Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang: Vein Leaf Choirs

Collaborators for over two decades, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang’s ethereal music arises from their study of land and place, temporal forms, sonic resonances, and transcultural conversations. Over three nights in residence at Blank Forms, the pair will present a rare overview of the myriad interwoven elements of their duo practice, which, in Kang’s words, allows the two to “be shadows of each other.” Friday’s performance will focus on voice and language and feature Kenney’s experiments with sung and sampled text and engagement with poetry in multiple languages and poetic traditions. These will be interpreted by way of what Kenney calls “headless translations” and sound poetry. 

A vocalist, composer, sound artist, and autodidact, Kenney has developed a vocal practice at a unique intersection of haptic and aural sensibilities. Utilizing imaginative approaches to oral traditions and the one-on-one transmission of texts and sounds, as well as the spatialized experience of “diffuse listening,” she hones timbral and microtonal awareness while defying clinical approaches to sound. 

On his part, Kang—a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger—works across genre and discipline, bringing subtlety, fluidity, and emotional intensity to each of his varied projects. Wary of the divisions of music by nation, Kang makes “people music” influenced by geology, collective memory, and sonic possibility.