24 Hour Drone 2023
MAY 27 & MAY 28
12PM-12PM
Basilica Hudson and Le Guess Who? present in collaboration with Sarah Van Buren the return of 24-HOUR DRONE: EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND AND MUSIC for the first time in-person since 2019.
An immersive event and all-encompassing experience, 24-HOUR DRONE is a roving, international series featuring musicians and sound artists experimenting within the spectrum of drone to create 24 hours of unbroken, uninterrupted sound. An event that embodies Basilica Hudson at its most experimental and experiential, pushing the boundaries of what a communal, conceptual experience can be. 24-HOUR DRONE’s immersive and meditative nature emphasizes communion. This is a shared experience devoted to unifying players and listeners alike.
This year, we wade deeper into the durational and site-specific element of DRONE. The festival will start and end with special three-hour endurance sets by C. Lavender, Fuji||||||||||ta, Photay with Celia Hollander and special guests Laraaji + Arji OceAnanda and Raven Chacon.
The remaining 12 hours of the event include performances by Anneice Cousin, eucademix (Yuka C. Honda), Evans Saxl Seretan Thayer Quartet, Gamelan Dharma Swara, gushes, Kelman Duran, Laura Ortman, Liturgy (solo), Michael Foster / Luke Stewart Duo, Pauline Oliveros’ The Heart Chant led by Lisa Barnard Kelley, Sarah Hennies + Tristan Kasten-Krause, Sister Redhawk (Nea’ Mckinney), Veena + Devesh Chandra and Wolf Eyes.
24-HOUR DRONE will be streamed live on Wave Farm Radio (wavefarm.org/listen) broadcast live on WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears. (wgxc.org)
Marka Kiley + Aine Vonnegut will also present a sculpture and visual art installation in the Basilica Gallery Building.
Click below to expand on each heading and learn more about what to expect from the return of DRONE.
how does it work?
24-HOUR DRONE takes place in Basilica Hudson’s 6,000 sq. ft. Main Hall with the performers situated in the center of the room and attendees on the floor around them. Each performance blends into the other to create twenty-four hours of unbroken, uninterrupted sound (no applause between acts). Attendees are free to come and go over the twenty-four hours, but those who make the commitment to this long-duration work will be rewarded with the intangible feeling of meditative contentment, pure bliss, and communal collaboration.
Basilica Hudson is a unique industrial factory setting with limited space. Attendees are encouraged to bring a camping pad/yoga mat and pillows/cushions/sleeping bags/blankets. Please be respectful and limit the gear that you bring in order to maximize space and comfort for all DRONERs.
PLEASE NOTE:
– Space for endurance lounging/listening is limited and will be on a first-come-first served basis.
– Bring ONE mat per person, not more.
– No motorized/inflating air mattresses.
– No chairs.
– No coolers.
– No dogs, no pets.
– We recommend warm and comfortable clothes, bottles for refill at Basilica’s water fountain, and endurance-enhancing snacks.
Durational Sets
To mark our first 24-HOUR DRONE in four years, we’re wading deeper into the durational and site-specific element of drone, presenting artists committed to playing either three-hour or one-hour sets. Because we will feature a smaller and tighter roster of artists (most who are close to confirmed, full lineup to be announced shortly), we will not be having an open call for sumbissions.
DATE CHANGE
Due to our current (and very exciting!) renovation of Basilica’s West Wing, we are pushing 24-HOUR DRONE back one month to the last weekend of May (also Memorial Day weekend), Saturday May 27 – Sunday May 28. In an amazing turn of droney synchronicity, this will also allow DRONE to coincide with our friends Weird Canada’s Drone Day, an annual celebration of drone, community, and experimental sounds celebrated by communities and droners around the world. It will also, hopefully, be a lot warmer in our big factory!
