Experience the premiere of Olivia Block’s “12 Degrees of Sky,” following the sunset sequence at the James Turrell, Twilight Epiphany Skyspace. Presented by Nameless Sound and Rice University Electroacoustic Music Labs (REMLABS) the work is a dramatization of/investigation into the limitations and thresholds of human perception.

“12 Degrees of Sky” will be presented nightly through November 29, at the James Turrell, Twilight Epiphany Skyspace at Rice University.

No reservations will be taken, seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Click here to learn more about the composer, her work, and this collaboration. 

Friday, 3/31 @ 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Wortham Theatre

The percussionists of the Shepherd School of Music will present a chamber concert in collaboration with the Rice Electroacoustic Labs performing pieces for percussion and electronics including works by John Cage, Jacob Druckman, Kaija Saariaho, and Mark Applebaum.

Premiere of New Composition for Suzanne Deal Booth Centennial Pavilion, James Turrell Skyspace

Please join us on Thursday, March 2, 2023 for the premiere of a new sound and light composition by composer Yvette Janine Jackson.  Yvette’s new work will be presented every evening through March 19, after the sunset light sequence, from the structure’s embedded sound and light system. The experience is free and open to the public, no reservations or tickets are required. Visitors can check here for sunset times in Houston. 

Yvette Janine Jackson’s work brings attention to historical events and social issues through her electroacoustic radio operas. Her album Freedom, produced by the Fridman Gallery, debuted as Contemporary Album of the Month in The Guardian and its track “Destination Freedom” won the ZKM Giga-Hertz Production Award 2021 in Karlsruhe, Germany.  Her recent work for orchestra and electronics, Hello, Tomorrow! was co-commissioned by American Composers Orchestra and Carnegie Hall was premiered in 2022. Ms.  Jackson’s music has been presented across North America and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, the Venice Music Biennale, Stockholm Elektronmusikstudion, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and in collaboration with Vienna’s Museumsquartier Tonspur and the International Festival of Computer Arts in Maribor.  Yvette is an assistant professor in Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry in the Department of Music and teaches for the Theater, Dance & Media program at Harvard University.

This new work by Yvette Janine Jackson is the second in a series of four commissions by women composers for the Suzanne Deal Booth Centennial Pavilion, James Turrell Skyspace.  Interrupted by the COVID19 Pandemic, this series of commissions celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.  The four woman composers selected to compose new works for the Skyspace include: Elainie Lillios (Fall 2022), Yvette Janine Jackson (Spring 2023), Olivia Block (Fall 2023), and Kyong-Mee Choi (Spring 2024).

These commissions are made possible through a partnership with REMLABS, Rice University’s Arts Initiative Fund, Moody Center for the Arts,  and Nameless Sound.

Join composer Elainie Lillios on October 7, 2022, for the debut of her newest sound and light composition, Night Sky, at the James Turrell Twilight Epiphany Skyspace. In celebration of the Skyspace’s 10th anniversary, Night Sky will be presented every evening through October 23, after the sunset light sequence, from the structure’s embedded sound and light system. The experience is free and open to the public, no reservations or tickets are required. Visitors can check here for sunset times in Houston.

Lillios presents a meditative sonic journey in response to the iconic Turrell work situated on Rice’s campus. “I was struck by the peacefulness of the Skyspace and how it provides an inclusive, contemplative haven for the greater Houston community,” Lillois said. “The structure also communicates a vastness of space and the solidity of the earth and I wanted to reflect all of those elements in my piece.”

Following this line of inspiration, Lillois’s composition also incorporates the poem Night Sky by Don Bogen. Through a narrative that juxtaposes the starry, ever-expanding universe with the author’s fixed presence on earth, the poem offers a tender reflection on the loss of a loved one. Lillios integrates Bogen’s poem into her soundscape in a manner that reflects and enhances the text while simultaneously forming a connection between the twilight of life and the Twilight Epiphany Skyspace.

About the composer.  Acclaimed as one of the “contemporary masters of the medium” by MIT Press’s Computer Music Journal, Elainie Lillios creates works that reflect her fascination with listening, sound, space, time, immersion, and anecdote. As a composer, Lillios’s work has been recognized internationally and nationally through awards, grants, and commissions, including a 2020 Johnston Foundation commission, 2018 Fromm Foundation Commission, 2016 Barlow Endowment Commission, and 2013 Fulbright Scholar Award. Her compositions include stereo, multi-channel, and Ambisonic fixed media works, instrument(s) with live electronics, collaborative experimental audio/visual animations, and installations. Lillios serves as Director of Composition Activities for SPLICE and as a professor of Creative Arts Excellence at Bowling Green State University in Ohio

Poet Don Bogen granted permission to use Night Sky. Kurt Stallman and Chapman Welch provided creative and technical support. Katherine Pracht Phares and Steven Naylor narrated Bogen’s Night Sky, and were recorded by audio engineer Michael Laurello. Night Sky by Elainie Lillios is supported by an Arts Initiative Grant from Rice University.

