WILD UP: DARKNESS SOUNDING Returns with Ten Online Programs

The 2021 installment of Wild Up's winter festival, Darkness Sounding (January 15 - February 14), demonstrates the creative ingenuity for which the LA-based new music collective is known.

Last year's Darkness Sounding pointed the way to fresh models for the concert experience, with a dusk-to-dawn marathon, improvisatory site works, sound baths, text-based events, and more. Now, as the performing arts are being 'reimagined' on a global scale, Wild Up remains a force for innovation as it devises new ways to connect with audiences.

Along with online recitals, this year's Darkness Sounding events include one-on-one concerts via telephone, vocal performances through open windows, a virtual-reality recital with prompts from a digital Magic 8 Ball, guided audio hikes in the Mojave Desert, exploratory walks in nature with embedded soundtracks, and more. Venues, virtual and real, will include YouTube Live, Instagram Live, Zoom, Soundcloud, and locations around LA and Joshua Tree.

As Artistic Director and Conductor Christopher Rountree notes, "Darkness Sounding started last year as a questioning and yearning for something mindful during the year's darkest days... Twelve months later, our then-new sacred 'rituals in the desert' have become fantasy. Our mundane rituals in home spaces occupy almost the entirety of our focus. Our previous questions about music, and its places making mindfulness and community, seem an impossible distance away from reality, and for that reason, music's place in our psyche is more important to recognize than ever."

Tickets for Darkness Sounding will be available through Wild Up's fan club at patreon.com/wildup. For as little as $5 per month, listeners will receive access to all of the festival's events, plus all existing fan club content to date. Note: dates for socially-distanced in-person events are subject to change.