Also of note: our friends at Drone not Drones in Minneapolis are finally back as well with their first event since 2020, on Fri Jan 20 – Sat Jan 21. Check them out!
price increase
24-HOUR DRONE, like its autumnal counterpart Basilica Soundscape, is at the heart of Basilica’s mission to present cutting-edge art and music in our riverfront factory. But these wildly imaginative programs are also expensive to produce. Much has changed since we last presented these events on such a large scale, and we need to adapt to rising costs, from production, marketing, hospitality, staff time, and more than ever, the need to pay artists fairly. As a nonprofit, we remain deeply committed to the long-term sustainability of these programs, and to paying working artists.
When you purchase a ticket to 24-HOUR DRONE, you get to experience 15 acts over the course of 24 hours. That’s about $6.50 per performance, compared to the average cost of attending a ~3 hour concert. We hope you’ll consider joining us for a this moment in time.
If you’d like to make an additional donation outside of your ticket purchase, your support will help to ensure that 24-HOUR DRONE is in the black this year.
About the curation
“Drone” is an expansive term, meaning any sound made with sustained tones. The use of drone dates back to humankind’s earliest music, and is found in cultures the world over. Drone is also a key element in many musical genres from the 20th century and today, including free jazz, electroacoustic, noise, ambient, and other forays into the experimental and avantgarde.
The leading voices in the most exciting drone-based music today are many BIPOC, women and queer folx drawing from these disparate traditions, or using alternative lenses to investigate otherwise mainstream traditions. We are also lucky that so many incredible music and sound artists live and work in the Hudson Valley. Hence, the 24-HOUR DRONE artist lineup is a reflection of that diversity, as well as our local community – from as many musical and sound disciplines as possible, utilizing a variety of instrumentation.
About our partners
Le Guess Who? is a Celebration of Sound in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Across four days Le Guess Who? takes over the entire city center of Utrecht, with over 150 artists performing in pop venues, theaters, churches, warehouses, and clubs. U? is the participative and freely accessible day program of Le Guess Who?, created for and with the city of Utrecht. COSMOS is our hybrid platform, which translates the festival’s mission to an online environment.
Throughout the years, Le Guess Who? has grown to become a leading international festival, known for its unparalleled presentation of genre-challenging music. In 2022, visitors from 50 different countries travelled to Utrecht in November to attend the festival. https://leguesswho.com/
Sarah Van Buren (SVB) is an artist, educator, sound maker, dee jay and raver based in Stottville, NY who works with music, sound and collaborative performance to investigate buried histories, communal ritual and collective resonance. She started a DJ school in 2019 which evolved into the Hudson Valley-based DJ collective Community Rave Network, and is co-founder of the NYC-based video art/party/performance collective CHERYL. She is an occasional guest DJ on WFMU’s Radio Row program, and a former programmer at WGXC, Wave Farm’s community radio station. She is co-curator of Basilica Hudson’s 24-HOUR DRONE music + sound festival since its inception in 2015, and is certified in Deep Listening® by The Center for Deep Listening at RPI.
Wave Farm is a non-profit arts organization driven by experimentation with broadcast media and the airwaves. A pioneer of the Transmission Arts genre, Wave Farm programs provide access to transmission technologies and support artists and organizations that engage with media as an art form. Wave Farm Radio encompasses many radio streams available at wavefarm.org/listen and the Wave Farm Radio App, including WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears, a full-power, non-commercial, listener-supported station in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley operating out of studios in Hudson and the Wave Farm Study Center in Acra. https://wavefarm.org/
Second Ward Foundation occupies the former Charles Williams School in Hudson, NY. Designed by M.F. Cummins and Son of Troy and completed in 1924, the building originally accommodated 480 elementary school students. It is being repurposed into an auditorium, education center, and art galleries. Second Ward holds events in the building including live music and video screenings by local as well as internationally recognized performers and artists. The foundation also loans artwork to regional, national and international institutions. http://www.secondward.org/
ARTISTS
C. Lavender
An interdisciplinary sound artist, sound healing practitioner, and educator, who creates immersive aural landscapes for listeners; experiences which are intensely physical, emotional, and ultimately cathartic. She is the author of the book Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives (Anthology Editions).
