Calling Up is a site-specific sound installation created for the sanctuary at the Church of the Ascension in Manhattan by Stephan Moore. Broadcast from hidden Hemisphere speakers, shifting vapors of sound swell and dissolve. These cloud-like textures are made up of tiny fragments of voices, expanded through layering and repetition, in a process that never repeats itself — always organically evolving. The vocal sounds are selected from recordings made by the award-winning vocal ensemble Voices of Ascension (Delos Music, directed by Dr. Dennis Keene). All of the recordings used in this process feature the beautiful antiphon chants of 11th century poet, abbess, and composer Hildegard von Bingen. The installation is meant to provide a space for focused listening, contemplation, relief, or epiphany, as a complement to the powerful environment already present in the sanctuary.
May 26th through July 14th, 2017
Church of Ascension, located on 5th Avenue at 10th Street, NYC map:
TIME: 12-3 M-F
/// BIOS
Stephan Moore is an audio artist, sound designer, composer, improviser, teacher, and curator based in Chicago. His creative work manifests as electronic studio compositions, improvisational outbursts, sound installations, scores for collaborative performances, algorithmic compositions, and sound designs for unusual circumstances. Evidence, his long-standing project with Scott Smallwood, has performed widely and released several recordings over the past 15 years. He is the president of Isobel Audio, LLC, and is a member of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology, The Nerve Tank, a canary torsi, Composers Inside Electronics, and the Wingspace Theatrical Collective. He toured for several years as the music coordinator and sound engineer of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and has worked with Pauline Oliveros, Anthony McCall, and Animal Collective, among others. He is a lecturer of sound art and sound design in the Department of Radio, Television and Film at Northwestern University.
www.oddnoise.com 
/// ABOUT ASCENSION NYC
Ascension’s history is one of remarkable transformations. From an austere beginning it has become a church of extraordinary beauty with exceptional music and liturgy. Initially a church with rented pews and a mostly affluent, homogeneous congregation, it has evolved into a widely diverse congregation. On May 13, 2015 The Rev. Elizabeth G. Maxwell was installed as the twelfth, and first woman rector of the parish. The sanctuary is not only a spiritual home for the parish, but also a place where music and the arts flourish, service is offered to our neighbors, and all are welcome.
The first Church of the Ascension was a small white Greek Revival building on Canal Street and consecrated in 1829. After a decade of growth for the parish, the building was destroyed by fire. Little time was spent in lamentation. Within a month, the Vestry selected the present site for a new church to be designed by Richard Upjohn which was consecrated on November 5, 1841, the first church on Fifth Avenue. The church recently completed a multi-year restoration of the historic sanctuary and on May 1, 2011, the installation of the Manton Memorial Organ, the only French-built instrument in New York. Using expert specialists in historic preservation, the beautiful interior was thoroughly restored with new lighting, sound systems and a harmonious decorative paint scheme designed to enhance its artistic treasures of stained glass windows, the McKim, Mead and White chancel, and the famous John LaFarge painting “The Ascension of Our Lord.”
A brief video clip from “Sounds of Ascension” that shows the sanctuary space in 360 degrees w/ ambient sound:
https://vimeo.com/217727194
