Drone Day at Sadleir House

From noon until midnight on May 25, Sadleir House’s lecture hall will host Drone Day. Artists will provide sustained experimental droning sounds for 30 minutes, with 5 minutes of overlap between each musician’s set.

Drone Day was first introduced by Weird Canada as an invitation for artists to make noise and create healing vibrations in community with others. The late musician and community organizer BP Hughes first brought the event to Peterborough in 2015 with the help of Trent Radio. It has since grown into a live event with dozens of artists stepping out of their comfort zone to share their experimental sounds on the last Saturday in May each year.

“One of BP’s hopes with the event was to create a low-barrier way for anyone – newcomers, shy folks, experimentalists, and veterans – to get tapped into the local strange music scene,” said this year’s Drone Day organizer Karol Orzechowski. “I’m approaching it very much in that spirit as well.”

“Artists can treat it as a deep performance, as a public meditation, as a chance to meet other local weirdos, as a chance to try something outside of your comfort zone, there are so many ways to approach it,” Orzechowski added. “This is generally very slow, ambient music, sometimes veering into noise and harsher textures.”

One group that will contribute to the local Drone Day event are Melinda Richter, Robyn Avis, and Léanne Hodgson. They joined forces to create Light Organ, which they say was initially supposed to be a one-day group project in 2016 but became much more meaningful.

“Bryan (BP Hughes) was my partner,” said Avis, “And he was always making noise. Before Drone Day officially happened in Peterborough for the first time, he would put speakers on the front lawn and have it on all day on Drone Day.”

“We are doing this in his memory,” added Hodgson. “BP was someone who gave me the courage to get up in front of people. Drone Day is a really low stakes opportunity for people to get out there. You can sound terrible but still be supported.”

“I love the physical sensation of the sound, and I love the element of playfulness that comes with this kind of performance art,” said Richter. “There is no pretentiousness, and it’s the kind of event you can just pop into at any point which is really nice.”

To learn more about Drone Day, visit www.droneday.org