A WEEK OF STRINGS III
February 22, 2008
Alex Waterman, Kenta Nagai + todd reynolds, Satoshi Takeishi, Luke Dubois
Alex Waterman
Alex Waterman is a founding member of the Plus Minus Ensemble, based in Brussels and London, specializing in avant-garde and experimental music. Alex has worked with musicians such as Richard Barrett, Keith Rowe, Marina Rosenfeld, Anthony Coleman, Ned Rothenberg, Chris Mann, Alison Knowles, Thomas Meadowcroft, and Michael Finnissy. Alex performs with Either/Or Ensemble in New York, and has performed as guest musician with numerous ensembles, including Trio Event (Berlin), Champs d’Action-Antwerp, Q-O2-Brussels, and Black Jackets Company-Brussels. As a curator he has organized events at Les Bains:Connective in Brussels, OT301 in Amsterdam, Miguel Abreu Gallery and The Kitchen. His project with the Bach Cello Suites has toured in Switzerland, Italy, Holland, and the Opera of Monaco. In 2007 Alex curated two exhibitions in New York, one on experimental music and poetics: Agap_ (June 2-July 28th, 2007) at Miguel Abreu Gallery; and the other on graphic notation, Between Thought and Sound: Graphic Notation in Contemporary Music (September 7-October 20, 2007) at The Kitchen in Chelsea. Alex is presently working on his PhD in musicology at NYU as well as writing a book about the composer Robert Ashley with the designer and writer Will Holder. Alex’s writings have been featured in FoArm Magazine, Dot Dot Dot, and Artforum. ( www.alexwaterman.com )
Kenta Nagai
Kenta Nagai is a sound and visual artist based in New York City. He works with acoustic and electronic sound, visual media and live performance. After completing undergraduate studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston (BA, 1996) Nagai moved to New York City. He began his NY career as a fretless guitarist playing on the streets, in subway stations and at clubs. His most recent compositional work, entitled Long, Long, Long, is an ensemble piece for traditional Asian instruments. It was presented at Roulette, in NYC, in October 2006. Nagai’s fretless guitar playing is featured on Eugene Chadborne’s album “Guitar Festival Summer 1999″ with Sonic Youth members Thurston Moore, Lee Renaldo and Jim O’Rourke plus Joe Morris, Lauren Mazzacane Connors, David Watson and others. Nagai is also a featured performer on two recordings by the composer Laura Andel, “Somnambulist” (Red Toucan Records, May 2003, RT9322) and “In::tension:” (Rossbin Records, October 2005, RS022). As a performer on the shamisen, a traditional Japanese string instrument, Nagai has appeared in numerous concerts at venues including Sculpture Center in Long Island City and Carnegie Hall. From 1999 until 2002 Nagai was a composer in residence at The Cave Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In addition to his work as a guitarist, Nagai is also involved in creating multi-media, interactive performance and installation and has collaborated with artists from various fields. These projects include a long-standing collaborative relationship with choreographer Boaz Barkan documented by filmmaker Miana Grafals in the short film “A Moving Portrait” that features the movement and sound of Barkan and Nagai. “A Moving Portrait” was presented at Dance Theatre Workshop in NYC as part of the 2005 Dance on Camera Festival. More recently, Nagai worked with the photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto on the silent film “The Water Magician” (1933, directed by Kenji Mizoguchi) composing film score and performed at Japan Society, NYC and Hershhorn Museum at Smithsonian Institute. In 2005 and 2006, Nagai performed in “Flight of Mind ” with choreographer Jennifer Monson. He continues his collaboration with Monson in 2007 through a multi-season project set in the Highland Park Reservoir in NYC.
Todd Reynolds is a long-time member of the Steve Reich Ensemble and Bang on a Can, a member of The Silk Road Project and a founding member of the string quartet known as ETHEL. A veteran of both New York and international performing arts scenes, his rock club and concert hall performances are a hybrid of acoustica and electronica, employing technology as an essential and driving element in a compositional style rooted in improvisation. The past two years since his departure from the string quartet world have seen a rise in educational focus, with six week-long residencies nationally, and two tours opening for and playing with indie-sensations, The Books. With a CD due on the Innova label later this year, he is sequestered in his studio when he’s not on tour teaching or playing. Season highlights include tours of The Zippo Songs and Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension, week-long performance/teaching residencies in Colorado and Indiana, Meet The Composer’s Soloist Champions project, and performances as soloist with The Albany Symphony and Theo Bleckmann.
Satoshi Takeishi, drummer, percussionist, and arranger is a native of Mito Japan. He studied music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. While at Berklee he developed an interest in the music of South America and went to live in Colombia following the invitation of a friend. He spent four years there and forged many musical and personal relationships. One of the projects he worked on while in Colombia was “Macumbia” with composer/arranger Francisco Zumaque in which traditional, jazz and classical music were combined. With this group he performed with the Bogota symphony orchestra to do a series of concerts honoring the music of the most popular composer in Colombia, Lucho Bermudes. In 1986 he returned to the U.S. in Miami where he began work as an arranger. In 1987 he produced “Morning Ride” for jazz flutist Nestor Torres on Polygram Records. His interest expanded to the rhythms and melodies of the middle east where he studied and performed with Armenian-American oud master Joe Zeytoonian. Since moving to New York in 1991 he has performed and recorded with many musicians such as Ray Barretto, Carlos “Patato” Valdes, Eliane Elias, Marc Johnson, Eddie Gomez, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Anthony Braxton, Mark Murphy, Herbie Mann, Paul Winter Consort, Rabih Abu Khalil, Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band, Erik Friedlander and Pablo Ziegler to name a few. He continues to explore multi-cultural, electronics and improvisational music with local musicians and composers in New York.
