 Hopscotch the Opera |  Pencil |  Banff International Workshop |
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 Pencil |  Stray Dog Song |  Still a pencil |
 Dancers with Desert Quill Quarte | Hey look a pencil! |  Toronto overlooking Banff |
Pencil |  Write. Write. Write | Pencil? |
 Ben |
Other Collaborations
SOUNDBOUND!
Throughout August/September 2022, I invited annais, Sophie, Joe and Reza (fellow musicians in the Critical Studies in Improvisation program at the University of Guelph) and Chris, Michelle, Marika and Christa (environmental facilitators of Guelph's Arboretum) to walk, learn and play together in Guelph's Arboretum.
In September, We created a public event called SoundBound!, which began with participants going on one of four 30-minute guided walks with one of the facilitators, and returning to the Arboretum centre for a 1-hour concert of music by the band.
The music came out of the band's reflections on the walks that participants had just gone on. Each musician led a collaborative process for each piece. The concert took place at sunset, and we had popcorn, tea, and blankets.
Together we explored questions like: How might we listen and play with the outdoor mentors all around us? The trees, pollinators, water. What are some ways we might engage in projects of ecological restoration, both big and collaborative and in our backyards?
dfs
This was a huge blast! My cousin Logan—a brilliant pianist and music educator at the Heart of Riverdale Community Centre (the Heart)—invited annais and I up to Whitehorse for a series of improvised collaborations with local artists/collectives from various backgrounds. The premise was basically starting from a 'blank' slate with our collaborators, finding whatever resonance we could in our time together, honouring and working through our present interests and different experiences, and that became the 'documentation.' We also did a concert at the Heart sharing what emerged from our collaborations. It was a beautifully enriching experience. We also facilitated four elementary and high school co-creation workshops that explored similar forms of co-creation, encouraging them to share their own forms of expression and offering a few starting places/games. I'll never forget the warmth of this incredible community—and the beautiful land. Thank you Whitehorse + thank you to the Heart, The Fire Hall of the Yukon Arts Centre, the Yukon Art Fund, Junction arts & music, and the Canada Council for the Arts for your support of the project!!
I'll be forever grateful to have been a part of the Industry's opera Sweet Land (playing D-violone with FX), an internationally acclaimed, collaborative, multi-perspectival opera; composed by Du Yun and Raven Chacon; libretto by Douglas Kearney and Aja Couchois Duncan; directed by Cannupa Hanska Luger and Yuval Sharon; and an incredibly open, loving, risk-taking, orchestra crew and cast.
"The Arrivals wash up on the shore. They make contact with another civilization they call “the Hosts.” And from there, the story splinters, following diverging perspectives. Starting as a procession through the LA State Historic Park, Sweet Land becomes an opera that erases itself."
'Mehahn' is a transdisciplinary work exploring the temporality and ephemerality of memories of loved ones. Drawing inspiration from Gertrude Stein's 'landscape theatre' and the collaborations between avant-garde trumpeter Bill Dixon and contemporary choreographer Judith Dunn.
Here's me improvising for Jacques Burtin's film, exploring the the Tarot of Marseilles card's of "Justice" and "The Hermit".
Camera: Stephen Dagg and Jacques Burtin.
Improvised at the Westben Centre for Connection and Creativity (Campbellford, Ontario - Canada), July 2018.
Thanks to Andy Thompson for loaning me the bass!
Davy Sumner facilitated a site-specific, quadraphonic composition/improvisation for trumpet, bass, saxophone, and electronics in a resonant & abandoned 10,000 gallon pool at Peter Strauss Ranch.
Davy Sumner: "my piece fostered interactions with the natural sounds of the space--birdcalls, insect noises, and the distant highway--rather than covering them up."
Excerpts from improvisations at Long Beach PUMP Festival with collective Dream Walker
Amazing to be a part of this ambitious "mobile" opera. I'm also very excited to have played bass in Galileo with new music by Andy Akiho. Check out the Industry website for more information:
Check out Turtle Feet Simple Growth by Patrick Behnke on New Branch Records!
Very happy to play on this project!
