Mixed media group Lake Affect to hold a three-day residency

The mixed-media group Lake Affect from Buffalo, N.Y., will hold a three-day residence program at Bates College April 1-3. The stay will include a concert of experimental music and poetry at 8 p.m. Sunday, April 1, and a master class demonstrating the group’s working methods of text and music interaction at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, both in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St . The group will participate in classroom instruction with Bates College students on April 3.

The ensemble consists of Lorena Guillen, voice; Thomas McClusky, percussion; Tiffany Nicely, percussion; and Alejandro Rutty, keyboards and percussion. They have released two CDs, Playing Guitart, based on the poems of Jorge Guitart, and Buffalo Salad, a collaborative work with various poets in the Buffalo area.

Lake Affect hope to create a unique sound art evolving from a blend of word, timbre and rhythm. Acclaimed poet Robert Creeley said this of working with the group: “Lake Affect reads my work with a vivid and sustaining clarity. Not only does this singular group hear me, it gives me the unique chance to hear myself in a manner otherwise impossible.”