07/29 @ 8:00pm - mem1 + Jascha Narveson + Lainie Fefferman w/ Matt Welch

mem1

Mem1 seamlessly blends the sounds of cello and electronics to create a limitless palette of sonic possibilities. In their improvisation-based performances, Mark and Laura Cetilia’s use of custom hardware and software, in conjunction with a uniquely subtle approach to extended cello technique and realtime modular synthesis patching, results in the creation of a single voice rather than a duet between two individuals. Their music moves beyond melody, lyricism and traditional structural confines, revealing an organic evolution of sound that has been called “a perfect blend of harmony and cacophony” (Forced Exposure). Founded in Los Angeles in 2003, Mem1 has traveled extensively, performing at Roulette (NYC), REDCAT / Disney Hall (LA), the Orange County Museum of Art, Electronic Church (Berlin), the Laptopia Festival (Tel-Aviv), the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, and the Borealis Festival (Bergen). In 2007, they were awarded an artist residency at Harvestworks in New York for the creation of a new Surround Sound piece entitled Sonodendron. They have since taken part in residencies at STEIM and Kunstenaarslogies in the Netherlands and USF Verftet in Bergen, Norway. In 2009, they created a site-specific installation for the Museums of Bat Yam (Israel); their work has been screened and installed at venues including the Sundance Film Festival, Fringe Exhibitions (Los Angeles), and the Hordaland Kunstsenter (Bergen). Their third full-length album, +1, consisting of collaborations between Mem1 and artists such as Steve Roden, Jan Jelenik, and Frank Bretschneider, was released in Spring 2009 by Interval Recordings.

Jascha Narveson is a Canadian composer and sound artist based in New York. His work ranges from traditionally scored music to multi-channel sound installations to electronic music for fixed media, live processing, and laptop orchestras.

For this piece, a specially constructed coffin was equipped with 15 separate microphones and buried. The resulting multi-channel recording will be played back over Issue Project Room’s overhead 15-speaker array, and the audience will be invited to lie down in the dark and contemplate it.

Lainie Fefferman

After studying music and near eastern languages at Yale, Lainie is currently in her third year of the composition graduate program at Princeton.

Lainie has participated in workshops including: the Sentieri Selvaggi composer workshop in Milan (with Julia Wolfe), the Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble Workshop in New York City, The Bang on a Can Summer Residency in North Adams, Massachusetts, and the Arabic Music Retreat with Simon Shaheen at Mount Holyoke College.

Lainie’s recent performance projects include writing for and singing alto with avant vocal trio Celestial Mechanics (with sopranos Anne Hege and Sarah Paden) and writing for and singing with post-minimalist folk funk band Phthia (with Missy Mazzoli on melodica, Sara Phillips Budde on clarinet, and James Moore on banjo).

Lainie has enjoyed rich success with her soulful kazoo playing. Her performance experiences include joining the Bang on a Can All-Stars in a performance of Louis Andriessen’s “Worker’s Union” and numerous New York area performances of Terry Riley’s “In C.”

Lainie’s past, present and future collaborators include: pianist Michael Mizrahi, cellist Jody Redhage, guitarist/banjoist James Moore, electric guitar quartet Dither, So Percussion, the New York Virtuoso Singers, and the Yale Collegium Musicum.

Matt Welch

music of Matthew Welch (b.1976) stems from a remarkably multi-faceted foundation. Matthew holds contains a BFA from Simon Fraser University (1999) and a MA from Wesleyan University (2001) in Experimental Music Composition; studying with noted composers such as Barry Truax, Rodney Sharman, Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxton. His compositions range from traditional-like bagpipe tunes to electronic pieces, improvisation strategies and fully notated works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles and orchestra. He participated in a number of compositional collaborations with Indonesian Gamelan composer-performers in Bali and Java, performed in free improvisation contexts with numerable New York City improvisers, and played with art rockers in the Brooklyn underground. As a virtuoso of the Highland Bagpipe, he studied traditional music with Gold Medalist masters such as Colin MacLellan, Jack Lee, Angus MacLellan and Andrew Wright. Matthew also was a member of the four – time World Champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, winning with them in 1999 and 2001. Indonesian Gamelan percussion music, both Javanese and more recently, Balinese, have been another focus of Matthew’s, which he has pursued throughout his academic career, with the New York Indonesian Consulate gamelans, and in Bali. Matthew appears on Anthony Braxton’s 10 [Solo Bagpipe] Compositions, 2000 and  a few compact discs of his own music including  Ceol Nua ,(Leo 336) highlighting orchestral and chamber works; Hag at the Churn, (Newsonic 33) a collection of electronic concoctions; and Dream Tigers, (on John Zorn’s Tzadik Records’ Composer Series 8015) a program of ecstatic chamber music featuring his critically acclaimed string quartet Siubhal Turnlar. His compositions for Balinese Gamelan Semara Dana are featured in his multi-media collaboration with Ikue Mori known as Bhima Swarga (Tzadik DVD edition 3007, 2007). The eclectic breadth of his interests in Celtic music, gamelan, minimalism, improvisation and rock also converge in compositional amalgams for his New York based ensemble, Blarvuster…”