CaBiN at the Blue Whale
Nick Hon - Drums, contact mic
Chris Williams - Trumpet & FX
Ben Finley - Bass & FX
Thanks to Laura Sophia Perez for video!
This was an extremely exciting challenge. I played the part of Garcin, the lead character in Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit". The other two main characters, Inez and Estelle, were played musically by two violins .
We were forced into "hell's waiting room" with music and spoken language directly confronting each other to be each other's torturer... Musical adaptation by Sean Hayward.
A Musical Retelling of Sartre's - No Exit
Prokofiev Quintet G minor, Op. 39 (1924)
Really fun to play some standard chamber music with these great musicians. Hope to do it again soon with full dancers.
Performed at the CalArts Chamber Music Concert Oct 2016.
Rivulets
Rivulets is a quartet (sometimes quintet) of bass, viola, rhodes and voice.
This live excerpt is a piece of mine called Retrospective Photography and was premiered Oct 2016 at Battery Books, Los Angeles.
Also very excited to compose / perform on Sam Icklow's Film The Moth with Rivulet. Find his site here. Official Selection for the DTLA Film Festival!
Pox Films
- Three Blind Mice
After contributing a dimly distant piano song to Nick D'Agastino's incredible stop animation "Ring Around the Mulberry Bush" (see left), we are currently working on a new piece called "3 Blind Mice" (see images above) for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, bass, piano, organ and hybrid percussion. I'm very excited to bring this to life; we are working on making the music deeply interwoven with the elements of the film. It's a story of re-incarceration set in the turn of the century; it's a connecting piece of America's currently crowded closed loop prisons to its past overt history of disenfranchising. It's been great to work with Nick on every element of subtlety: character colours, light, motion etc.
ALSO! Blind Mice, Nick's film that has been 3 years in the making, is nearly ready. Very excited about the interweaving of the music with the film's sound design and the deeper sonic network of characters that emerges. Check it out at the following festivals:
Sundance
Berlinale
Atlanta Film Festival Cinequest
Tribeca
and will be submitted to the following festivals among others:
Annecy
Hiroshima Int. Animation Festival Ottawa Int. Animation Festival Canne
TIFF
Zagreb
Locarno
Telluride
Slamdance
Desert Quill Quartet
Desert Quill Quartet is a quartet made up of 4 corners of North America: Toronto, Detroit, Los Angeles and Mexico City. Somewhat an expansion on a traditional string quartet with an extended range in both directions, Desert Quill Quartet explores original music ranging from microtonal structured improvisations to reinterpreting Mexican folksongs to collaborations with dancers.
Tetherball
Tetherball is a trio of Nick Hon, drums, Caleb Veazy, guitar and Ben Finley, double bass. Loosely composed, melodic cells gives a fun challenge of developing variations as an ensemble. Rough pockets of beautiful.
Tuning and Instruments
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EUPHORIC 5 String Fretless
Eric and I first met in high school where we played in a rock band together called Needless Riot.
Now he's an expert woodworker, overall crafty creative and very talented guitar luthier who doesn't naysay any of the loftiest electric bass concepts I throw at him.
I'm the proud owner of his first electric bass, a beautifully carved, ambitious 36" 5-string fretless with a signature scroll. It is one of the most evenly weighted basses I have ever played and it has a huge range of tone potential.
Eric and I are currently brainstorming about a 5 string fan fretted bass with carbon fibre and wooden components with double stop hipshot tuners on every string. And of course it can trigger effects through embedded motion sensors!
Find out more about Euphoric Guitars and Eric's work here
I also participate in the practice of tuning in 5ths. I find both the double bass and the electric bass are extremely receptive to this tuning. There is an unmistakable resonance that opens up the instruments to rich overtones, clear harmonics and access to larger intervallic possibilities
To find out more about tuning in 5ths click here
I also participate in the practice of tuning in 5ths. I find both the double bass and the electric bass are extremely receptive to this tuning. There is an unmistakable resonance that opens up the instruments to rich overtones, clear harmonics and access to larger intervallic possibilities
To find out more about tuning in 5ths click here