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Doors 7pm / Show 7:30pm
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Larry Polansky (1954–2024) left behind a body of compositions, software, performances, and musicological work, before passing away at 69 years old in May 2024. For what would have been his 70th birthday, The Lab is hosting a program of work under the title Simple Actions—part of a series of live Amiga pieces he performed at The Lab and throughout the Bay Area in the 1980s.

The program includes performances of Piker (1998) by Margaret Lancaster, ii-v-i (1997) by Giacomo Fiore, Approaching the Azimuth (1998) by Matt Ingalls, freeHorn (2004), ivt (2000) and selections from b’midbar (2008) by Sarah Cahill, and Polansky’s last major work five songs for kate and vanessa (2020) by Kate Stenberg, Vanessa Ruotolo, and Rory Cowal. Other program additions may be announced online.

Simple Actions reflects a through-line in Polansky's work of a core, explanable idea that forms the genesis for a piece. Often this was a folk song, or simple procedure such as harmonic series modulations, or a more indirect idea of "distance" that sought to address fundamental notions of similary among formal aspects of music. In addition to his work as a composer, Polansky was a co-author of the music programming environment HMSL, developed at the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music, which was hugely influential in Bay Area computer music of the 1980s and 1990s. On what would have been his 70th birthday, this program acts as both a portrait and tribute to Polansky's work.

Note that this is an earlier than usual start time for The Lab, to allow for collective remembrances of Polansky after the concert by the many friends and colleagues involved in this event.