R. Luke DuBois is a composer, performer, video artist, and programmer living in New York City. He holds a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University and teaches interactive sound and video performance at Columbia’s Computer Music Center and at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. He has collaborated on interactive performance, installation, and music production work with many artists and organizations including Toni Dove, Matthew Ritchie, Todd Reynolds, Michael Joaquin Grey, Elliott Sharp, Michael Gordon, Bang on a Can, Engine27, Harvestworks, and LEMUR, and is the director of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra for its 2007 season. He is a co-author of Jitter, a software suite developed by Cycling’74 for real-time manipulation of matrix data. His music (with or without his band, the Freight Elevator Quartet), is available on Caipirinha/Sire, Cycling’74, and Cantaloupe music, and his artwork is represented by bitforms gallery in New York City.
8pm $10
A WEEK OF STRINGS II
February 21, 2008
ha-yang kim + dan joseph
Composer/cellist Ha-Yang Kim explores naturally occurring acoustical phenomena in a set of meditative pieces for solo amplified cello with electronics. Gorgeous difference tones, beating patterns, sound transformations through extended string techniques and much more are illuminated in pieces by Kim, Lucier, and Tenney.
Ha-Yang Kim- Lens
Alvin Lucier- Indian Summer
James Tenney- Cellogram
Ha-yang Kim
Born in Seoul, Korea, Ha-Yang Kim made her professional solo debut at age 16 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. A cellist, composer, and improvisor, she has developed a unique language of extended string techniques and has created her own music based on this work. Her musical influences draw equally from a range of western classical music, American experimentalism, rock, jazz and improvised music, to non-western musical sources. She is the founder of Odd Appetite, a cello-percussion duo which performs and commissions new contemporary works alongside original works and improvisations. In seeking new musical experiences, Ha-Yang has performed traditional and new Balinese music, studied Karnatic music concepts, and has worked with many diverse musicians and bands such as Evan Ziporyn, Cecil Taylor, John Zorn, Christian Wolff, Lee Hyla, The National, Louis Andriessen, Alvin Lucier, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Lukas Ligeti, Larry Polansky, and Stefan Poetzsch, in addition to collaborations in dance, theatre, film, and multi-media. Ama, a CD of her own compositions is released on Tzadik. She has also recorded for New World, Cold Blue, Beggars Banquet, New Albion, Karnatic Lab and Bridge Records. She has toured the US, Europe, Russia, Cuba, Bali , Turkey, and has appeared as a soloist at Carnegie Hall. Kim is also a frequent artist- in- residence at universities. Currently, she is composing a new program of works to be presented at Roulette later this Spring. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Dan Joseph
Brooklyn-based composer/performer Dan Joseph presents a new work-in-progress for solo hammer dulcimer and electronics that offers a new perspective on this ancient and largely unknown instrument. Employing state-of the-art digital processing and unconventional playing techniques, Joseph creates slowly unfolding harmonically rich sound fields that engage the heart and mind.
Dan Joseph is a free-lance composer based in New York City. He began his career as a drummer in the vibrant punk scene of his native Washington, DC. During the late 1980s, he was active in the experimental tape music underground, producing ambient-industrial works for independent labels in the U.S. and abroad. He spent the ‘90s in California where he studied at CalArts and Mills College. His principal teachers include Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran and Terry Riley. As an artist who embraces the musical multiplicity of our time, Dan works simultaneously in a variety of media and contexts, including instrumental chamber music, free improvisation, and various forms of electronica and sound art. Since the late 1990s, the hammer dulcimer has been the primary vehicle for his music. As a performer he is active with his own chamber ensemble, The Dan Joseph Ensemble, as well as in various improvisational collaborations and as an occasional soloist.
8pm $10
A WEEK OF STRINGS I
February 20, 2008
music on a long thin wire
A sound installation by Alvin Lucier
Installed by Ben Manley
Extend a long metal wire… Drive the wire with a sine wave oscillator…(to produce) nodal shifts, echo trains, noisy overdrivings,rhythmic figures at low frequencies, phase-related time lags, simple and complex harmonic structures, larger self-generative cyclic patterns, stops and starts, and other audible and visible phenomena. (from the score, 1977)
Alvin Lucier
Alvin Lucier was born in 1931 in Nashua, New Hampshire. He was educated in Nashua public and parochial schools, the Portsmouth Abbey School, Yale, and Brandeis and spent two years in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship. While at Yale he studied music theory with Howard Boatwright and composition with Richard Donavan, David Kraehenbuehl and Quincy Porter; at Brandeis with Arthur Berger and Harold Shapiro. During summers of 1958-60 he studied orchestration with Aaron Copeland and composition with Lukas Foss at Tanglewood. From 1962 to 1970 he taught at Brandeis, where he conducted the Brandeis University Chamber Chorus, which devoted much of its time to the performance of new music. In 1966 he co-founded, with Robert Ashley, David Behrman and Gordon Mumma, The Sonic Arts Union, which, until 1979, gave numerous concerts in the United States and Europe. Since 1970 he has taught at Wesleyan University where he is John Spencer Camp Professor of Music.
