12/05 @ 8:00pm - melissa st. pierre & jessie stiles

Friday, December 5

melissa st. pierre + Jesse Stiles

As a classically trained pianist, Melissa St. Pierre has specialized in the works of two giants of aleatoric music and chance operations, John Cage and Christian Wolff. In early concerts, she tackled Cage’s “Sonatas and Interludes” (1946) and Wolff’s “For a Prepared Piano” (1951) with a vigor and creative insight that belied her years (she’s only in her 20s). Peppering the strings, hammers, and dampers of the piano with a variety of objects for her new compositions, St. Pierre transforms the instrument’s typical timbre and gives it a chance, an opportunity to reveal its true nature. In her adroit, gifted hands, it becomes not just a percussion instrument, but 88 percussion instruments, each key a portal to a new world of sound. Sparkling gamelans chatter; harrowing voodoo drums call out in the night.

St. Pierre has toured the great American south, eastern seaboard, upper-midwest and southwest with her solo piano performance projects, playing such venues as Jordan Hall, the Under the Influences Festival at Black Mountain Museum, Saltworks Gallery, Tonic, *asterisk, Goodbye Blue Monday, the Silent Barn, the Troika Festival, the Middle East, Bohemian National Home, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, South by Southwest Music Festival and Knitting Factory. Most recently, she finished a stint in Boulogne-Billancourt as a guest artist at the BBMix Festival at Carre Bellefeuille outside of Paris, FR and has been granted a commission from Ensemble Integrales in Hamburg, DE.
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Jesse Stiles was born in 1978 in Boston, MA. As a child he studied piano. Stiles began using computers and synthesizers to program music at the age of 12.

Stiles received a B.A. from Vassar College in Cognitive Science, writing his thesis on Music Perception. Upon graduating from Vassar in 2000, Stiles was awarded a Fellowship from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation to travel around the world for one year while creating electronic music. This fellowship culminated in a “backpack record” by The Jesse Stiles 3000 (Stiles’ beat-oriented performance/recording project), titled “Watson Songs.”

From 2001 to 2003 Stiles attended the Integrated Electronic Arts program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a full fellowship. At RPI Stiles studied under Pauline Oliveros, Igor Vamos, Curtis Bahn,
and Neil Rolnick. His thesis show, Topics In Advanced Facemelting, was an electro-acoustic concert/light show in a 19th century Gasholder Building featuring collaborations with violinist Todd Reynolds and light artist Kevin McCormick.

Stiles has performed at wide variety of new music venues such as Lincoln Center, The Galapagos Art Space, Joe’s Pub, and The Deep Listening Space. Stiles also performs at dive bars and actively participates in underground venues.

Stiles has worked as an Educator, Sound Designer, Composer, Remixer, and Music Software Programmer.