ALFA#4_ Remain

~ for Rhodes, Organ, Wurlitzer, Accordion, Percussion & Electronics • 4'12"

A few months ago, I acquired the Roland FR-8xb electronic accordion. I have been exploring for a while the new opportunities that such an instrument could bring to my music. The way I was planning on using it seemed quite peculiar to the community of FR's players: I wanted to use it simultaneously as a MIDI controller and a regular accordion. The instrument offers a total of 9 MIDI channels, coupled with the natural accordion audio signal, I realized the incredible amount of sound mixtures possible in a live environment.

Together with dancer & choreographer Kelsey Oluk (Can) and filmmaker Carolina Cortella (Arg), we decided to collaborate on a multimedia project that examines the things we hold on to, and the freedom that refusing to hold on can bring. "A young woman is held down by the weight of her history. The expectations of her parents, and the failures and burdens they have transferred to her over the course of her life. She only has been able to see them now, as before their weight always felt like her weight. She finds the burdens have manifested into an urn, filled with ashes. She continues to carry the ashes with her, as it’s what she knows, and how she is used to navigating the world. It is her desire for true freedom and wild abandon that gives her the courage to shed the weight. She takes the ashes in her hands and throws them to the wind, they change from grey to white as she releases them. She is free now."

Kelsey Oluk is a dancer & actress from Toronto, graduate of the Randolph Academy of the Performing Arts.
www.kelseyoluk.com

www.carolinacortella.com
Carolina Cortella is an Argentinean director and designer based in Los Angeles.

The Roland FR-8xb is programmed as such:
     - Rhodes EP73 on the first MIDI channel of the right hand keyboard — with two foot pedals: sustain & tremolo
     - Processed organ sound with expressive modulation on the second MIDI channel of the right hand keyboard
     - 16' transistor organ on the bass keys of the left hand keyboard
     - Wurlitzer EP on the chords keys of the left hand keyboard
The audio signal is that of a fine-tuned bayan accordion with registers 8'+4'+4' on the right and Master on the left

live performance

on the rooftop of the Standard Hotel, Downtown - Los Angeles
on March 30 2018