Photo via Faith Hatch - Facebook
Faith Hatch
When is a concert not a concert?
In the case of the “Sound Exchange: Exploring the Process of Performance” series, launching 8 p.m. Saturday, March 1 at bar centro, organizer Sam Kacala explains, “It can be seen more as acts of a play featuring its actors and supporting roles, as opposed to two sets of music.” It is, per the series' subtitle, the process of performance (including rehearsal) that Sound Exchange's musician actors will enact. Kacala intends to stage “Sound Exchange” on a quarterly basis,
Kacala works in partnership with Jeff Zimpel, an interdisciplinary former artist-in-residence at Saint Kate-The Arts Hotel; story-telling co-host Mark J Soriano, Zimpel (also liable to share a tale or two); and singer-songwriter-guitarist-pianist Faith Hatch. The “Sound Exchange” experience shouldn't be totally foreign to club patrons looking to go out for a night of music.
“I think it will be similar (to a concert) in that it will highlight what I believe Milwaukee musicians do really well, which is perform with intention,” Kacala declares. However, as Kacala observes, “We've been very intentional about highlighting the process of rehearsals and creativity in a collaborative space.”
Multiple Genres
The creativity explored among Kacala, Hatch, and Zimpel will derive from multiple genres jibing. “I typically come from a funk, soul and hip-hop perspective,” Kacala notes of his own experience and taste. If his further observation that “Mark was sending me a bunch of bluegrass riffs he made before we began rehearsing and many of those ideas made it into the show” seems antithetical to most all of what has been recorded in the Appalachian style's history, it’s also worth highlighting that the first “Exchange” bodes to bear the influence of jazz and more, too.
Much of the show's eclectic nature comes down to the breadth of Soriano's tastes and knowledge. “Mark is an encyclopedic mind when it comes to music, and as a multi-instrumentalist he really brings his influences to the table when we create,” Kacala offers. The culmination of the musical history of everyone involved will be in service to the compositions of one member of the series' initial ensemble.
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Original Compositions
“We really wanted to use our skill sets to highlight Faith's original compositions. As a multi-instrumentalist, she is able to cover so much ground as a songwriter,” Kacala says by way of commendation of his collaborator, who also leads music at the Mayfair Road site of the multi-location nondenominational Epikos Church.
Apart from a night of uniquely presented music, however, the greatest epiphany Kacalas wants for his audience is “to seek out more local performances. “I grew up going to see music in Milwaukee. I had always been into performance, but going to watch my mentors do their thing was always where I found inspiration. In many ways ‘Sound Exchange’ attempts to honor that power that performance has and highlight it through documentation.”
Since Hatch's songs will be at the heart of the initial Exchange, here she is at The Gallery of the Kraft Music instrument store in Franklin performing one of her original works...