Fuji|||||||||||ta
A sound artist, organist and composer based in Japan, whose artistic practice centers on the exploration, manipulation and presentation of sounds commonly found within nature, including the use of air, water and even the echolocation of bats. The crux of his performances is his hand-built pipe organ based on the traditional Japanese musical concept of GAGAKU, a slow and elegant form of classical music found in the 7th century.
Photay with Celia Hollander and special guests Laraaji + Arji OceAnanda
Artist bios
Photay is the alias of 29-year-old Woodstock, NY-based composer, drummer, DJ, producer and musical polymath Evan Shornstein. As Photay, he has recorded a quartet of albums that organically bring together intricate chamber-pop arrangements, post-techno electronic textures, and a love of Black Atlantic polyrhythms. Photay has made an album under the name WEMA (Swahili for “kindness” and “benevolence”), a multicultural celebration of rhythm and folkways with Tanzanian gogo musician Msafiri Zawose. Photay’s music is built on positive intentions. Truly.
Celia Hollander is an LA based composer and artist working with audio, performance, installation and text. Her work engages ways that the act of listening can shape temporal perception and cultivate social connection. Her discography includes releases on Leaving Records and Recital, she is a resident dj on Dublab Radio and she holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts.
American musician Laraaji is one of New Age’s most distinctive, prolific, and charismatic artists. A master of multiple instruments, Laraaji primarily constructs his lengthy, meditative soundscapes from an electronically altered zither, hammered dulcimer, kalimba, synthesizers, piano, and other instruments, as well as natural sounds and vocals.
Arji “OceAnanda” Cakouros, is a Sound Healer, Musician, Usui Reiki Master, & Dreamwork Teacher with a private counseling/healing practice based in Niskayuna, NY. Her Hellenic background and deep interest in the ancient Asclepian healing traditions have a strong presence in her work and life. Since 2008 she has enjoyed the deep joy and honor of collaborating with Blissmate Sw.Laraaji NadaBrahmananda…LARAAJI in many venues worldwide, offering Healing Sound events and Laughter Immersion experiences, as well as a great variety of musical performances, numerous ones in conjunction with other artists.
Raven Chacon
A Pulitzer Prize–winning composer, performer, and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. As a solo artist, collaborator, and a member of Postcommodity from 2009 to 2018, Chacon has exhibited, performed, or had works performed all over the world. Since 2004, he has mentored more than three hundred Native high school composers in writing new string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP).
Kelman Duran
Kelman Duran is a Dominican-American musician, visual artist, filmmaker, and scholar from Los Angeles. While he sees his music as a purely emotional counterpart to his visual arts and film work, his artistic and scholarly interests focus on issues of racism, police brutality, and the interplay between disenfranchised groups and civil architecture.
More info
His electronic abstractions tend to be amoebic and malleable, blending into dembow, reggaeton, and Caribbean riddims that are often atmospheric and moody, saddled with emotion. It’s a sound that’s flourished in underground spaces across the globe and attracted fans in pretty much every corner of the world – including Beyonce. One of his tracks became part of I’m That Girl, the opener to Beyonce’s critically acclaimed 2022 album, Renaissance.
Michael Foster + Luke Stewart
Artist bios
Michael Foster is a saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, and curator focusing on the overlap of improvisation and queer identity. His work as a saxophonist interrogates the saxophonic tradition, drawing inspiration from the Texas Tenor Tradition of Buddy Tate and Illinois Jacquet as well as harsh noise and queer theoretical concepts. He utilizes extensive instrumental preparations such as motors, vibrators, tapes, balloons, etc as a means of probing the instrument’s most forgotten regions. His current projects include duos with Leila Bordreuil, Lydia Lunch, Ben Bennett, Ted Byrnes, The Ghost, and The New York Review of Cocksucking. He often works with Weasel Walter, William Parker, John Blum, Jacob Wick, Sarah Hennies, Marina Rosenfeld, and many others. He also co-founded Queer Trash, a curatorial platform for LGBTQIA+ artists engaged in myriad experimental performance practices.
