Doors open 7 PM.
The Guitar Worship Service series is playful in name, however GWS’s intention is to praise the importance of a guitar’s creative possibilities. Since 2013, GWS presentations bring forth musicians and sound artists to examine what a guitar physically and/or conceptually is. While there are different types of guitars (electric, acoustic, steel, bass, homemade, video game, etc.), past events have offered audiences solo sets, special one-off collaborations, debut performances, and renowned bands of varying genres. With encouragement to push creative boundaries, the GWS series has but one requisite for every live performance: At least one guitar, in whatever capacity, is used with unrestricted interpretation. The 23rd Guitar Worship Service presents a theme: Every performance will engage prepared guitar techniques which balance the potential for chaos and the efforts to recover order.
BILL HORIST For over twenty years Bill has attained mastery status not only for his musicianship prowess with countless projects but also for his approach toward abstract-leaning prepared guitar techniques which transforms this praised instrument into entirely different agents of sound exploration.
SUE ANN HARKEY The task to capture the stature of Sue Ann’s ongoing four decade legacy is arduous. The arc is tall and stretches wide across multiple creative mediums from her start in early 1980’s New York City to being a persistent creator among Seattle’s free improvisation and out-music contributions by approaching twelve string electric guitar with percussion objects that ring out melodic ambience.
THE NORTHWEST EXPERIMENTAL GUITAR ORCHESTRA Composer Blake DeGraw regularly arranges dozens of guitarists to perform avant-garde pieces that arouse auditory senses. The application to achieve this is simple: The more guitarists, the more effective. Specific to this date, DeGraw debuts “Vacuum Diagrams”, a composition of preparedness that directs NWEGO members into two opposing groups. NWEGO members will be guided by visuals, time markers, sustaining timbres, and applying sound-inducing tools onto their guitars. The objective is chaos versus order. The result could simultaneously divide the audience’s focus and conquer the audience’s attention.
Accelerated opening sets will introduce Chapel first-timers:
NICANOR GARCIA Volume swells, reverberation, and tinkery gadgets are brought to the forefront which ventures into tactually wild frontiers. Garcia’s guitar playing, albeit seated, is quite physical. From that physicality, (un)intentional music notations and wailing dins combine to produce (un)settling radiance. Calling from Bremerton, WA, Garcia’s amplification is easily heard.
POK TE POK The ‘experimental’ audio community in Bremerton, WA and greater Kitsap County has been rapidly evolving which includes Carlos de la Torre who interprets electric bass guitar as a medium to distillate low end tones from realms void of musical relation. By applying heritage-related objects to bass strings while fusing tape machines into the sonic mix, upper frequencies balance the guttural noise. From this fusion of chance, decipherable soundscapes are mapped that lead to bizarre destinations.
elhotrod32 Rod Guevara is a literal student of Bill Horist’s teachings. Drawing from slide guitar, Guevara mixes the rawness of slide with sophisticated awareness. Adding to the delta blues slide origination is Guevara’s integration of found objects that interrupts linear musical progression by purposefully administrating pointed disruption.
And for our eyes:
COLORBARD VISUAL For those attuned to the gigantic white wall behind The Chapel’s stage, psychotropic color-drenched transformations will be motion-painted on that structural canvas. This is to say that tonight’s audio performances are to interact with live projections. Obviously the distinctive acoustics of The Chapel won’t be affected however the visual atmosphere will resemble an optical wilderness. Advice for those not attuned to the gigantic white wall: Turn on, tune in, drop out.
Be ‘prepared’ to join us as we praise the coolest and most dynamic instrument ever conceived at The 23rd Guitar Worship Service.