The exploratorium’s Sound & Lecture series combines a concert with an artist talk or a lecture. This time, American drummer Jeff Arnal and German pianist Dietrich Eichmann, who have been improvising freely as a duo since 2002, will perform.
In addition to the concert, Jeff Arnal, in his capacity as Executive Director of the Black Mountain College Museum in Asheville (North Carolina), will talk about the extraordinary legacy of the legendary Black Mountain College and the musicians and artists associated with it.
Over the past 20 years, Jeff Arnal & Dietrich Eichmann’s music has constantly renewed and reformulated itself; during their most recent tour in 2023, they increasingly defined their current aggregate state as a physical installation in space with sculptural and colourful approaches.
The thematic bridge to the Black Moutain College – a unique art college founded in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression and closed in 1957 – lies in its proximity to the work of composer Stefan Wolpe. Wolpe had close ties to the Bauhaus and was director of the music department at Black Mountain College from 1952 to 1956.
As BMCM Director, Jeff Arnal regularly curates, writes and lectures on the extraordinary legacy of the BMC and the musicians and artists who worked there, including John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Lou Harrison, David Tudor and Stefan Wolpe, whom Dietrich Eichmann counts among his most important influences as a composer.
Jeff Arnal will talk about this in his lecture, as well as the political, philosophical and pedagogical values on which the BMC was founded: it was based on the principles of experimentation, non-hierarchical and democratic structures, and preparing individuals to become active citizens. Collaboration was a fundamental principle that allowed artists from different fields to exchange ideas. Black Mountain College’s emphasis on experiential learning and experimentation made it an incubator that set the stage for most visual art and performance movements in the twentieth century, and its influence continues to resonate with artists worldwide.
7.00 pm: soundwalk with Thomas Gerwin