Luke Stewart is a DC/NYC-based musician and organizer of important musical presentations, and has a strong presence in the national and international Improvised Music community. He is noted in Downbeat Magazine in 2020 as one of “25 most influential jazz artists” of his generation. He was profiled in the Washington Post in early 2017 as “holding down the jazz scene,” selected as “Best Musical Omnivore” in the Washington City Paper’s 2017 “Best of DC,” chosen as “Jazz Artist of the Year” for 2017 in the District Now, and in the 2014 People Issue of the Washington City Paper as a “Jazz Revolutionary,” citing his multi-faceted cultural activities throughout DC.
Liturgy (solo)
Liturgy is the project of Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix, whose yearning, energetic “transcendental black metal” exists in the space between metal, experimental, classical music and sacred ritual. The band is simultaneously a platform for fine art and theology. For Basilica’s 24-HOUR DRONE event, Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix performs a solo set of looped guitar counterpoint, vocals, and electronic percussion.
Sarah Hennies + Tristan Kasten-Krause
Artist bios
Sarah Hennies (b. 1979, Louisville, KY) is a composer and percussionist based in upstate New York whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer & trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought. She is primarily a composer of acoustic chamber music, but is also active in improvisation, film, and performance art. She is the recipient of a 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award and a 2016 fellowship in music/sound from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Bard College.
Tristan Kasten-Krause is a bassist and composer living in Brooklyn, New York who’s work enlarges the minutiae of close tones and subtle gestures. As a bassist he has been credited with lending his “low-end authority to vital New York institutions” (the New Yorker) and praised for his “heavenly” (the Guardian) original compositions. Tristan has worked and performed with modern artists such as Alvin Lucier, Caroline Shaw, LEYA, Steve Reich, Man Forever and David Lang. He has performed on the Lincoln Center Festival, designed sound For Bloomberg Marketplace and been a featured soloist on Netflix’s The Witcher. His most recent duo album Images of One with Jessica Pavone was released February 17th on Relative Pitch Records.
Laura Ortman
A soloist musician, composer and vibrant collaborator, Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) creates across multiple platforms, including recorded albums, live performances, and filmic and artistic soundtracks. An inquisitive and exquisite violinist, Ortman is versed in Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, and amplified violin, often sings through a megaphone, and is a producer of capacious field recordings.
Pauline Oliveros’ The Heart Chant led by Lisa Barnard Kelley
Lisa B Kelley will be facilitating The Heart Chant (© Pauline Oliveros, 2001), a participatory Deep Listening® meditation. The Heart Chant is an offering of sonic healing for all beings through vocalization and listening. Written by Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, The Heart Chant‘s simple instructions invite any and all to participate in creating community through sound.
More info
Courtesy of Pauline Oliveros Trust, PoPandMoM Publications ( PoPandMoM.org) ©2001
For more information on: Still Listening in Kingston for local workshops and teachings. (Ministryofmaat.org). For Info on DL Certification Trainings and Retreats: deeplistening.rpi.edu
Lisa B Kelley is a vocalist and transdisciplinary artist residing in Kingston, NY. Steeped in traditional theater, vocal and performance studies in her youth, Lisa’s performances and writing explore womanhood, grief and loss, dreams and the confluence of self in nature and the cosmos. Lisa is a Deep Listening certificate holder and an ordained high priestess and board member of the Ministry of Maåt. Her introduction to Deep Listening began on a journey with Pauline Oliveros and Ione to Southern Italy to study the mysteries of the Black Madonna and the sacred ruins while also taking measurements of acoustical resonance of those ruins. The journey’s intersection of science and the sacred impacted Lisa so profoundly she spent the next ten years working closely with Pauline and Ione as a staff member of the Deep Listening Institute. Kelley studied and assisted at Deep Listening Retreats in New York, Spain and the UK. Lisa is a passionate arts and community advocate. She is active in her local community as the founding Executive Director of the Kingston Midtown Arts District, member of the Arts Commission for the City of Kingston, as well as a volunteer and alumni artist of the O+ Festival.
Pauline Oliveros was a senior figure in contemporary American music. Her career spans fifty years of boundary dissolving music making. Since the 1960’s she influenced American music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. She was the founder of Deep Listening®.
