and listening sessions around the country in the future.

How to Stay Dry in Northern Oregon, Choruses and Inquiries, Desert Ornamentation

Besides the album of music from the PCT, these installations and performative based works, I also wrote three more concert oriented works at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. Leander Star commissioned a new work for french horn and field recording which he’ll play at the Northwest Horn Symposium on April 11th. This work, How to Stay Dry in Northern Oregon, involves a field recording of rain and thunder from Northern Oregon, a guided improvisation for the french horn, and someone playing a bird call. The performers will walk slowly behind the audience to perform the work.

This summer, LA-based bassist Scott Worthington will performing a new work I wrote for him called Choruses and Inquiries 50 Years After a Clearcut on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. This work utilizes two field recordings I made on a hot, dry evening in August in Northern Oregon, a couple days south of Mt. Hood by trail. The forest I was camped in had been clearcut in the 1950s, so the trees and forest weren’t that old; off to the east at the right angle you could glimpse the desert of eastern Oregon. That night I was visited first by numerous flies, bees and hornets hoping to glean moisture from my sweat soaked items, then as dark fell katydids and crickets created a roaring chorus late into the night. Interestingly, though these sounds were very loud to me, I recently discovered that the insects were chorusing at such high frequencies that most people over 50 cannot hear them due to hearing loss associated with age and environment! So, people’s experiences of this work will be radically different from one another. Look forward to hearing Scott play this at The Chapel here in Seattle on August 19th - and keep your eyes peeled for additional performances!

Lastly, on April 17th here in Seattle pianist Andy Lee will be presenting another work of mine about my experience in the desert for piano and field recording. This 30 minute work for piano and field recording is comprised of field recordings of power lines I encountered buzzing in the desert on my walk. As I saw them draped across the landscape I was taken not only by their sound, but also their ornamental nature carrying energy to Los Angeles, and the myriad intersections with nature as well. The piano work is very spare, semi-improvisatory, and connects the sounds together to create an atmosphere for contemplation.

Desert Time at Omaha Under the Radar

I’m really excited to present a new work for tenor Jeremiah Cawley at the Omaha Under the Radar festival in July. This festival is only in its second year, but is already attracting some really fascinating projects from all over the country - we’re really excited to be a part of it. Desert Time will be for solo tenor with field recordings, percussion instruments (played by Yours Truly) and electronics, with additional installation aspects, projections, and animations I’ll be making. Collectively, it will be a non-narrative theatrical piece about my experience of the desert on the Pacific Crest Trail - the sensing of time changing over time based on the light and sensation on my skin, the sense of place I began to feel as I moved at an exclusively human pace over the dry landscape, the incredible people I met who helped me along the way, interactions with animals I had, and comparing these experiences to ancient concepts of time, travel and journey in indigenous cultures that once inhabited the landscape.

Although we’re really excited to take part in this festival, we are still searching for some financial support to help make Desert Time happen. Our overall budget to create the work, travel to Omaha and present it there is $3,500 dollars. We’ve been fortunate enough to receive some donations totally $1,300 so far, but we still need more to create the work and make this trip to Omaha happen. If you’re interested in supporting this project, Desert Time, you can make a tax-deductible donation through my non-profit umbrella, Fractured Atlas. Have a look!

The Lowest Arc, a newly commissioned site and time specific sound installation by Seattle composer Nat Evans, will be installed beginning December 21 for an indeterminate exhibition period at ALL RISE. A one-night performative element will kick off the project on the winter solstice, December 21 from 4:00 – 5:30pm.

The Lowest Arc installation is written for six speakers, each with music drawn from a different natural element -the arc of the sun during the winter solstice, the moon, tidal data and other natural phenomenon. On December 21st, performers will join the installation with custom music boxes emitting tones representing constellations visible during the winter due to the tilt of the earth. These notes will be formed by superimposing constellations on a music staff.

Ultimately, the work will be experienced by moving around the 90,000 square foot ALL RISE site. On December 21 both audience and performers will create variable experiences of sound and space - the audience being invited to walk with a candle to light up this darkest day of the year; encountering different aspects of the sound installation as the tinkling of music boxes drifts by.

Date: Sunday, December 21st (rain or shine)
Performance Time: 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Performance Location: 1250 Denny Way, Seattle

Hello, internet!

At the time of my writing this, I’ve been back from my five-month wander in the wilderness on the Pacific Crest Trail for about six weeks. Since then I've been re-adjusting to sleeping in a bed, enjoying taking a showers every day, and enjoying eating all the food I could ever want (something I obsessed over on the trail!). I’ve also been getting down to brass tacks recording music for the album that will be released on Quakebasket Records in 2015 in my home studio as well as in interesting reverberant spaces like the Georgetown Steam Plant. The Tortoise project has gotten some cool press lately too in publications like Bachtrack and CityArts.