Friday, October 7-Sunday, October 23

A new website documenting the recent REMLABS project: “Hsin-Chien Huang: Immersive Storytelling with VR” is now online.  This website provides class sessions with Professor Huang where he talks about his creative process with students, also photos and information from his Gallery Talk about his VR work, Samsara, recently installed at the Moody Center for the Arts, and a long interview about his personal artistic journey.

Please view the website here

Celebrate the 10th anniversary of this iconic public artwork with a beautiful evening of live music! Join us at the James Turrell Twilight Epiphany Skyspace to enjoy Shepherd School alumni Wesley Ducote’s performance of contemporary piano and electronic music. Featuring works by Steve Reich,  Ann Southam, Alvin Singleton, and a premiere of a commission by Max Vinetz, the program activates the Skyspace’s sound system and programmable light sequencing to enhance the salient characteristics of each piece.

Noted for his “elegant and brilliant pianism” (South Florida Classical Review), Wesley Ducote is a versatile pianist with a wide range of interests and expertise. Currently a piano fellow with the New World Symphony, he was recently the featured soloist in Chris Cerrone’s concerto for prepared piano and percussion “Don’t Look Down.” Ducote is also a resident artist with the Louis Moreau Institute of New Orleans, the Rossini Club of Nantucket, and holds degrees in mathematics and music from Rice University where he studied with Brian Connelly.

Please note that seating in the Skyspace is limited and provided on a first-come, first-serve basis. Optional registration is for contract-tracing purposes only. Paid parking is available in the West Lots and Moody Parking Lot, maximum is $12.

Wednesday, March 23, 2022 8:30 – 9:45 PM

About the Film

Samsāra, a virtual narrative by Hsin-Chien Huang, begins in the near future when the Earth’s resources have depleted due to human greed. Fighting for natural resources leads to catastrophic wars and global destruction forcing the remaining population to leave Earth and find a new home. Will this long quest for a new home be a loop in space and time? Without spiritual evolution, is progress and evolution nothing more than a Möbius strip that leads nowhere? Using the concept of embodied cognition, Samsāra uses virtual reality and interactivity to create the experience of transforming one’s body into different beings while promoting empathy and a holistic view of our shared existence.

About the Artist

Hsin-Chien Huang is a Taiwanese creator of new media with backgrounds in art, design, engineering, and electronic gaming. His projects involve large-scale interdisciplinary interaction, performing, mechanical apparatus, algorithmic computations, and video installations. His virtual reality work Samsāra  (2021) won the Jury Award of the SXSW Virtual Cinema Competition, Best VR Story at Cannes XR, and People’s Choice award at the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories.

Samsāra is a joint presentation of Rice Electroacoustic Music Labs at the Shepherd School of Music and Moody Center for the Arts with additional support from the Taiwan Academy in Houston, an arm of the Taiwan Ministry of Culture.

The installation is available Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm from March 01 – April 01, 2022

Excerpt from Pierre Boulez’ Anthèmes 2 for violin and electronics. Jacob Schafer, violin.  

During our fall 2019 season, REMLABS presented Electric Syzygy VIII, a concert of electro-acoustic music featuring works by Pierre Boulez, Mario Davidovsky, Dean Robert Yekovich, Professor Arthur Gottschalk, Jake Sandridge, and others. Featured performers included Shepherd School violinists Jacob Schafer and Sam Park, pianist Wesley Ducote, and percussionist James Metcalfe.

Remains of the Sky (2018) is a sound and light installation by George Lewis commissioned specifically to be in dialogue with the James Turrell Twilight Epiphany Skyspace at Rice University. A computer program (designed by Lewis and realized by Damon Holzborn) collects local weather data from the area around the Skyspace, then translates and compresses that information into a synaesthetic performance of color, multichannel sound, and rhythm. The work utilizes a combination of sampled and electronic sounds, LED lighting from the Skyspace, and the spatialized, refracted voices of Houston residents collected in 2015 for an installation by Lewis and multimedia artists Jean-Baptiste Barriere and Houston native Carroll Parrott Blue. The result is a space of spiritual contemplation about the power and fragility of climate, catalyzed by Houston and its natural surroundings.

Composed specifically for Twilight Epiphany, Tutschku’s new work nighttime songs from afar will create an imaginary voyage by weaving voices from around the world into a complex, diverse, and harmonious whole through an immersive sound and light installation. The composition combines the breathtaking light of the Skyspace with sounds of folk songs, prayers, and lullabies from around the globe to form a ritualistic sensory event not to be missed. Tutschku introduces the work at the premiere on April 7. The work is ongoing through April 23, 2018, immediately following daily sunset light sequences.  The piece was commissioned by REMLABS with support from the Arts Initiative Fund at Rice University.

Listening Rituals: Hans Tutschku at the Moody Center