Lexi Pulido is a conductor of space. Seeing her perform with her alt jazz band KiliKili or versatile duo Lex & The Jewels is captivating, from the very moment she steps on stage and her voice soars from deeply earthy to atmospheric, as playful and curious as a bird. She plays with space when she sits down at the piano and instructs students to breathe here, to feel into the meaning of a word there, and when she silently nods approval as a student, with energized clarity, creates their own vocal melody in the generous space she has cultivated for them. Her careful, compassionate instruction is what makes her students soar themselves to new heights, surprising even themselves at what they’ve channeled creatively and expressively under her inspired direction.
It’s with this same inspiration that she’s generously created a guided sound walk, an experience that is free to the public and available to pick up as a zine at the Kalabash front desk! Lexi describes her sound walk on her website as follows:
This walk was created in fall of 2020 by Lexi Pulido (as part) of her 8-week Sound Art Group Workshop series at Kalabash School of Music and the Arts. Pulido was inspired by the Elastic City walks of New York. Through the lens of its sound, participants are invited to combine imagination and self reflection with the living, sounding world around Birdrock, CA.
The walk begins on the Kalabash front patio with an action as simple as observing the beautiful mural painted on our building. Participants are directed to imagine it coming to life, and what colors and images and feelings it might evoke. We are then guided to a public fountain and encouraged to not only listen to the sound of the fountain itself but the way it interacts with the sounds of cars and people and the urban environment. Continuing on the walk, we are encouraged to reflect upon the experience of our ancestors, to perform a breath meditation with waves, to consider the personality and sound of a local plant. At once poetic and philosophical, whimsical and profound, the tour packs a punch and by the end I found myself wishing for more pages so that I might continue on.
But maybe that’s the point. Lexi is waiting for us to pick up on the melody where she left off, as we find our voice in the song and she fades off, smiling. As we see for ourselves, with shocking clarity, the beauty of the everyday world that was here for us the whole time.
