Charles Curtis Performance

In conjunction with the exhibition A Many-Sided House by US-based collaborative group Wolf Tones, cellist Charles Curtis will give a performance in The Studio at Gairloch Gardens on the evening of 15 March 2023.

Curtis will perform a series of compositions that engage the cello as a site of uncertainty, a physical and acoustical object to be explored in performance, without advance knowledge of what the exploration might yield. While clearly framed as performative tasks, the compositions are inherently incomplete, and permeable to the material and spatial conditions at hand.

In 2003 – 2005, Curtis collaborated with French composer Éliane Radigue on Naldjorlak, a concert-length solo work in which the entire cello is tuned to the “wolf tone", a musical phenomenon that occurs with stringed instruments when certain notes resonate at the same frequency as the instrument itself, creating an uneven quivering or wolf-like “howl."

For the artist group Wolf Tones, this double resonance serves as an analogy for the visual interplay of their ongoing artistic collaboration. In a recent book on the Wolf Tones, Curtis wrote: “The force and unruly richness of the wolf mean that we must approach it with care and attentiveness, rather than domination. Its variability means that we hear it anew each time, each time in different and specific dimensions, each time as an exception: a unique aesthetic moment expressed in wave energy."

Event Schedule

6 – 6:30 PM | View the exhibition, Wolf Tones: A Many-Sided House in Gairloch Gardens

6:45 PM | Doors open at The Studio to ticket holders

7:00 PM | Welcome, Introduction and Performance

Please note: there are no refunds on purchased tickets for this performance.