Deep Forests (with Golden Light) is a work for piano, ensemble and neuro electronics. It is an investigation of beauty and “non-beauty”. Exploring the Buddhist concept of *Vedana, it combines episodes of rapturous music with rough, stochastic and sublime sounds deeply inspired by nature. The biodata reactions of the mind and body to these sounds are translated into an audio-visual landscape in counterpoint with the music.

This work is inspired by a memory of light piercing into deep forests. It uses the idea of forests metaphorically – images and sounds of dense urban landscapes, neural forests of the brain and actual forests are presented. The music combines the sounds of Western and Japanese instruments, which are linked by deep feelings about nature. In particular, the Sho represents the “golden light” touching the trees, water and other elements of the forest.

Composer Gene Coleman refers to his music as “Neuro Music” – compositions based on models of the Brain’s Auditory Pathway and the whole nervous system more generally. He incorporates biophysical sensing technologies like THE SOURCE by bioMECI as tools that reveal what is happening in the body and mind when we experience sound and music.

*Vedanā refers to the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations that occur when our internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and the associated consciousness. Vedanā is identified as valence or “hedonic tone” in psychology.

Deep Forests (with Golden Light)
Composer and Director: Gene Coleman

Performed by:

CONJURE Neuro Music Ensemble

Gene Coleman (composer and video director)
Adam Vidiksis (neuro electronics)
Thomas Kraines (cello)
Francesco Bigoni (neuro electronics)

With special guests:
Rei Hotoda (piano and conductor)
Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Fresno Symphony
Ilze Briede [Kavi] (neuro electronics video)
Mia Paul (cello)
Fabio Rambelli (sho)
Rory Lindsay (biwa)

The program also features Beatie Wolfe performing music by Brian Eno for her film “LA PipeDreams” with the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony conducted by Daniel Gee, and a performance by Money Mark (Mark Ramos Nishida). 

Date and Location:

Tuesday, October 6th at 7:00 pm
Hanh Hall (Music Academy of the West)
1070 Fairway Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 93108

Supported by: 

Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara and Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara and the Institute for Music and Neuroaesthetics.