MUSIC

Two master innovators -- jazz trumpeter/composer Dave Douglas and experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison -- draw on the unique resources of Stanford University to create Spark of Being, a monumental work combining the screening of film with live musical performance (by Douglas’ electric band Keystone). This new work, commissioned by Lively Arts, and making its World Premiere in this performance, incorporates archival visual elements and newly developed sound components culled by Morrison and Douglas from the archives of the Cantor Center for the Arts, the Hoover Institution, and other sources on the Stanford campus.

Bill Morrison is best known for his film Decasia, a hypnotic collage of archival footage undergoing the process of decay. The Village Voice named Decasia one of its Top Ten Films of 2003. Dave Douglas is a DownBeat magazine Artist of the Year honoree and the Artistic Director of the Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music at the Banff Center. He has been a member of such celebrated ensembles as John Zorn’s Masada and the SFJAZZ Collective. His Grammy-nominated sextet Keystone combines electric jazz with electronica and other styles, and was formed specifically to perform new scores for classic films.