02/20 @ 8:00pm

The New Roaratoria: Greg Kelley, Chris Brokaw, Matthew Heyner & Sean Meehan, ‘FRAGMENTS SHORING RUIN’

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The New Roaratoria:  Greg Kelley
ISSUE Project Room is proud to announce this new program which provides emerging composers with technical training in the creation of new and site-specific work on our signature 15-channel speaker system designed by Stephan Moore.  The system generates immersive sonic environments, enabling electronic sounds to take on the characteristic intimacy of acoustic instruments, and liberating location as a musical dimension.   In 2010, this new series features: David Sutton (Jan 20), Greg Kelley (Feb 20), Grouper (March 26) and Carlos Giffoni (April 10).

FRAGMENTS SHORING RUIN
If you play the blues, people will ask you who your favorite blues artists are. If you play the guitar, people will ask you about other guitarists. You likely have *some* interest in this. You want to know what can be done. You want to understand the framework in which you’re working. But other things seep in. You are not in a tunnel or a vacuum. Things internalized seep out, quickly, slowly, in abstracted form. Music itself is an abstraction. Representations crystallize, but are they accurate? Is that dissonant note something copped from a previously heard dissonant note or is it dread? And what about the listener? Are you assaulting them with rapidfire representations or are they right there in the room with you, breathing in the same crackling air?

GREG KELLEY
The Boston area trumpeter, known for his work with nmperign and Heathen Shame, will present a new electroacoustic work utilizing Issue Project Room’s 15 channel multi-speaker array. The work is entitled “Bursts in ultraviolet air”.

CHRIS BROKAW
A set of music for acoustic guitar, including an extended reworking of Vlad Tepes’ “Drink the Poetry of the Celtic Disciple”, by this former Bostonian whose guitar and drum talents have been utilized by Thurston Moore, The Lemonheads, Come, Codeine, The New Year, Rhys Chatham….

MATTHEW HEYNER/SEAN MEEHAN
Malkuth drummer/NNCK bassist Heyner pairs off with fellow NYC drummer Meehan for a dismal look at repetition and weight. Two drumsets, sunken.

GREG KELLEY

Greg Kelley began studying the trumpet at age 10. He attended the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, where in addition to studying the Conservatory curriculum, he also immersed himself in a deep study of avant-garde and experimental music, eventually coming to the conclusion that his musical focus fell outside of the academic sphere. After his studies, Kelley moved back to his native Massachusetts, quickly insinuated himself into the local avant-garde circles and soon commenced a period of intense travel and collaboration, bringing him across the United States, throughout Europe, Japan and South America. He has appeared on over 60 albums and despite a more limited travel schedule, he still manages to play in a number of groups including Nmperign (as abstract improvisatory duo and as horn section for ex-Galaxie 500-ers Damon & Naomi), Heathen Shame, the undr quartet and the BSC, among others. Other collaborators have included Jandek, Keiji Haino,
Donald Miller (Borbetomagus), Anthony Braxton, Kevin Drumm, Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros, Joe McPhee and Lionel Marchetti. In addition to playing the trumpet, Kelley has also recorded music using electronics and musique concrete elements, sometimes utilizing trumpet based sound sources, other times not. Tonight’s piece will feature both trumpet and non-trumpet sources.

http://ordinaryfanfares.blogspot.com

CHRIS BROKAW

Chris Brokaw is a New York-based singer/songwriter/composer/

guitarist/drummer. He has released six solo albums of instrumental and vocal music. He is widely known as a founding member of the bands CODEINE and COME; currently he plays with THE NEW YEAR, DIRTMUSIC, and FFLASHLIGHTS. He has also performed and recorded recently as an accompanist to THURSTON MOORE, CHRISTINA ROSENVINGE, EVAN DANDO, STEVE WYNN, and JENNIFER O’CONNOR. He has composed music for the Dagdha Dance Company (Ireland) and Kino Dance Co (Boston), and scored the films “Road” (Leslie McCleave) and “I Was Born, But…” (Roddy Bogawa).  Chris played drums with THE BOREDOMS in their performance 77 BOADRUM, for 77 drummers; and performed this summer at Lincoln Center in RHYS CHATHAM’s performance for 200 guitarists.

http://www.chrisbrokaw.com

MATTHEW HEYNER

Matthew Heyner is the bassist and founding member of improv/freak out leaders No-Neck Blues Band, and has also worked extensively with Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth fame), legendary free jazz collective TEST, Steve Swell, Sabir Mateen and black metal group Malkuth.

http://www.soundatone.com/
http://www.myspace.com/malkuth666

SEAN MEEHAN
Sean Meehan became musically active in the late 80′s at the amica bunker series for improvised music which was then housed at ABC No Rio in New York City.

Current performances generally find Meehan playing only the snare drum in a manner that sheds conventional usage and reconstructs the conception and function of the instrument. Concert activities, both at home and away, are generally divided between playing in conventional settings for experimental music and in seeking out unique locations that are often in the unobserved and unconsidered corners of the city.

Meehan’s recordings document some of his collaborations and solo work. Other contributions to the material world include the construction of performance objects that serve as “compositional things”. Included in this is Field Recordings, Vol 3, a folio of aural suggestions; gift iv for woodblock; and audio, a boxed set of four cassettes to be played in the mind.

http://home.earthlink.net/~overturnedbowl/

The New Roaratoria is made possible, in part, through generous support from The Greenwall Foundation.