DALE GORFINKEL is a multi-instrumentalist, improvisor, instrument builder, installation artist and educator. He is interested in finding fresh ways of presenting and making music. These include outdoors, across artforms, and inter-cultural and inter-generational contexts. He brings creative communities together & shifts perceived boundaries of scenes, styles & artforms.
Dale enjoys building automated sonic contraptions and modifying other instruments, especially the vibraphone. He creates wondrous sonorities using continuous bowed inventions on aluminium bars, swinging tin resonators and bouncing ping-pong balls that create random rhythms. He has also developed a quirky approach to the trumpet, using additional plastic tubing, shower roses, balloons, and various mouthpieces that create unpredictable sounds.
Originally from Sydney and now living in Melbourne, Dale is an active member of Australia’s creative sound communities including improvised music, electronic arts, jazz and African musics. He graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium in 2004 specializing in jazz vibraphone which he began playing at the age of 14. He has performed throughout Australia as well as in Europe, USA and New Zealand. In 2006, he was featured on ABC TV’s SET with Robbie Avenaim, and as a member of the Splinter Orchestra. He is a member of Prophets, the originators of the stylefree movement. His other collaborators include Jim Denley, Peter Farrar, Peter Blamey, Alan Lamb, Rosalind Hall, sound poet Amanda Stewart, mover Peter Fraser, and the Afro-contemporary group Asanti Dance Theatre.
Awarded Australia Council for the Arts Grant 2009 for development of installation of sonic contraptions for kids.
Awarded Australia Council Grant in 2007 to develop a set of portable instruments, which he uses to create spatialised performances and installations. He is interested in working in both indoor and outdoor locations and creating site specific works for these spaces.
Installations include:
Artist-in-residence at Footscray Community Arts Centre (2011)
‘Cuttings’ at Linden Contemporary Art Spaces (2011) with Aphids
Lock Up Gallery, Newcastle, Electrofringe Artist in residence (2010)
Always Moving, Gertrude St Gallery (2010)
Touch at A Distance, 7000 Oaks Festival at Heidi Museum of Modern Art (2010)
Infinite Music Machine at Westspace Gallery, Melbourne (2009) for Liquid Architecture.
‘Out of Space, A Festival of Performances and Sound Installations’ which he curated at Bus Gallery, Melbourne (2008)
ArtsLab in DwellingUp (WA) with Alan Lamb and Rosalind Hall (2008)
‘Vaucanson’s Duck: A Festival of Automated Instruments and Installations’ with Ernie Althoff and Robbie Avenaim at Bus Gallery, Melbourne (2007)
‘The Outing’, with Tim Gregory at Horus Deloris Gallery, Sydney (2007)
Dale has presented his work at many arts festivals around Australia including Ten Days on The Island Festival, Tasmania (2009), The NOW now Festival of Spontaneous Music (2005 – 09) , What is Music? (2008), Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (2008), Liquid Architecture (2005/08), Sydney’s ARTSPACE (2006), Melbourne Biennale of Exploratory Music, Melbourne (2006), Melbourne International Jazz Festival (2010). International performances include Vitamin-S Festival, Auckland, NZ (2007), Jazzgalerie, Nickelsdorf, Austria (2007) and Princeton University, USA (2006).
Before moving to Melbourne in 2008, Dale was a co-organiser and co-curator of The NOW now Festival, which presents experimental approaches to sound in Sydney through its fortnightly series and annual festival, held in the Blue Mountains.
Educator
He currently enjoys working for The Song Room, teaching percussion, instrument building and sound art to disadvantaged primary school students, mostly refugees. He conducts monthly workshops at The Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital and has presented workshops at The Dwellingup Arts Lab, WA , The 2008 NOW now Festival, and The Queensland University of Technology.
CDs:
Prophets (Coming Soon!)
Gulbenkoglu Gorfinkel – Vibraphone/Snare, AvantWhatever002 (2008)
Sonic Systems Laboratory: Robbie Avenaim + Dale Gorfinkel 2 Vibraphones, SplitRecCD18 (2007)
Peter Farrar/Dale Gorfinkel Duo (2007)
Farfinkel Pugowski, Wollongong/ Paddington 2006, self-released (2006)
AFG Plains – Fuhler (NED)/Avenaim/Gorfinkel (2006)
Splinter Orchestra, SplitrecCD17 (2006)
Mike Nock Project, Meeting of the Waters, Head Records (2007)
