Sonic Arts Gallery I

The idea for the Sonic Arts Gallery was to give another forum for microtonal music. The Interval Magazine focused on a larger audience with an emphasis on music ideas and performance reviews. Sonic Arts was a growing field that many people were and still are unaware of. There were many exhibits of innovative musical instruments and musical sculptures that I had witnessed and had participated in since 1980. Sonic Arts encompasses anything which includes a focus on sound but has a visual component and (much of the time) lives in three dimensional space. The field showcases artists who are visually and aurally gifted; being able to combine those talents. A great example is Harry Partch although he would have given himself the title “Corporeal Artist.” The Harry Partch Instrument Collection had long been housed in at San Diego State University, and many people in San Diego knew about Partch and had seen performances of Partch works. Creating a space for Sonic Ats in San Diego represented the first step of a dream which was never fully realized: The Sonic Arts Museum.

Exhibition Festival of New Instrumental Resources (EFNIR). 1989-1982 (co-sponsored by Interval Foundation and UCSD’s Center for Music Experiment CME).

The first EFNIR was a collaboration with Will Parsons, Ron George and Interval. We brought together people from all over to celebrate new ideas in musical instruments, microtonality, and other Sonic Arts ideas. We had seminars, concerts and demonstrations at UCSD’s CME. We produced that festival once a year until 1982. In 1983, UC Santa Cruz produced a similar conference directed by David Cope. Those festivals and other sound art shows brought attention to the Sonic Arts idea and gave me the motivation to take it to the next level.

Sonic Arts Gallery I (SAG I)

The Sonic Arts Gallery was in the Gaslamp Quarter of Downtown San Diego. It was in one of the storefronts that was surrounded by The Maryland Hotel. The Grand Opening of SAG I in September of 1987 showed instruments by Harry Partch, Ivor Darreg, Arthur Frick, Jonathan Glasier and Tom Nunn.

There were also Spring and Fall Concert Series held in the large hallway of the Hotel behind the Gallery. Five exhibits took place over a two year period:

• Zounds Exhibition (invitiational)
• The Black Box show: electronic music devices
• The Tubulongs show
• The Steve Goodman Automated Musical Ensemble
• Zoundonia: a pop-up sound art installation at the Kettner Blvd. Arts Center

By March of 1989, I was working on the Microtonal and Polyhedra Conference to bring Microtonal People together. I sub-leased the Sonic Arts Gallery to Canadian Jan Nunn who produced three installations under the Sonic Arts Gallery name.