Evans Saxl Seretan Thayer Quartet
Combining sonic visions from their staggering collections of synth ripples, piano swirls, percussive burrows, and delicious groovers, the quartet of Matt Evans, Elori Saxl, Ben Seretan, and John Thayer come together for their first ever performance to seamlessly smear compositions by each of its members from wall to wall.
gushes
gushes, (previously WSABI – Warped Sangot And Boss Interior – ) is a performance art prog project that shapeshifts through interdisciplinary activations across the forms of rock band, interactive ritual, plant ceremony, movement cycle, and collaborative installation, led by Filipinx Brooklyn-based artist Jennae Santos. WSABI makes music and performance composed of rhythmic guitar loops, abstract theatre, and mythmaking informed by Indigenous Filipino psychology, the feminist occult, plant medicine, genderqueer fluidity, and pleasure autonomy.
Anneice Cousin
Anneice is a singer/songwriter born and raised in the Hudson area. Anneice’s style of music is a genre bending blend of hip hop and r&b. Anneice hopes this experiment, being her first experience with Drone, has the same effect of conveying true feelings through vocal sounding where in this case there are no words. Her practice extends beyond her own artistic experience and carries on in social art through her work in the organization she founded, Beautiful Racket.
Sister Redhawk (Nea’ Mckinney)
Nea’ is a Hudson, NY based artisan who moved here from California. She is also an art therapist, sound healer and a marketing/ PR business owner amongst many other services she provides to the Hudson community. She has worked with an array of youth programs and businesses preparing them for professional opportunities as well as teaching them about music. Nea is not only involved in business development, but she is also involved in international television, film, concert and music productions. Photo by Ken Bovat
eucademix (Yuka C. Honda)
EUCADEMIX, also known as Yuka C. Honda, is an electronics instrumentalist, composer, and producer (though she enjoys calling herself a “decomposer”). As EUCADEMIX, she performs solo electronic music. She calls it “Sensory Music”. Yuka is primarily known for founding the band Cibo Matto in the 1990s. They released two LPs and one EP on Warner Brothers Records. As a producer, she has produced albums by Sean Lennon and Martha Wainwright, among others.
Wolf Eyes
Wolf Eyes is from Michigan. They – Nate Young and John Olson – are known for their bizarre and otherworldly approach to everything. They’ve been extraordinarily prolific in creating new sounds, new projects, and new releases ever since Young started Wolf Eyes as a solo pursuit in 1996. Their workman-like devotion caught lots of ears during the 2000s, when they became the least likely members of the Sub Pop roster and the most visible band in the international noise scene.
Gamelan Dharma Swara
Gamelan Dharma Swara is a coalition of musicians, dancers, and composers presenting Balinese performing arts through performance, commissions, and education. Dedicated to tradition along with development and exploration through new works, their mission is to cultivate Balinese gamelan as a global artform, engaging diverse partners and curious audiences.
Veena + Devesh Chandra
Artist bios
Veena Chandra is an internationally renowned sitarist, composer, teacher and choreographer. She is the founder and director of the Dance and Music School of India in Latham, NY (celebrating 31 years) where she teaches Indian classical music. She has been a faculty member at Skidmore College since 1990, teaching sitar in the Music Department. Since 2014 she is also the Artist Associate in Sitar at Williams College. Veena Chandra has a rare ability to communicate the beauty and complexity of North Indian Classical music to the western listener. She is noted for her skill and sensitivity in the meend (bending of wire) and her ability to produce vocal sounds on the sitar.
Devesh Chandra has been learning the Tabla since the age of 3. He has learned Northern Indian Classical Music by accompanying his mother, Veena Chandra. Devesh, the youngest of six children, grew up immersed in Indian music. His first spoken words were the syllables of tabla -Dha Dha Tita. Immersed in music at a young age, Devesh is fortunate to have grown up surrounded by iconic figures of Indian Music. Devesh accompanied his mother on her visits with the late Ustad Vilayat Khan. Ustad Vilayat Khan grew to be a grandfather to Devesh.
DRONE clock logo by Dylan Kraus
Partners & Sponsors
