SAN JOSE, California (February 26, 2016)— Composer Guillermo Galindo, who creates music on instruments made from objects found on the US-Mexico border, will perform at MACLA (Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana) on Sunday, March 6, 2016, at 2 PM. The program is co-presented by MACLA and the San Jose Museum of Art. Galindo’s sculptural musical instruments are featuring in the new exhibition Border Cantos: Richard Misrach | Guillermo Galindo at SJMA. The performance will take place at MACLA, 510 South First Street, San Jose. Tickets are $10 ($5 for students) and are available through SJMA’s website, sanjosemuseumofart.org/calendar.
Galindo is an experimental composer whose work is influenced by the avantgarde musical traditions of John Cage and by contemporary cultural and political events. For Border Cantos, an artistic collaboration with photographer Richard Misrach, Galindo transforms scavenged items (found by Misrach during his photo shoots in the borderlands) into instruments based on indigenous musical instruments from around the world. A discarded food can becomes the resonating chamber of an instrument modeled on a single-stringed Chinese erhu. He strings together empty shot gun shells to create a variation of a West African shaker and creates a crank drum (inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical device named the martello) using a shoe, a glove, a drag tire, and rawhide.
Galindo will also perform at the San Jose Museum of Art on Thursday, May 5, 2016, at 12 PM, and on Thursday, July 21, 2016, during the Museum’s ArtRage event, 7 – 10 PM.
Galindo’s interpretation of musical form, timing, musical notation, and sonic archetypes and his use of inventive sound-generating devices are hallmarks of his art. His compositions have been performed at major festivals and concert halls in the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. From symphonic works and acoustic chamber compositions to live performance art, his work spans the domains of music and the visual arts, computer interaction, electro-acoustic music, opera, film, instrument building, installation, and improvisation.
Born in 1960, Galindo received his BA in film scoring composition from Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts in 1989, and his MA in music composition and electronic music from Mills College, Oakland, California in 1991. His numerous awards include a residency at Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada (1999); a California Arts Council Composers Fellowship (2000); a Creative Work Fund Media Arts Grant (2003); a Sistema Nacional de Creadores composition grant (2005-2008); and an Artistic Innovation Award from the Center for Cultural Innovation (2011). His work has been performed at the Hong Kong City Festival (1999); Bourges Electronic Music Festival, France (2000); Arte Sonoro Festival at the Roy and Edna/Cal Arts REDCAT Theater, Los Angeles (2004); Sound Symposium, Newfoundland, Canada (2006); and Festival RADAR, Mexico City (2009). Galindo’s media and sound installations and instrumental compositions have been performed at and by the Orquesta Filarmónica de la UNAM, Mexico City (1996); Oakland Museum of California (2003); Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra, California (2006); Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City (2007); Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (2011); and Zellerbach Playhouse, Berkeley, California (2014). He teaches sound design, performance, and electronic media at California College of the Arts, San Francisco.
MACLA and SJMA are among 35 Bay Area organizations partnering to present programming and resources related to immigration, migration, borders, identity, and social justice this spring. For more information, visit sanjosemuseumofart.org/bordercantos- partners.
MACLA/MOVIMIENTO DE ARTE Y CULTURA LATINO AMERICANA
MACLA is an inclusive contemporary arts space grounded in the Chicana/o experience that incubates new visual, literary and performance art in order to engage people in civic dialogue and community transformation. MACLA is located at 510 South First Street, San José, California. For more information about MACLA call 408.998.ARTE or see www.maclaarte.org
SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART
The San Jose Museum of Art celebrates new ideas, stimulates creativity, and inspires connection with every visit. Welcoming and thought-provoking, the Museum rejects stuffiness and delights visitors with its surprising and playful perspective on the art and artists of our time. SJMA is located at 110 South Market Street in downtown San Jose, California. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 PM to 5 PM and until 8 PM or later on the third Thursday of each month. For more information, call 408-271- 6840 or visit www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.
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Border Cantos is made possible in part by grant support from the Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation, Yellow Chair Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund that also is generously supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Additional support is generously provided by Claudia and Sven Weber, Evelyn and Rick Neely, and the Consulado de México en San José. Programs at the San Jose Museum of Art are made possible by generous operating support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, Yvonne and Mike Nevens, The Lipman Family Foundation, and a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose