Musician Kelly Pratt has collaborated with everyone from Beirut to David Byrne and Arcade Fire. Now he baptizes PICA's new home with a wall of sound.
Kristianna Smith
Imagine hundreds of horn players — trumpets, trombones, tubas, French horns — surrounding you in a warehouse, their notes surging, diverging and sloshing from side to side, wall to wall, like whiskey in a barrel on the back of a bucking bull covered in glitter. And you are a small clownfish in that barrel, drunk on music.
Yes, it’s an outrageous metaphor. But as the opening night event for this year’s Time-Based Art Festival on Sept. 8, you can expect outrageousness to be served in spades.
“Fanfare: Birth>Rebirth” is the mad-composer dream of the multi-instrumentalist Kelly Pratt. You might not know his name, but chances are you’ve heard him play. He was a longtime member of the band Beirut, and he has toured and recorded with bands ranging from Arcade Fire to David Byrne, Coldplay and LCD Soundsystem. After hearing Pratt’s solo album under the moniker Bright Moments, Byrne even hired him to arrange the horns and direct the touring band for Byrne’s collaboration with St. Vincent, “Love This Giant.”
Pratt moved to Portland in 2012 when his partner got a job teaching at Willamette University. One of his Byrne collaborators introduced him to the artistic director of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Angela Maddox, who invited him to kick off the TBA Festival.
Symbolically, it's a big night. PICA has spent the last 21 years as a nomadic organization, often scrambling up to the last minute to find space to house TBA events and the late night gathering site called the Works. But earlier this year a donor bought them a warehouse and office building at 15 NE Hancock St. This will be the first time PICA hosts TBA in its own home.
"I'm really challenging myself to make it as poignant as possible," said Pratt of the challenge the opening event presents. "I don't want it to be just a nice piece of music; I want to splatter the walls with sound. Bathe it. Give it a ritual birth."
Indeed, Pratt's recent fatherhood served as an inspiration for the night, which will include moments for improvisation by a small group of professional musicians amidst the sea of horns.
"That's basically kind of where I got the idea, becoming a new father and thinking about that idea of changes in your life and how those are manifested," he said, adding that the improvisation "symbolizes how little decisions made in your life can lead you down a completely different path that may not otherwise have existed."
Pratt is hoping to enlist around 200 horn players for the performance. He has invited professional and amateur players alike, including a number of middle and high school classes and bands, and he welcomes participation from the public. To get involved, contact him at fanfare@pica.org.
"There's going to be a lot of effects-based things that will utilize the room and utilize the arc that will be surrounding the audience, so you'll hear a sound from over here and then a sound from over there," he said. "The piece is not insanely difficult, but things are happening that are going to sound really cool and interesting because of the sections open for improvisation."
"Fanfare: Birth>Rebirth" begins at 8:30 p.m.. It and the following party featuring the New York artist Juliana Huxtable are free.
Pratt is also organizing a second event at the late night Works venue on Sunday, Sept. 11, called "No No Soliciting" that will challenge an A-list team of local musicians to compose songs on the spot based on audience prompts.
"The audience will give us constraints in regards to tempo, key, style, instrumentation — all the elements of music — they're up for grabs," said Pratt. "Each performer will take the hat, and say, 'You want a polka, I'm going to write a polka. I'll be back in 15 minutes.' It's not just giving the audience a say in how the piece is composed, but also giving the audience a view of what it's like to be a band leader, or of what it's like to create something with a band."
The participating artists include Erika Anderson of EMA, Dana Buoy of Akron/Family, Dave Depper of Death Cab for Cutie, Brent Knopf of Ramona Falls and El Vy, Johanna Kunin of Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Matt Sheehy of Lost Lander, and TBA-favorite Holcombe Waller.
"I think naturally there will be some humor involved," said Pratt. "I want the audience to come with an open mind. That's the way you should approach anything, particularly at TBA. They're really stretching minds. It's a really fantastic multi-disciplinary festival. You don't see a lot of this sort of thing around the country.
The Time-Based Art Festival runs Sept. 8–18 and includes performers and visual artists from around the world, as well as local artists like composer Luke Wyland (of the band AU), who is reprising his epic sold-out collaboration with the Camas High School Choir, and the always popular and glitter-smeared Critical Mascara drag extravaganza.