Once Claimed Dominion – a collaborative art production

Please visit the MSUM Planetarium website to register for this event.

An original art production including commissioned time lapse photography and musical compositions produced by Concordia alum and photographer Michael Abramyan, Assistant Professor of Multimedia Arts Technology at Western Michigan University, Carter Rice, nationally renowned composer/ pianist Doug Harbin, and creative alchemist and internationally celebrated artist Gabrielle Cerberville will be presented at the MSUM Planetarium for two showings every weekend beginning September 23rd. On October 8th there will be a special artist led event where our artists engage with the public, sharing their process, inspirations, and expertise, while also answering questions from attendants. Space is limited for these events so please register early! Food and refreshments will be available during the artist led event.
Dates:
Saturdxay, September 23 at 7pm
Sunday, September 24th at 4pm
Saturday, September 30th at 7pm
Sunday, October 1st at 4pm
Saturday, October 7th at 7pm
Sunday, October 8th at 2pm
Artist Talks/ Meet and Greet: 2:45pm
Sunday, October 8th at 4pm

About the Artists
Michael Abramyan

Michael Abramayn is a multifaceted artist who has used photography, video editing, and music to craft his creative journey. With a focus on travel and landscape photography, as well as the art of storytelling through video, Michael has become a source of education and inspiration to his community.
Specializing in landscape astrophotography, Michael loves connecting the beautiful landscapes of our planet to the vast expanse of the universe. As a content creator, Michael has collaborated with prominent brands such as Sony, Google Pixel, YouTube, and Adobe, producing educational pieces and captivating visual displays that leave a lasting impact on viewers.
Michael’s work has been featured by NASA, major news networks such as CBS, Washington Post, and Newsweek, and has been seen tens of millions of times on social media.
Beyond the realm of photography, Michael also leads a captivating double life as a classically trained violinist. Having completed a master’s degree in violin performance from New York University, he has had the opportunity to perform on the stages of esteemed concert halls across the country, including Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center.
Artist statement:
Hi, I’m Mike! My passion is connecting you to the beauty of our night sky. Did you know that one-third of humanity cannot see the Milky Way at night due to the luminescent glow of artificial light? My mission is to travel to the few remaining places in the world where the stars are visible in hopes of capturing their essence and sharing it with you.

Gabrielle Cerberville

Gabrielle Cerberville (b. 1991 in Sleepy Hollow, NY) is a curious American composer turned creative alchemist. She writes with an experimental flair that is at once familiar and alien, and her work regularly blends the lines between disciplines and discrete art forms. Her work is an exploration of communication, primarily between humans and our natural neighbors (plants, fungi, animals, and finding our place within ecosystems). She holds a Masters of Music in composition from Western Michigan University and a Bachelor of Music from Butler University in composition, and is pursuing her Ph.D in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia. Gabrielle has studied traditional and electronic composition with Drs. Lisa Coons, Christopher Biggs, Frank Felice and Michael Schelle.
Gabrielle’s works have been featured across the US and Europe. She has been honored with residencies at United Plant Savers in Ohio, Port Austin AiR in Michigan, Listhus in Iceland, Arts Letters and Numbers in New York, NES in Iceland, Convergence in Indianapolis, and has participated in several festivals, including the Ammerman Symposium, MOXsonic, Impulse New Music, EMM, Skammdegi, and A! Festival. Gabrielle’s striking and welcoming compositions have been highlighted by the artistic talents of Shanna Pranaitis, Forward Motion, Elizabeth A. Baker, Ashley Walters, Kory Reeder, Ascending Duo, Circuit721, Sotto Voce, Nicholas Tolle, Verdant Vibes, and others. She is also a well-known figure in the mycology and foraging communities, and lectures widely about sustainability, edible wild plants and fungi, identification, and environmental activism.
Artist Statement:
I am interested in scoring as a visual art form in addition to it being a practical method of conveying musical ideas for the purpose of performance. Lately, much of my work has revolved around live electronics and fixed media, and I am an avid collector of found sounds, I also design sound that is live and object-based. Much of my work contains site-specific elements, generally sounds captured from a particular location and manipulated within a unique space, or necessitating performance in a certain location, and as a citizen scientist, mycologist, and wild food advocate, I tend to integrate botanical and fungal wisdom into my work. Much of this work is designed to place the listener in an immersive or unusual setting, or to rebuild real places and moments in an imaginary, sometimes fantastical space.
My goal as an artist is to create works that spark our collective human imagination and blur the lines between creator and consumer. I seek to draw from and reassemble disparate art forms into something new and deeply experiential.

Doug Harbin
Doug Harbin (b. 1980) is a composer, performer, and educator residing in Moorhead, Minnesota. He composes acoustic and electroacoustic systematic music and his works have been performed throughout the world including Australia, Canada, China, England, Finland, Latvia, South Korea, and the United States. Much of his music utilizes a compositional method called the ‘Take-Away System’, which applies modular arithmetic over a finite set. His pieces have been included in regional, national and international conferences and festivals including College Music Society, Society of Composers Inc., ClarinetFest, Flute New Music Consortium, Upper Midwest Flute Association, and the CFAMC.
Harbin has been commissioned by the NEA Big Read, The Arts Partnership, Daraja Music Initiative, and has received a Professional Development Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts to serve his second residency as an artist at the Banff Centre, where he has had several premieres.
He holds degrees from Arizona State University (DMA music composition), Ball State University (MM music composition) and Taylor University (BA in mathematics and BM in music composition) and has been on faculty at Arizona State University, Grand Canyon University, Mesa Community College, and Taylor University. He is currently Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Concordia College (Moorhead, MN) and Faculty Associate at Arizona State University.

Carter Rice
Carter John Rice is a multimedia artist, audio engineer, and educator based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Rice is currently an assistant professor of Multimedia Arts Technology (MAT) at Western Michigan University where he teaches courses on cinema sound design, music production, film scoring, and occasionally music theory/composition. His passion for teaching has been the driving force in his career thus far, but he rarely turns down the chance for an artistic collaboration.
Rice earned a Doctor of Arts (D.A.) in music theory & composition from Ball State University in the spring of 2017. While primarily studying music composition, technology, and recording techniques, he was also able to complete a cognate through the Ball State’s telecommunications program. This afforded him the chance to take coursework in video production, animation, video game design, and narrative forms in the digital age. Prior to this, Rice earned a Master of Music in music composition (M.M.) from Bowling Green State University in 20013, and a Bachelor of Music in music theory & composition from Concordia College (Moorhead, MN) in 2011.
artist statement:
My artistic practice is influenced by a variety of factors including the use of humor, acoustic phenomena, classical mechanics, and the occasional dose of absurdity. I’m constantly fascinated at the intersection of the moving image and audio, and I find it’s often best to simply let energy, whether visual or auditory, expend itself while the audience passively observes. There’s beauty in the mundane, we just have to get the right vantage point.

NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.