[Updated 27 April 2008]

Ken Field and animator Karen Aqua completed two animation/soundtrack residencies, resulting in charming short animated films created by young students. The first was in Peterborough, NH in November 2007. The film "In the Shadows of Monadnock" is available on YouTube. The second, in Roswell, NM, in April 2008, resulted in the film "Roswell: Not Just Aliens!", also available on YouTube.

Field's Revolutionary Snake Ensemble marched again with the all-women Krewe of Muses for their annual Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. The group traveled and performed on the Amtrak Crescent train to New Orleans. Cuneiform Records will release Forked Tongue in May 2008. Tracks for this follow-up to the acclaimed debut release Year of the Snake were recorded and mixed with master engineer Andy Pinkham at the legendary Mortal Music studio in Charlestown, MA. [Photo by Lisa Aileen Dragani]

Eight years in the making, the 5-minute abstract animated film Sensorium, by Karen Aqua with original score for strings by Field, premiered at the Denver Film Festival. In the film, elemental musical and visual gestures are linked together, and then combined by layering and sequencing. Hard to describe, but it looks and sounds great! The music was performed by Mimi Rabson, Leslie Moye, Carol Namkoong, and Phil Neighbors, and recorded by Andy Pinkham at Mortal Music.

Field's original music for New York-based Bridgman/Packer Dance's Under the Skin has now been released on Innova Recordings as part of their select "short-run" series. Under the Skin has been presented in NYC, Washington (DC), Cincinnati, Cambridge, Cedar Rapids, Dublin, Budapest, Birmingham (AL), at the Bates Dance Festival (ME), and at Jacob's Pillow. Upcoming performances include Austin and Munich.

Extreme Spirituals, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic's exciting collaboration with Atlanta-based African-American spiritual singer Oral Moses, was recently released on Cuneiform Records. Check the Birdsongs website for information about live performances in Boston, Hartford, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Other recent releases by Birdsongs include "2001 Live Birds", a live recording (the group's first) of a performance at the NEARfest 2001 festival in Pennsylvania, released on NEARfest Records; and Birdsongs' acclaimed collaboration with storyteller David Greenberger, 1001 Real Apes, which was released on CD in 2006.

Field and animator Karen Aqua were Marshall Artists at Applewild School in Fitchburg, MA in March 2006. They worked with almost 70 students from the private school on "Papermation", an animated film and soundtrack that commemorates the history of Fitchburg as an important early paper mill town. An early funder of the school was a paper mill owner. "Papermation" uses paper to show a chain of transformations from exclamation marks to images chosen by each student to represent him or herself in a project called "exclaim yourself". In addition, much of the soundtrack is created using sounds made by moving, hitting, crumpling, and otherwise manipulating paper.

With animator Karen Aqua, Field was Creative Resident during January 2006 at PlatteForum in Denver, CO. Field and Aqua worked with about a dozen 6th & 7th graders from the Denver Public Schools' Indian Focus Program on an animated film and soundtrack. "The Bear Paw" retells a Native American Santa Clara Pueblo story. The film was screened in Spokane, Seattle, Portland, and Eugene as part of the first annual Northwest Indigenous Film Festival, and can be viewed here.

No Such Animal, a one-time improvisational recording session organized by guitarist Tim Mungenast, has been released as an Innova "short-run", and includes former Cul-de-Sac musicians Michael Bloom on bass and Jon Proudman on drums. There's a great review on All About Jazz.

The May/June 2003 issue of the Saxophone Journal featured a Masterclass CD by Ken Field based on the layered saxophone improvisations from his first solo CD Subterranea.

Field was commissioned by New Orleans' critically acclaimed Dog & Pony Theatre Company to compose original music for Tennessee Williams' classic Suddenly Last Summer. Field's score for solo and layered soprano saxophone was recorded in Cambridge at Rori Kelleher's Green Room studio. The play was performed during March in Hammond, LA and at the New Orleans Contemporary Art Center as part of the annual Tennessee Williams Festival.

Award-winning Miami-based experimental filmmaker Denorah de Jesus Rodriguez released the short film "Cortejo". In this 4-minute piece, which uses Field's composition "Corteo" from Pictures of Motion for its soundtrack, a woman undergoes psychoerotic awakening while visiting a cemetery. Inspired by both the funeral marches of New Orleans and the funeral processions in the films of Federico Fellini, the piece incorporates digital video, black & white 16mm film, and 35mm color slides taken in New Orleans cemeteries. Once processed, the film footage was hand-painted frame-by-frame using photographic inks, giving the work a timeless look and feel matching the spirit of the music.

Field is listed on the Utah Arts Council's Artist in Residence program Artist Roster.

Ken Field was Associate Artist/Composer-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida during October and November, 2001. He worked with London-based soundtrack composer John Eacott, and with filmmakers Alan Berliner and Andrea Weiss. While in Florida, Field performed his music for layered alto saxophones in Orlando with an ensemble drawn from Sam Rivers' Rivbea Orchestra (David Pate and Chris Charles on alto saxophones, Anthony Cole on drums, and Doug Mathews on bass). A feature article about the residency and the concert appeared on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel arts section (along with this huge half-page color photo).

Field's music from Pictures of Motion and Subterranea was presented at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center as part of Revolution, a dance and music collaboration between composer/saxophonist Ken Field and John Grimsley, Artistic Director of New Orleans' Dog & Pony Theatre Company. Revolution incorporated live music by Field (with an ensemble of New Orleans musicians), along with choreographed movement by a troupe of bicycle-riding dancers. Field's New Orleans residency was supported by the National Performance Network. Field also performed duos with trombonist and producer Delfeayo Marsalis as part of a workshop at the Nunez Correctional Learning Center in Port Sulpher, LA.

With animator Karen Aqua, Field was artist-in-residence during January 2003 at the Treasure Mountain Middle School in Park City, Utah. Field and Aqua worked with 90 6th graders on an animated film and soundtrack about ancient Greece. The film was awarded a Silver Prize in the 2003 Kalamazoo Animation Festival International, and was screened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in June. Click here to view the film.

With animator Karen Aqua, Field was artist-in-residence through the Children's Museum of Utah during the fall of 2000, as part of Artists & Communities: America Creates for the Millennium, a national community-based residency project coordinated by the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and cosponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the White House Millennium Council. Field and Aqua worked with a class of 4th graders in Price, Utah, making "Nine Mile Canyon: Under Construction", an animated film and soundtrack documenting the history of nearby Nine Mile Canyon. The film was awarded a Gold Prize in the 2002 Kalamazoo Animation Festival International, a Special Mention award in the 8th Icronos International Archaeology Film Festival in Bordeaux, France, and was screened at the 2001 Pecos (AZ) Film Festival. Field and Aqua each received a 2001 Utah State Historical Society Antiquities Award for their work on this project. Click here for a description of the project, and Click here to view the film.