Besides recording and releasing that album, I am also presenting a series of works relating to The Tortoise project - and now with fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas I am able to accept tax-deductible donations to make these things happen! Check it out right here! By donating you are supporting work that strengthens our connection to the natural world, creates a greater sense of place and community, and inspires people to be more in the moment in their daily lives. Donations can be made once, or on an ongoing monthly basis. Some of the projects I am working on for presenting this material include:

-An event where audience members are invited to come sleep and listen to an installation of field recordings I made on the trail that lasts all night - occasional musical gestures layered atop that respond to the recording.
-A new piece for pianist Andy Lee that includes field recordings from the Pacific Crest Trail of power lines in the desert, to be debuted in April of 2015.
-Presenting an overview of The Tortoise project at the New Music Gathering in San Francisco in January 2015
-A 30-40 minute performative lecture about The Tortoise. The lecture would incorporate field recordings made during the walk, storytelling, musical performances of excerpts of pieces written for this project by myself and other composers from the project. The sounds, talks and music would all be woven together to give the audience a clear idea as to the sonic vision of the project, of the experience, and of the diversity of music being written on the west coast.
-Music for Chicago-based choreographer Kate Corby using field recordings I made while walking and notes on the corporeal I sent back from the trail.
-A series of intimate food and tea-based events in private residences that feature field recordings and musical gestures incorporated with the foods or tea.
-A headphone listening event incorporating work from The Tortoise made for contemplative walking.
-Presenting concerts around the country of music from myself and collaborators from the album released in conjunction with this project.
-A new work for LA bassist Scott Worthington
-A new work for keyboard-based duet Hocket (Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff)
-Programs for elementary school children with performances of the work and opportunities for them to write music to accompany field recordings made here in the Pacific Northwest.
-A 40-minute theatrical work in collaboration with tenor Jeremiah Cawley

If you have any questions about any of these projects, making a donation or simply how to get involved, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

All of the best and none of the worst,

Nat

I'm really excited to share this new multifaceted project - part mobile residency on foot, part recording project, and part 8-person site-specific collaboration. The residency will be conducted over 5 months as I walk 2,600 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. During this epic walk I will be working on a new piece of music, the music serving as a travelogue of sorts in the end. After the walk, the piece will be recorded and released on Quakebasket Records - a label specializing in experimental music. 

A big part of my practice as a composer is being in the wilderness making field recordings, and I will be making many recordings along the way. Starting in southern California I will mail the field recordings to 6 different composers in California, Oregon and Washington who will sift through them, choose one, then create a brief musical response for a solo instrument to accompany the field recording. These pieces with field recording accompaniment will be posted online as I am walking so people can listen to sounds changing over time as I move north, and hear how different composers along the West Coast relate to these sounds nearby them. These recordings will be gathered at the end of the journey and released dually with the piece that I'll be working on. Collaborating composers (south to north) include Carolyn Chen, Scott Worthington, Andrew Tholl, Chris Kallmyer, Brenna Noonan, Scott Unrein, Hanna Benn, and John Teske.

Undertaking a residency pushes artists in new directions and ways of creating that are outside their normal boundaries. Being in the wilderness specifically for long periods of time can change how we simply listen and compose. Many composers have taken walks as part of their practice, and in a variety of ways. For instance, Elliott Carter took a daily walk down 12th street in Manhattan, and, famously, Bach walked 300 miles to hear Buxtehude play! 

In Zen there is a long history of people walking to study with teachers, become hermits, and traverse sacred trails and mountains. In the 1950s Western culture began to interact with these Eastern traditions via beat poets like Gary Snyder - Snyder walked in Japan with an esoteric sect of Buddhists called the Yamabushi. Walking along the sacred Diamond-Womb Trail near Kyoto, Snyder took part in their wilderness rituals - blowing conch shells, chanting and paying homage to deities that inhabit different peaks. These interactions informed his own Zen practice and in turn his understanding of the natural world and man’s place in it - themes central to his work as a writer. 

Perhaps this is an opportunity to begin weaving contemporary experimental music into the mythology of this epic trail, pushing American music into new realms not often engaged with in our gilded concert halls, university classrooms, or every-day-coffee-shop city lives. By having a dialogue with the places we live and work we can create a greater sense of place and community, and walking every inch of that place will surely contribute to that for myself, for the composers who live on the West Coast near the trail, and the communities we all live in - this place that Snyder points out many Native American tribes call simply: Turtle Island. 

I'm undertaking a funding campaign to cover some of the costs and pay the different composers who'll be collaborating on this project. The $8,000 minimum goal is the amount we need to start this project, but additional funds would have to be raised along the way. In the event that the $11,000 mark is surpassed, the excess money will be divided up equally amongst all the composers involved in this project and musicians who'll record the work after the walk is over. 

If you're interested in making a donation to this exciting project, have a look at the perks and pick what's right for you! Thank you!