Lucier’s early electronic music includes the use of brain waves in live performance (Music for Solo Performer, 1965); the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media (The Queen of the South, 1972), and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes (Vespers, 1969, and I am sitting in a room, 1970). His recent works include a series of sound installations and works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra in which rhythms and spatial phenomena are created by means of close tuning.
His most recent instrumental works include Coda Variations for 6-valve solo tuba; Twonings for cello and piano; Canon, commissioned by the Bang on a Can All Stars, and Music with Missing Parts, a re-orchestration of Mozart’s Requiem, premiered at the Mozarteum, Salzburg in December 2007.
Alvin Lucier has collaborated with John Ashbery and Robert Wilson and is currently working with Italian artist Maurizio Mochetti on an exhibition at the Galleria Nazionale D’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, in October 2008. His recent sound installation, 6 Resonant Points Along a Curved Wall, accompanied Sol LeWitt’s enormous sculpture, Curved Wall, in Graz, Austria, and in the Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University in January 2005.
Mr. Lucier has participated in numerous festivals and residencies including the DAAD Kunster Program in Berlin, New Music Days, Ostrava, Czech Republic; June in Buffalo, and the Sparks Festival at the University on Minnesota. In April 1997, Lucier presented a concert of his works on the Making Music Series at Carnegie Hall. In March 2008 he will present a concert of his works on the musicadhoy Festival in Madrid.
Lucier regularly contributes articles to books and periodicals. Reflections/Reflexionen, a bi-lingual edition of Lucier’s scores, interviews and writings, is available from MusikTexte, Köln. In addition, several of his works are available on Antiopic (Sigma Editions), Cramps (Italy), Disques Montaigne, Source, Mainstream, Mode, New World, CBS Odyssey, Lovely Music, Nonesuch and Wergo.
In 2006, Alvin Lucier was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States and in December 2007 received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Plymouth, England, during the Dartington College of the Arts Awards.
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Ben Manley
Composer and experimenter Ben Manley explores the natural variability of wind, amplified small vibrations, and resonant objects to generate dynamic musical environments. Manley has worked extensively in music and audio in New York City and has presented solo performances and installations of light and sound across the country and overseas. Manley has collaborated with Sean G. Meehan, Connie Crothers, Ursula Scherrer, Jim Staley, Dan Evans Farkas, Jens Brand, Linda Austin, the Manley Family Trio, and has appeared with Composers Inside Electronics at the Lincoln Center and with Essential Music and the Downtown Ensemble. He has installed realizations of works by Alvin Lucier, including The Queen of the South and Music on a Long Thin Wire, at Studio Five Beekman, Greenwich House Music School, Subtropics 18 in Miami, and MFA, Boston. As a curator, Manley has presented festivals of experimental music at the Jack Tilton Gallery and elsewhere including House Mix: 19 Pianos, 19 Improvisers & 19 Microphones (a collective performance/recording/playback event), Electro-Whammy (w/ Ron Kuivila, Ben Manley, Matt Rogalsky), and say YES! to experimental music (w/ Jens Brand, Dan Evans Farkas, Ben Manley, Phill Niblock). As an audio engineer for concert events, Manley has recorded over 1,000 performances in more than 200 NYC venues and serves as technical consultant to arts organizations, recording studios, architects, and visual/media artists.
8pm $10
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE’S NO EXIT
February 17, 2008
Brave New World Reperetory Theatre
5th annual play reading salon series.
FOOD, WINE AND A READING
WITH SOME OF BROOKLYN’S BEST PROFESSIONAL ACTORS
Returns to Issue Project Room with
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE’S NO EXIT
Directed by Royston Coppenger
With Karl Greenberg, Claire Beckman*, Chris-Lindsay-Abaire*, Damon Pooser* and Alvin Hippolyte
*indicates members of actors equity association.
BRUNCH 12:30; READING 1:00.
Director’s note:
No Exit was first performed at the Vieux-Colombier in Paris in May 1944, just a few months before the city was liberated by the Allies. Perhaps the experience of living in occupied France influenced Sartre’s portrait of the doomed trio locked in an eternal prison, with nothing to do but tear each other down. Sartre’s glum antihero Garcin is often seen as a kind of wry self-portrait of the author, filled with a mixture of grandiose desire and bitter self-contempt. The women who surround him, Estelle and Inez, are themselves mutually exclusive contradictions: Estelle eternally addicted to love and romance, Inez eternally addicted to destroy what she can’t possess. In the play Sartre shows us that imprisonment isn’t created by the prison itself; it’s what you do with the boundaries you’re given. Or, to quote the play’s most famous line, “Hell is other people”.
A WEEK OF PERCUSSION IV
February 16, 2008
cyro baptista + billy martin
Cyro Baptista
Since arriving in the U.S. in 1980 from his native country Brazil, Cyro Baptista has emerged as one of the premier percussionists in the country. Coinciding with the rise in the public’s interest of world music, Cyro has managed to record and tour with some of music’s most popular names. His mastery of Brazilian percussion and the many instruments he creates himself, have catapulted him into world renown.
With his own project, the percussion and dance ensemble known as ‘Beat the Donkey’ Cyro gives free reign to his imagination, mixing his tremendous musical skills, his natural humor and theatrical ways with instruments from Brazil, Middle East, Indonesia, Africa and US.
Cyro’s credits read like a “Who’s Who” of modern music. He toured extensively with Yo-Yo Ma’s Brazil Project, Trey Anastasio’s Band (of Phish), John Zorn’s Electric Masada, Herbie Hancock’s Grammy award winning “Gershwin’s World” , Sting and Paul Simon’s “Rhythm of the Saints”.
