STINK HORN: a mycological musical performance-lecture by Siôn Parkinson May 8th in Annandale-on-Hudson and May 9th in Hudson, NY.
How can a mushroom’s noxious stench—and the droning sound of insects irresistibly drawn towards it—reshape how we listen to and make music?
Join artist, musician, and author Siôn Parkinson for an intimate performance-lecture—part talk, part live musical experiment—exploring the strange, multi-sensory world of the stinkhorn fungus.
Drawing from his book Stinkhorn: How Nature’s Most Foul-Smelling Mushroom Can Change the Way We Listen, Siôn will lead an evening of music and mycology. Like composer John Cage, his twin passions for music and mushrooms have shaped a radical approach to sound. Yet while Cage sought silence in his fungal forays, Siôn finds Stink⎯an element that links sound and smell, the real and the hallucinated, opening up new ways of listening and composing.
Siôn’s performance will be accompanied by a recording of John Cage’s “Child of Tree” (1975), a work for amplified plant materials, performed by D’Arcy Philip Gray (2014) and presented courtesy of Mode Records.
Dr Siôn Parkinson is an artist, musician, performer, and author investigating our sensory relationship with the more-than-human world. He is a research fellow at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, where he is investigating the olfactory heritage of fungi—mushroom odors that hold cultural or historical significance due to their associations with particular places, objects, and traditions. Insta: @sionparkinson
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TWO FREE PERFORMANCES:
Bard College Blum Hall
60 Blithewood Avenue
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
Thursday, May 8th, 4–5pm
No registration needed
Flow Chart Space
348 Warren Street
Hudson, NY 12534
Friday, May 9th, 7–8pm
Register here
The Bard presentation will be followed by a public reception at the John Cage Trust (Bard College’s Wilson House, 1309 Annandale Road), featuring macrobiotic John Cage cookies!
