VELA 6911 - A MULTIMEDIA PIECE BY VICTOR GAMA

VELA 6911

A MULTIMEDIA PIECE BY CCRMA VISITING ARTIST VICTOR GAMA

with

THE STANFORD NEW ENSEMBLE

JINDONG CAI - CONDUCTOR
VICTOR GAMA - ACRUX, TOHA, DINO, COMPOSITION, VIDEO DAVID GRUNZWEIG TOHA
CHRIS CHAFE - CELETO
JOHN GRANDZOW - DAXOPHONE
ALISON RUSH - CETACANT
ALVARO BARBOSA - RADIAL STRING CHIMES
DAVID KERR - VIDEO TECHNOLOGY

Vela 6911 is based on the diary of Lieutenant Lindsey Rooke, an officer who was on board one of the ships taking part in a secret nuclear weapons test conducted in 1979 by the South African apartheid regime off the coast of Antarctica. The test, detected by a US satellite called Vela, was the validation of apartheid’s military power that engulfed the whole Southern African region in a destructive ‘cold- war’ conflict in the late 70s and 80s. Her diary, found in 2001 by South African journalist Stacy Hardy, reveals someone in conflict over her love for nature and the mission she was on, which left a trace of devastation, death and radioactive contamination in one of the most pristine and protected environments on earth.

The idea to compose Vela 6911 started at Stanford in 2010 when Gama was a SICA Arts Visitor at the Humanities Center. Valuable contributions during the research phase of this project were provided by Stanford University Libraries and specifically by librarian, Regina Roberts. The piece was subsequently commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and premiered at Harris Theater in 2012. It was presented at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon in 2013 and in Luanda, Angola in 2014. Vela 6911’s video component was shot in Antartica by Gama in January 2012. In 2013, Gama gifted all of his Vela 6911 research and production content materials to the Archive of Recorded Sound at Stanford University Libraries. This collection features 507 videos, 3,093 high-resolution photographs, 600 research documents, scanned original scores and performance information.

This multi-faceted collaboration also represents the important role of libraries in the cycle of research, access to historical insight, creative output, and thinking through contemporary issues and challenges. The performance of this piece by the Stanford New Ensemble with Gama and collaborators from CCRMA is a unique opportunity to make this collection come alive, one that challenges representations of the past and encourages current generations to evaluate more deeply the consequences of our actions.

This concert and Green Library exhibit is produced in collaboration with the Stanford Department of Music, Stanford University Libraries (SUL) and the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).