The wide range of artists Cyro Baptista has performed and recorded with include: David Byrne, Kathleen Battle, Gato Barbieri, Dr. John, Brian Eno, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Palmer, Melissa Etheridge, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Michael Tilson Thomas, Daniel Barenboin, Bobby McFerrin, Wynton Marsalis, Yo-Yo-Ma, Medeski Martin & Wood, Spyro Gyra, Trey Anastasio from Phish, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Santana and Sting. He has also played with many respected Brazilian artists such as Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, Ivan Lins, Marisa Monte, and Nana Vasconcelos.
8pm $10
A WEEK OF PERCUSSION III
February 15, 2008
susie ibarra + talujon
Susie Ibarra
Susie Ibarra solo percussion
performing music from her recent release , Drum Sketches, on Innova Records
Susie Ibarra, percussionist and composer lives in New York City. She received a music diploma from Mannes College of Music and B.A. from Goddard College. Susie Ibarra studied Kulintang with Danongan Kalanduyan and drum set with Buster Smith, Vernel Fournier and Milford Graves.
As a percussionist, she has performed southeast Asian gong music, jazz, avant-garde, improvised and solo concert works. She has performed with many great artists such as John Zorn, Dave Douglas Pauline Oliveros, Derek Bailey, Ikue Mori, Sylvie Courvoisier, William Parker, Dr. L Subramaniam, Kavita Krishnamurti, John Lindberg, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Dresser, Thurston Moore, Savath and Savalas, Prefuse 73, Yo La Tengo, among others.
Susie Ibarra has taught across the U.S and attended. Artist Residencies including: The Walker Art Center, Mills College, Bard College, Swarthmore College, Fundacio Joan Miro, University of Michigan, Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, The New School.
She was nominated “Best Drummer” in the Village Voice, Downbeat, Jazziz, The Wire. Susie Ibarra is a Yamaha, Paiste & Vic Firth Artist.
She currently performs solo works and with Susie Ibarra Trio with Jennifer Choi & Craig Taborn; Mephista, collective electro-acoustic trio with Sylvie Couvoisier & Ikue Mori; Shapechanger with poet Yusef Komunyakaa; Mark Dresser & Susie Ibarra Duo; Mundo Ninos children’s music; and Filipino trance music, with Roberto Rodriguez, Electric Kulintang.
talujon
Talujon
Tal (tal) adj. having to do with rhythmic cycles in Indian music
Lujon (loo-zhon) n. a metal log drum
Talujon (tal-loo-zhon) n. a four-member drum ensemble
that performs classic and new music using traditional
– and not-so-traditional — instruments
Described by the New York Times as an ensemble
possessing an “edgy, unflagging energy”, the Talujon
Percussion Quartet has been mesmerizing audiences
since 1990. With an annual schedule of more than 60
concerts, including a dozen premieres, Talujon is
thoroughly committed to the expansion of the
contemporary percussion repertoire as well as the
education and diversification of its worldwide
audience. Recent Talujon commissions include quartets
by Ralph Shapey, Wayne Peterson, Julia Wolfe, Ushio
Torikai, Louis Karchin, Steven Ricks and Chien Yin
Chen. Performances have included collaborations with
James Tenney, Chou Wen Chung and Tan Dun.
Based in New York City, Talujon performs regularly at
Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Kitchen,
and the Knitting Factory. Talujon has appeared in
universities and concert halls throughout the U.S.,
and on such festivals as Taipei’s Lantern Festival,
BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Chautauqua, California’s
Festival of New American Music, and Bang on a Can.
8pm $10
A WEEK OF PERCUSSION II
February 14, 2008
raz mesinai + amir ziv + steve honoshowsky
RAZ MESINAI
Raz Mesinai
Composer and multi instrumentalist Raz Mesinai was born in Jerusalem in 1973. His first two decades were spent in frequent transit between Jerusalem and New York City, where he became immersed in both the worlds of traditional Middle Eastern music, and the dub and hip-hop scenes of the eighties and earlynineties in New York City. Mesinai’s electronic and electro-acoustic music exists at the crossroads of composition, sound design and modern studio production. Raz was a featured artist in the “Next, Next Wave” festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and opened for Nubian master musician Hamza El Din at Lincoln Center, a personal highlight. Raz has received commissions from the Lincoln Center Festival in both 2000 and 2001, and In 2004, following his developing interest in visual narrative and storytelling in music, Mesinai was a Fellow at the Sundance Composer’s Lab. This year Mesinai was commissioned to compose works for Ethel, Maya Beiser, VIA, and The Kronos Quartet.
“Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick” drum & percussion pieces by Amir Ziv & Steve Honoshowsky with special guest, Billy Martin
AMIR ZIV
Amir Ziv
“The astounding drum work of Amir Ziv may convince even the most ruff-neck kids that they’re in the hands of a master.” URB – Chris Muniz
Since arriving in the US in 1990 from his native country of Israel, Amir Ziv has emerged as one of the country’s most forward-thinking & visionary drummers, setting deep marks in both the Nu-Jazz as well as the “live” electronica scenes. His work with his band Droid featuring the work of Miles’ musical director/producer/synthesist – Adam Holzman, bassists Tim LeFebvre and Yossi Fine and trumpeter Jordan McLean, produced some of NYC’s most on-the-edge “live” electronica. Amir’s other band that he leads is KOTKOT, featuring percussionist to the stars Cyro Baptista, NYC’s “down-town” guitar-God Marc Ribot and bassist Shahzad Ismaily. Notable sideman credits such as Trey Anastasio, Cibo Matto, Beat The Donkey and Graham Haynes and his educator status has brought recent demand for his musical skills the world over.
