Audiences who have never heard the resonance that comes from a circuit bent drone box, aka “Buddha machine,” can enjoy that unique experience when Helen Gillet and Clint Maedgen bring their act to Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage this Tuesday evening. The offbeat duo will also haul a cello, a piano, drum machine, flute, battery operated voice modulator and other assorted electronic toys and gadgets with them for a performance that pushes the limit of sound exploration.
Working as a team for the past six years, Gillet and Maedgen, (their names pronounced like “Gee-lay” and Cajun) met in New Orleans where Helen was performing a coffee shop act consisting of her French chansons all-string band, Wazozo.
| Onstage |
| Clint Maedgen and Helen Gillet |
| Where: Millennium Stage, Terrace Theatre, Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW |
| When: 6 p.m. Tuesday |
| Info: Free, 800-444-1324 or 202-467-4600, kennedy-center.org |
“Helen’s incredibly talented,” said Maedgen, himself a respected saxophone player and full-time member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. “She’s got quite a broad spectrum of musical interests as well as professions.”
A classically trained cellist, her introduction to North Indian Hindustani vocal ragas more than 14 years ago, contributed to her career as an experimental jazz noise artist as well as starting her career as professional into the orbit of free improvisation. That, coupled with her French chansons — beautiful tunes she sings over the electronic pedals on her cello that allow her to play a bass line and a harmony line — have turned her into a one-woman band.
“I’ve been touring all over the world with this loop pedal — it’s a delay pedal to accompany the songs I have written and the chansons,” Gillet said.
Adding that to her skills as an improvisational artist, she has traveled the world making music with people in places such as Denmark and Italy.
“I like to experiment with sound,” she continued. “I like exploring all that the cello can do, not just playing melody or harmony or bass lines [but] all the textural sounds you can get out of it.”
Meanwhile Maedgen was experimenting with concert piano pedals and delayed pedals and before long, the two singers, songwriters and instrumentalists began collaborating.
“So what we’ve done is to take my one-man show and her one-woman show and meet in the middle,” Maedgen said.
What come out of that match for Kennedy Center audiences are songs, instrumentals, a couple of soundscapes and, Maedgen said, “as much as we can fit in the show.”
Maedgen is excited over the performance and thrilled to be working with a musician of Gillet’s caliber.
And in a playful voice followed by a hearty laugh, he added, “I’m going to leave my sax in New Orleans and bring a whole bevy of toys up to D.C.”
