OTS #223: Sandy Ewen and Damon Smith at Institute 193

OTS #223: Sandy Ewen and Damon Smith

October 16, 2023

Performance Date: Monday, Oct. 16, 2023
Performance Time: Doors open at 6:30 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m.
(NOTE: The show will wrap up by 8 p.m. because of the neighborhood noise curfew.)
Location: Institute 193, Main Gallery
215 N. Limestone, Lexington, KY 40507
Admission: FREE; suggested donation: $5–$10; all ages welcome.
Description: Next up in the long-running Outside the Spotlight music series is a duo performance by improvisors Sandy Ewen and Damon Smith. Featuring prepared guitar and double bass, these luminaries of the improvised music scene return to Lexington for an evening of extended techniques and transcendent sounds.

Sandy Ewen
Sandy Ewen is an experimental guitarist, artist, and architect based in Brooklyn, NY. Ewen’s guitar playing is centered around found objects and extended techniques. She performs solo and in many diverse musical and multi-media collaborations, including the trio Etched in the Eye, a duo with Tom Carter called Spiderwebs, the trio Garden Medium, and ongoing collaborations with percussionist Weasel Walter and bassist Damon Smith. For nearly ten years, Ewen has been the leader of an all-female large ensemble. The ensemble conceptualizes and performs sound and performance art, utilizing graphic and text-based scores and improvisational constraints.

Damon Smith
Damon Smith is a classically trained double bassist active in the jazz and improvised music communities. Damon’s explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based on the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film, and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson’s Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Damon has run Balance Point Acoustics since 2001, releasing music focusing on transatlantic collaborations between US and European musicians.