STEVE HONOSHOWSKY
Steve Honoshowsky has been a percussionist for almost fifteen years and has professionally performed on drums and percussion for almost nine years. Steve teaches private instruction and is a facilitator of the TRAP (The Rhythmic Arts Project) program. He has performed for audiences all over the country in a variety of different musical groups ranging from jazz, funk and metal to many solo drum performances as well. One of the many groups he has performed in called No Use For Humans has had very positive reviews from many international music publications such as Progression, READ, and High Times magazines among many others. No Use For Humans have performed throughout the tri-state area and have opened for Skeleton Key, Captured By Robots, and The Legendary Pink Dots. In addition,
Steve’s has studied with Chris Pennie (Dillinger Escape Plan/Coheed and Cambria) and Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin & Wood).
8pm $10
A WEEK OF PERCUSSION I
February 13, 2008
billy martin + the iktus percussion quartet
Billy Martin is best know for his band Medeski Martin and Wood, and performing/recording with John Zorn, John Scofield, Cibo Mato, Iggy Pop and Cyro Baptista.
Iktus percussion quartet
Iktus Percussion Quartet is a funky-frenetic Percussion/ New Music group on a mission to change the way music is perceived by the lay listener. Influenced by a broad range of world music and instrumentation, and committed to playing fresh new compositions from up and coming artists, Iktus is on the cutting edge of the percussion genre. In addition to performance, we are also available for educational programs ranging from school age workshops to master classes. Let us inspire you! Projects in the works: Concert of “New Works” with Random Access Music(RAM), “Dance & Beat” Collaboration with Modern Dance. Endorsed by: Mike Balter Mallets www.mikebalter.com, & Grover Pro Percussion www.groverpro.com
8pm $10
A WEEK OF HORNS IV
February 9, 2008
matana roberts solo +marty ehrlich’s four alto (s)
Matana Roberts
Chicago native Matana Roberts is a reedist, composer,and improviser who tries to expose in her music the mystical roots and spiritual traditions of African-American creative expression. She is a member of the AACM — Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and currently resides in New York City where she is an in demand freelancer and leader of many of her own projects. www.matanaroberts.com
marty ehrlich four alto(s)
w/ Michael Attias, Marty Ehrlich, Andy Laster, and Ned Rothenberg
alto saxophones
Call it a conceit. One times Four into One. An orchestra of its own.
A chance to compose for these inimitable dramatic personae.
A song and a dance.
8pm $10
A WEEK OF HORNS III
February 8, 2008
nmperign: bhob rainey – soprano saxophone, greg kelley – trumpet + daniel carter + Marianne Giosa
nmperign
nmperign has been hailed the world over as the leading purveyors of whatever that strange thing they do is. Their palette of sounds makes laptops seem as flexible as doorbells, and their precise but wildly unpredictable improvisations would have you at the edge of your seat if you weren’t so afraid of the noise you would make getting there. Fierce and fragile, lush and fractured, nmperign is tough to pin down and all the better for it.
“(nmperign’s) attention to the architecture of improvisation, control over a huge palette of sonic material, and ability to explore the extremes of music-making with subtley and wit mark them as two of the most original thinkers in free improvisation today.” Ed Hazel, Boston Phoenix
“nmperign’s music seems to unwind as two parallel soundtracks being put in line by a kind of Leibnizian god. The duo has a disturbing (turmoil) serenity; they seem to have been set up in this new monadology for an eternity.
For me, there is nothing to be called ‘minimal’ in their music, in their choice of low and dangerously weak sounds. It would be nonsense to call this music ‘minimal’; on the contrary, their way of making music refines our senses and gives precision to a double movement of internalization and openmindedness. So space is opened and landmarks disappear.” Philippe Alen, Improjazz
nmperign has collaborated with Le Quan Ninh, Gunter Mueller, Jason Lescalleet, Jerome Noetinger, Lionel Marchetti, Gino Robair, Vic Rawlings, Mike Bullock, and many others.
Daniel Carter
Daniel Carter
Over the past three decades-plus, Daniel Carter has performed with: Sun Ra, Billy Bang, Roger Baird, William Parker, Roy Campbell, Sabir Mateen, Simone Forti, Joan Miller, Thurston Moore, Nayo Takasaki, Earl Freeman, Dewey Johnson, Nami Yamamoto, Matthew Shipp, Wilber Morris, Denis Charles, MMW (Medeski, Martin, & Wood), Vernon Reid, Raphé Malik, Sam Rivers, Sunny Murray, Hamiet Bluiett, Cecil Taylor, David S. Ware, Karl Berger, Don Pate, Gunter Hampel, Alan Silva, Susie Ibarra, D.J. Logic, Margaret Beals, Douglas Elliot, Butch Morris, TEST, OTHER DIMENSIONS IN MUSIC, ONE WORLD ENSEMBLE, SATURNALIA STRING TRIO, LEVITATION UNIT, WET PAINT, THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS, and many many many many others (meaning more every week or day practically).
MARIANNE GIOSA (sound and movement artist)
trumpet, conch, and small percussion
Native born New Yorker, is trained in musical, kinesthetic, visual and healing arts. She received a BA in Fine Arts from Queens College in 1984 and picked up the trumpet which was her childhood instrument in 1995. Studied music in various New York City schools including Mannes College, School of Jazz, and the classical division of Manhattan School of Music. She has performed musically in many different settings from orchestra to free jazz. In the late 90’s, she worked in City Center Orchesta and The Doctors Orchestra. She also worked with Hot Lavendar Big Band. She met the legendary Daniel Carter in 1999 and became immersed in the improvised world of music.
Trained in dance in early childhood, she also returned to the dance world in 1987 where she become immersed in West African Dance and music. Traveled to West Africa both in 1993 and 1999 and studied with core members of Les Ballets Africains (Guinea) and Sing Sing Rythm (Senegal). She currently works as a guest teacher with Toukounou under the direction of Sidiki Conde. She joined Cilla Vee Movement Project in 2005 and began to explore movement and breath in improvised setting. Coupled by her dedication to healing and yogic practices she has become immersed in somatic awareness, movement and breath.
Presently working with Brandish , muscians Daniel Carter and Todd Nicholson with sculptor Alain Kirili, “it is a meeting point where dance music and a visual space come together”. She is also performing with other improvisational groups including Open Music Ensemble, MMP, and Cilla Vee Movement Project.
8pm $10
A WEEK OF HORNS II
February 7, 2008
herb robertson + sara schoenbeck + matt bauder
herb robertson
Robertson’s jazz and new music improvisation combines a thorough command of traditional and extended techniques with a prodigious imagination yielding an utterly original voice. Along with Paul Smoker and Kenny Wheeler, Robertson is among the most innovative improvising trumpeters of the last 25 years. Born and raised in New Jersey, he attended the Berklee School of Music before playing in various jazz and rock bands, eventually joining both saxophonist Tim Berne’s band and bassist Mark Helias’ groups in early 1980’s New York.
In 1985, Robertson recorded as a leader for the first time. Transparency featured Berne, guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Lindsey Horner, and drummer Joey Baron and was followed by four more recordings for the important JMT label. He recently began his own record label, Ruby Flower Records, with Ana Isabel Ordonez.
As a leader and sideman, Robertson has performed with Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Bobby Previte, David Sanborn, Barry Guy, Agusti Fernandez, Evan Parker, Bill Frisell, and Paul Motian among many. He tours Europe several times yearly, is featured regularly on many of their major festivals and media broadcasts, and also composes music for dance and theater. For more information, see http://www.herbrobertson.com/
matt bauder
Matt Bauder is a saxophonist and composer who has studied with Ed Sarath, Anthony Braxton, Ron Kuivila and Alvin Lucier. In the past ten years he has been an active member of the new music scenes in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Berlin and New York, where he has performed with, among others, Braxton, Rob Masurek, Jeff Parker, Taylor Ho Bynum and Ken Vandermark. He appears on recordings with Jason Ajemian (Locust Music), Warn Defever (Perforate My Heart), Neil Michael Hagerty (Drag City), His Name is Alive (4AD/TimeStereo), Saturday Looks Good to Me (Polyvinyl) and Bill Brovald (Tzadik). His recordings as a leader on 482 Music and I & Ear Records have received wide critical acclaim.
sara schoenbeck
sara schoenbeck is a bassoonist who dedicates herself to expanding the sound and role of the bassoon in the worlds of contemporary notated and improvised music. The Wire places her in the “tiny club of bassoon pioneers” at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her “riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound.” From being a member of creative music ensembles, like Wayne Horvitz’s Gravitas Quartet, Anthony Braxton’s 12+1tet and Vinny Golia’s Large Ensemble to backing Mos Def in Dakah hip hop orchestra and backing Tony Bennett and Stevie Wonder in the Mancini Orchestra, Sara continues to defy categorization as an artist. She has also also shared the stage in improvised music performances with Yusef Lateef, Fred Frith, John Butcher, Mark Dresser, Pauline Oliveros, Wadada Leo Smith and Nels Cline among many others. A recent transplant from Los Angeles, she spent a portion of her time there recording and also as adjunct faculty at California Institute of the Arts. Feature films she has worked on include the Matrix Trilogy, Spanglish and Dahmer. She performs regularly at jazz festivals and venues throughout North America and Europe, notably the Du Maurier Jazz Festival in Vancouver, B.C., the Improvised Music Fest in Antwerp, Belgium and the Berlin Jazz Festival. Sara has received grants from Meet the Composer and the Durfee foundation for outreach work and composition.
8pm $10
A WEEK OF HORNS I
February 6, 2008
TILT SIXtet + Chris Jonas’ The Sun Spits Cherries
TILT SIXtet
Russ Johnson & Nate Wooley – trumpet
Curtis Hasselbring & Chris McIntyre – trombone
John Altieri & Joe Exley – tuba
John King – laptop
TILT BRASS
TILT Brass Band’s SIXtet project reconvenes for opening night IPR’s Horn Week with music from composer, guitarist and Cunningham Co. music co-director John King, TILT’s own Chris McIntyre, and improvisations featuring its stellar roster of brass players.
New York-based TILT Brass Band is a collective of creative brass and percussion artists. Its music nods in all directions, fearlessly taking on works from the fringes of experimental concert music, arrangements of left-of-center pop tunes, blatant and oblique political pieces, full-band improvisations and beyond. TILT negotiates its tastes with programs ranging from far-flung aesthetic combinations to singular thematic and conceptual investigations, often dealing with the fusion of written and improvised material. More info at www.tiltbrass.org.
Chris Jonas’ The Sun Spits Cherries
Chris Jonas – compositions, soprano sax
Molly Sturges – voice
Joe Fiedler – trombone
Christopher Washburne – bass trombone
Andrew Barker – percussion
Chris Jonas
A deeply nuanced world — distinctive, accessible, simple and achingly beautiful. (Michael Kremer, Jazziz).
Started in NYC in 1997, the Sun Spits Cherries consists of soprano saxophone (Jonas), tenor and bass trombones (Joe Fiedler and Christopher Washburne) and percussion (Andrew Barker). Neither pure improvisation, nor entirely composed, these pieces braid cues and conducting techniques to layer and juxtapose composed materials, improvisations, and scored forms in order to disrupt and modify habits and place focus on space, color, timbre and interaction. This will be the first concert of the group since Jonas’ departure from NYC in 2001 and will include partner, Molly Sturges on extended vocals.
Throughout the 1990s in NYC, Jonas was long term member of bands led by Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, William Parker, the Brooklyn Sax Quartet, Butch Morris conduction ensembles and his own critically acclaimed ensemble, the Sun Spits Cherries. During this period he traveled to cities worldwide guest conducting and composing for orchestras and creative ensembles. Since his move to Santa Fe in 2001, Jonas has worked primarily as a composer and video artist, receiving numerous commissions and awards and has written numerous scores for motion pictures, new operas (as Artist in Residence at the Santa Fe Opera), intermedia installations and live soundtracks to silent films. Currently, Jonas leads a number of regular New Mexico-based ensembles including Rrake and, along with partner, Molly Sturges, BING (www.worldofbing.com). Jonas is faculty at the College of Santa Fe’s Contemporary Music Program and co-founder of Littleglobe, a Santa Fe-based performance non-profit that creates intermedia community-dialog projects. More info: www.littleglobe.org, www.chrisjonas.com, www.worldofbing.com
8pm $10
Apestaartje / Incunabulum Festival II
February 2 ,2008
*The Apestaartje and Incunabulum labels present 2 nights of music focusing on the use of traditional instrumentation (lute, acoustic guitar etc) and styles (Baroque Music, Folk forms etc) in combination w/ contemporary experimental practices and adaptations.
tetuzi akiyama + jozef van wissem + chris forsyth
Tetuzi Akiyama
Tetuzi Akiyama
Tetuzi Akiyama is a highly unique and experimental guitarist heavily applying free improvisation and noise. Besides guitar, he also plays electronics, viola, and self-made instruments.
Akiyama became an enthusiastic hard rock fan when he was eleven years old, and started playing electric guitar at the age of thirteen. Later, he also came to be very interested in free improvisation and classical music. He formed the improvised music band Madhar in 1987. He also started playing classical viola, and formed the Hikyo String Quintet in 1994. The band,
which played avant-garde improvised classical music, consisted of a viola, two cello, and two violin players, and included Taku Sugimoto on cello.
Sugimoto soon left the band, which thus became a quartet. Later that year, Akiyama and Sugimoto launched their guitar duo, Akiyama-Sugimoto. They played gigs in New York in 1995, and in the Midwest (including Chicago and Detroit) in ‘96. For about a year starting in early 1994, Akiyama was also a member of Nijiumu, one of guitarist Keiji Haino’s bands.
Recently Akiyama has two improvised music projects: Sutekina Tea Time, a duo with Takashi Matsuoka (guitar, vocal); and Mongoose, a trio with Sugimoto and Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer). Since 1998, together with Sugimoto and Toshimaru Nakamura (no-imput mixing board), he has been organizing an inspiring monthly concert series, The Improvisation Meeting at Bar Aoyama (renamed The Experimental Meeting in ‘99, and Meeting at Off Site in 2000). www.japanimprov.com/takiyama
Jozef Van Wissem
Jozef Van Wissem
Composer/lute player Jozef Van Wissem is renowned for his unusual approach of the Renaissance lute. He cuts and pastes classical pieces, reverses melodies, adds electronics and processed field recordings The unusual wedlock of composition and improvisation creates an unheard amalgam of contemporary folk and late Renaissance music Van Wissem probably plays the most unlikely instruments in the world of contemporary improvised music: the Renaissance and Baroque lute and has accomplished the strange feat of bridging the idiom of seventeenth century lute literature and twenty-first century free improv of the silent type. Although he uses subtle electronic sound manipulation, he has largely stayed faithful to the particular timbre, resonance and playing technique of the lute. Van Wissem first came to be noticed a few years ago because of his radical conceptual approach to Renaissance lute music: he deconstructed existing compositions, for instance by playing them backwards. He also composed his own pieces for lute, using palindromes and mirrored structures. His music therefore does not have a traditional linear progression, nor leads to a climax, it rather stays on the same level of intensity. His music is quiet and not so much demands concentrated listening, as it will bring the listener in a state of concentrated listening – an aspect that makes Van Wissem a natural ally of the current post-reductionist improvising musicians. He also runs the Incunabulum label, and performs regularly around the world in duo with guitar-wizard of Captain Beefheart-fame, Gary Lucas. He also works with M.B./ Maurizio Bianchi, James Blackshaw, Chris Forsyth, Tetuzi Akiyama and Elliot Sharp.
www.*jozef**van**wissem*.com
www.myspace.com/ *van**wissem*
Chris Forsyth
Chris Forsyth
Chris Forsyth is perhaps best known as a guitarist and founding member of the group Peeesseye, who have been described in various quarters as “the most remarkable smorgasbord of back porch minimalism, sound poetry and urban decay of recent memory,” “ritual music balanced precariously between the sacred and the profane,” and “Situationist field recording rock.”. Their constantly evolving music has been documented on 6 CDs, and Peeesseye has performed throughout the US and Europe since their formation in 2002.
Forsyth also performs solo, and his first solo CD is forthcoming in 2008 on the Inculcatum label from Holland. Other projects include the electro-acoustic drone/noise quartet Phantom Limb & Bison; the deconstructed cover band Dirty Pool; lead guitar duties for cabaret art rockers Condor Moments; and past collaborations with other artists including Jozef van Wissem (Holland), Alessandro Bosetti (Italy), Chris Heenan (US), Nate Wooley (US), Burkhard Beins (GER), Tetuzi Akiyama (JP), and Ernesto Diaz-Infante (US). He is also active as a composer in contemporary dance, having worked with choreographer Miguel Gutierrez at Abrons Arts Center (NYC), Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), the Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN), and Springdance Festival (Utrecht, Holland). A forthcoming project with choreographer RoseAnne Spradlin will premiere at the Kitchen in NYC in fall 2008. In addition to composing and performing music, Forsyth has been publishing challenging music on the Evolving Ear label since 2000. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, USA. www.evolvingear.com
8pm $10
Apestaartje / Incunabulum Festival I
February 1, 2008
*The Apestaartje and Incunabulum labels present 2 nights of music focusing on the use of traditional instrumentation (lute, acoustic guitar etc) and styles (Baroque Music, Folk forms etc) in combination w/ contemporary experimental practices and adaptations.
james blackshaw + mountains + byron westbrook
James Blackshaw
James Blackshaw
Initially inspired by the folk/classical guitarists of the 60’s Takoma label to teach himself fingerpicking, James Blackshaw writes long-form pieces primarily for solo 12-string guitar that are heavily influenced by minimalist composers and European classical music and which use drones, overtones and repeating patterns alongside a strong inclination for melody to create music that is both intelligent, hypnotic and emotionally charged.
Born in London, England in 1981, Blackshaw has so far released five solo studio albums, one live recording and has also appeared on numerous compilations. “O True Believers” (2006, Important Records/Bo’weavil Recordings) and “The Cloud of Unknowing” (2007, Tompkins Square) received huge critical acclaim from printed and online publications including Pitchfork, The Wire, The Observer, The Times, Uncut, The Rolling Stone, Magnet and Acoustic Guitar Magazine. “The Cloud of Unknowing” was also listed as one of the 50 best albums of 2007 by The Wire (no. 24), Pitchfork (no. 34) and Uncut.
Blackshaw has toured the UK, Europe, Japan and U.S, most of Jose Gonzales, and has also played with Espers, Brightblack Morning Light, Sir Richard Bishop, Simon Finn, Marissa Nadler, Josephine Foster, Glenn Jones and many more. He has improvised live with Seiichi Yamamoto (ex-Boredoms) and recently released a collaboration with composer/lutist Jozef Van Wissem under the moniker “Brethren of The Free Spirit”.
www.jamesblackshaw.com
www.myspace.com/jamesblackshaw
Mountains
Mountains is an ongoing collaboration between Apestaartje co-founders Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp. Having worked in parallel and often overlapping contexts within their respective solo projects, ‘Mountains’ was created as an outlet for live performance. They have released two critically acclaimed albums and toured throughout the US and Europe performing everywhere from festivals, art galleries, and museums to basements, hippie communes, churches, and rock clubs. Mountains has performed with Fennesz, Tony Conrad, Greg Davis, Minamo, Tape, Nicholas Collins, Carsten Nicolai, Lichens, Supersilent, Alog, etc. They have also been included in several exhibitions, most notably at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. There current performances utilize acoustic instruments and objects played through a series of both analog and digital electronics to create an extremely gradual and hypnotic listening experience. ‘Mountains Mountains Mountains’, a new LP only release will be out on the Catsup Plate label in early 2008. “Infinite sheets of grainy sound build and renew themselves to immensely pleasing effect.”
www.staartje.com
www.myspace.com/apestaartjemountains
Byron Westbrook
Byron Westbrook is a composer/sound artist living in Brooklyn, NY. He performs solo under the name CORRIDORS using a system of multiple amplifiers and video projections to create a dynamic space within a space using sound and light. He has performed with Sawako, Tony Conrad, Lichens, Anette Krebs, Soft Circle among others. He has also collaborated with Rhys Chatham in the drone metal group Essentialist (Table of the Elements), as well as performed in the ensembles of Phill Niblock, Chatham, Glenn Branca, and Jonathan Kane.
This performance will premiere a multi-channel sound piece called *68 Footsteps (x8)*, which explores the use of an acoustic guitar to unify dissimilar location recordings broadcast within a space.
www.byronwestbrook.com
8pm $10
On January 25, ISSUE Project Room will inaugurate its new space at 110 Livingston with Gaudeamus Muziekweek, a four-day festival celebrating groundbreaking and challenging new music by emerging composers from around the world. Working in partnership ...
ISSUE is starting off the New Year with a change of scenery. That's right, Issue Project Room is moving out of our space at the Old American Can Factory and into 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn. We've had a great run at the Can Factory,...